Family (8 page)

Her hair was shorter and combed straight-not the wild yellow mop she’d had the night of the attack. But her eyes were beady and lifeless and aimed straight at Dayne. She blew him a kiss, and behind her Katy could hear the cameras going off like so many crickets on a summer night in Bloomington.

Next to Margie a gray-haired man in a suit took firm hold of her arm. He whispered something in her ear, and she seemed to snap back at him. Once more she turned her attention to Dayne, but this time she glared at him.

Katy slid down in her seat a few inches. God, I’m not sure I can do this.

I am with you… . You will not have to fight this battle alone, daughter.

The words-whispered from the most private room in her soul-drowned out everything else. She would be okay because God was with her. It was the single bit of truth that made Katy’s heartbeat slow and brought sense to the moment.

For the next hour the judge heard opening remarks from Tara Lawson. “The defense team will tell you that the defendant, Margie Madden, is insane, that by reason of insanity she should not be held accountable for her actions on the night the crime in question occurred.” She had complete command of the room, every eye on her. “But we will prove to you that Ms. Madden knew very well what she was doing, and she intended to commit murder that night.”

Katy shuddered at the thought.

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The gray-haired attorney gave his opening remarks next. “Mental illness is a troubling disease. I intend to prove to you that my client acted out as a symptom of her illness, and she would be best served by being placed in a facility where she can receive medicine and supervision. Not by being treated as a criminal.”

Next to Katy, Luke Baxter touched her arm. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Katy remembered to exhale. “It’s intense.”

“Just wait.” Luke frowned. “This is nothing.”

The police officer who first responded to the scene took the stand. He told about the mad look in Margie’s eyes and how the woman with Dayne Matthews had knife marks on her neck and arm.

“Can you tell us the name of the woman with Dayne Matthews?” Tara Lawson had explained earlier that she had no choice but to get this fact out in the open right off. Katy’s testimony was crucial to the case, and her identity needed to be spelled out in order for her place on the witness stand to make sense.

“Yes.” The officer faced the prosecuting attorney. “Her name is Katy Hart.”

There was a rustling near the back of the courtroom as the members of the media realized what had just happened. The mystery was solved; the woman had a name.

Katy worked hard not to react. They might know her identity, but they didn’t have to know she was that person, not yet.

Tara waited for the commotion to die down. “Is it your belief that the defendant, Margie Madden, intended to kill Katy Hart?”

The officer didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Can you explain to the jury why this is your opinion?”

“From the moment we arrived on the scene-” he looked across the courtroom at Margie-“the defendant was shouting threats at Ms. Hart.”

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“Can you be specific, please? What was the defendant shouting at Ms. Hart?”

“She was threatening to kill her, telling her that next time she wouldn’t wait, that she wouldn’t rest until both Ms. Hart and Mr. Matthews were dead.”

Another rustling came from the media.

The judge raised his hand. “Order.”

The reporters and photographers responded with immediate silence. Katy could understand why. The information coming from the witness stand was too good. The last thing they wanted was to be kicked out of the courtroom for being unruly.

Luke reached over and discreetly squeezed Katy’s arm. “Hang in there.”

“I am.” Without moving her head, she glanced toward the end of the aisle. Dayne was watching the police officer on the stand, keeping his promise to defer all attention from Katy, to do his part to keep the media from knowing just yet that she was the woman being discussed on the stand.

The testimony grew more technical, and the intensity cooled some. After lunch, the prosecutor finished up with the police officer; then the defense attorney spent an hour on cross-examination.

“Isn’t it true,” the gray-haired man asked, “that you never, not once, actually saw the defendant with a knife in her hand?”

The policeman looked confused. “Of course I didn’t see the knife in her hand.

The knife was several feet away where Dayne Matthews-“

“Please-” he held up his hand-“yes or no.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “No. I didn’t see the knife in her hand.”

“So you are relying completely on a report given to you by witnesses. Is that right?”

The questions wore on, and Katy felt herself relax. She had been worked up about nothing-at least for now. Dayne was

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next on the list of prosecution witnesses, and she was third. They would never have time for all of that today.

Finally Dayne was called to the stand. The photographers snapped into action, though they stayed relatively quiet. Dayne walked slowly, never once looking at Margie Madden.

Katy watched him, the striking figure he made as he moved across the courtroom to the witness stand. No wonder America was crazy about him.

The prosecutor started with the easy questions. His name, occupation, the fact that he was pursued by many people in the course of a day, most of them fans he didn’t know.

“Would you say that on occasion there are fans who act a little extreme-following you or asking things of you that make you uncomfortable?” Tara was standing a few feet from the witness stand. Her experience and confidence rang in every word.

“Yes.” Dayne nodded. “On occasion a fan can get overzealous.”

Tara turned slowly and headed back to the table. One of her team members handed her a document. “Is it true that at some point you were warned by police about a fan who was thought to drive a yellow Honda Civic?”

The gray-haired attorney was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor.” He motioned to Dayne. “The prosecutor is leading the witness.”

Tara held up the document. “The warning included the color, make, and model of the car driven by the fan in question.”

Judge Nguyen nodded. “Overruled.” He looked at Tara. “Show the witness the document, please.”

“Very well.” Tara was just moving toward the witness stand when it happened.

Margie Madden seemed to realize what was coming, that Dayne was about to describe in detail everything that happened the night of the attack. And in that instant it must have occurred

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to her that if Dayne was going to share his version of the story, the woman with Dayne that night might be about to testify also.

Whatever was running through her head, Margie spun around and began looking frantically at the crowd of spectators and media members. Her attorney tried to get her attention, but before he could, Margie found her. She locked eyes on Katy. “You!” She stood and pointed at her.

