Sink (Complete five-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Unlimited in 30 Days)

41

BETRAYAL

Spectators swamped the courtroom. Cameras snapped and clicked form the lobby, sending echoes through the voices' clatter.

While the conversation loudened, the windows fleshed vanilla light upon the chocolate jury booths. The crowd blocked Liz's view of the defense panel, where she imagined Danny and Will sat.

A hand on her lower back directed her to the prosecution's side. Though in her heart she wished to sit behind Will, to support him, stroke her fingers down his shoulders, whisper in his ear, tell him a joke . . . Danny had instructed her to sit behind the prosecution. Feigning support to the prosecution would help hide her affiliation with Will.

("We want them to think you're looking for clues to reveal Will—not delete his criminal history . . .")

Danny was right.

Liz led the hand behind her back to a booth directly behind the prosecution desk. Whom the hand belonged to (she hoped it were Travie's) wasn't Travie after all.

And the reveal of whose hand it was made her shake . . . when she took her seat and turned, the bug—eyed man took the seat beside her. (She wiped her lower back vigorously when he turned.

The woman with black widow eyelashes stepped over him (leaning over to show him cleavage—[his eyes sat . . .style as molded toast])

His disinterest caused her to frown and roll her eyes. She stepped on his feet, which made him cringe and glare at her.

The woman hummed a tune while she tiptoed over Liz, her face blank, and her shoulder cold. And she plopped herself right on Liz's other side.

" . . . We're gonna crush him aren't we." McCoy and Golem took their seats.

Golem chuckled with a head nod to McCoy.

"With the witnesses I've got planned for today, this guy doesn't stand a chance."

McCoy smiled.

Liz's neck hairs stood straight. What witnesses? Golem seemed so sure of his agenda. Liz worried for the man she called her husband. Will deserves a fair trial. Golem's mystery witnesses sounded like paid liars—(she could already tell).

McCoy raised an eyebrow to Golem.

"Who did you bring?"

Liz's ears leaned to compensate for the deafening chatter.

"A boy and girl . . . Both say they're the dead girl's best friends before she died . . ."

Best friends? From what Liz read in Ali's diary, she knew this boy and girl could only be her best friends, Abbey and Eric. What would they have to say against Will though?

Liz remembered how they pleaded Will to stop being mean to her in class. But surely Ali must've told them Will had made up for his strictness by giving her a place to study.

Unless they weren't concerned about his strictness. He had after all been Skyping her. Perhaps Abbey and Eric had secrets to tell along the lines of Will and Ali's intimacy . . .

They were alone a lot in his classroom—after dark, too. Perhaps they will state their concerns over how he was so inviting, how he'd offered to Skype her in case she needed homework help . . .

Liz could tell where this case was going. Golem and McCoy will question witnesses who question their teacher-student relationship. Danny will argue against their suspicions, and state how stressed Ali was, and that Will was simply offering his resources, as a teacher, to a bereaved, and sick student.