“Order!” Judge Nguyen rapped-his gavel on his bench. “Counsel, you will keep the defendant under control.”

The defense attorney was trying. He tugged on Margie’s sleeve, but she jerked away and took four giant steps toward Katy. Across the back of the courtroom, cameras were clicking as fast as they could. Before two armed bailiffs could grab the woman, she pointed at Katy again. With words that were as chilling as they were loud, she said, “I’m going to kill you! Dayne is my husband!”

Katy wanted to run for her life.

Luke Baxter slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Ignore her, Katy. She can’t hurt you.”

The bailiffs grabbed Margie’s arms and shoved them behind her back. She was cuffed and led back to the defense table, but the entire time she was looking over her shoulder at Katy, snarling something unintelligible.

Before Katy could take her next breath, the cameras shifted. If the reporters had wondered who she was at the beginning of the proceedings, they had no doubt now. She was Katy Hart. How could she be anyone else?

Katy could feel Dayne watching her, feel him praying for her, willing her to be strong, not to bolt. She kept her focus on Luke. “Is she still looking at me?”

“Don’t worry about it, Katy.” He tightened his hold on her, sheltering her and making it appear that the two of them were lost in an intense conversation.

“Stop the cameras.” The judge was rapping his bench, trying 60

desperately to regain control of his courtroom. “I’d like all members of the press to step out while we regain order here.”

There was a grumbling from the media horde, but they had no choice. The entire mass of them began shuffling toward the door.

All the while, Margie Madden was shouting at the bailiffs to leave her alone.

Katy looked up in time to see her struggling against one of the armed officers.

Then Margie’s eyes-wild and furtive-made a quick search across the room until they found

Katy’s again. “You! Stay away from my husband, you tramp! Stay away or I’ll kill you!”

From the witness stand, Dayne remained tight-lipped and calm. But Katy knew what he had to be feeling. He probably would’ve been glad to strangle Margie at this point. Dayne met Katy’s eyes and mouthed the word sorry.

She couldn’t respond, but she tried to tell him with her expression that it wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault.

“Kill you … ,” Margie spat in Katy’s direction. Then she leaned her head back and cackled. By then the room was empty of any cameras or members of the press. Margie seemed to sense something had changed. Without warning, she switched voices. As if two people lived inside her, she began shouting in a high-pitched voice, “Help … help me! It’s all your fault, Chloe! I’m going down in flames because of you! Help me!”

“Your Honor.” The gray-haired attorney stood. He looked and sounded utterly defeated. “I’d like to move to adjourn for the day. Clearly we have some issues with the defendant.” He gestured toward the jury. “I’d also like to move for a mistrial, since the jurors cannot possibly remain objective after this display from my client.”

Katy looked at the jury. They were gripped by the scene playing out, leaning forward in their seats, eyes wide and unblinking.

Margie Madden was snarling at the bailiffs. The high-pitched 61

voice was gone. “It’s none of your business who I kill-Her voice was lower than before. “I’ll kill her if I want to kill her”I’ll agree to adjourn for the day.” Relief filled the judge’s expression. He brushed his hand in the direction ^ the bailiffs. “Get her out of here.” He looked at first the defense lawyer and then at Tara and her team of prosecutors.

“I’d like to speak to both counsels at the bench.”

Katy’s stomach hurt, and she realized she’d been holding her breath.

As the bailiffs led Margie from the room, Luke removed his arm from around her and touched her shoulder I’m sorry, Katy. That… that just doesn’t happen.”

Frightening questions lined up in her mind, denuding to be addressed. What would become of the trial? Would the Judge declare the jury too biased to do their job? The n-‘dia had figured out who she was, so what exactly was Joe Me’ris gomg to tell them at his press conference later today? And what would it take to find a minute alone with Dayne so they could talk?

But with Luke next to her restoring calm to her world, she was consumed by one very intense, very strange realization. The reason Luke had looked and acted familiar was finally clear in her mind. His voice had brought the details together-Not that any of it actually made sense.

Because in that moment Luke Baxter sounded and acted and looked exactly like Dayne.

“

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The situation was worse than anyone had expected for the first day of the trial.

Judge Nguyen excused Dayne from the witness stand, then told the jury to go home and wait for further instructions.

Joe Morris led his group into a small room, where they would wait for word from Tara Lawson. When the door closed behind them, Dayne looked at Katy. She was talking with Luke Baxter, but there was no denying the terror on her face.

It was the same terror he’d seen the night of the attack. He could only imagine how badly she wanted to run away, skip the entire trial, and fly back to Indiana. He felt hot frustration rising inside him. Couldn’t they share a normal week in his town just once?

Over the next few minutes, Katy looked at him a few times, but before they could talk, Joe pulled him aside. “We need the key points for the press conference.”

Dayne motioned for Katy. Again they were forced to keep their conversation nonpersonal. “Can you talk for a minute?”

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Katy moved closer, and she and Dayne sat at the table with Joe and figured out what the press would want to know, what information would keep them from looking deeper. In the end they agreed that Joe would share her age and that she lived in Indiana. He would tell them she was in town the night of the attack reading for a part in Dream On. He would say that Katy had a history of small onscreen parts, and she and Dayne were friends, that they were still friends.

If anyone asked whether Katy was the reason Dayne had filmed the movie in Bloomington, Joe would remain evasive. Of course, he would tell them, Dayne knew about the town of Bloomington because of his friendship with Katy Hart. Nothing more.

“The goal is to keep the attention on Dayne and Margie Madden and paint Katy as being at the wrong place at the wrong time. We don’t want them digging around Bloomington, finding Christian Kids Theater or suspecting that Dayne was carrying on with you while he was living with Kelly Parker.”

“I wasn’t!” Dayne’s answer was a little too quick. He grabbed at the hair above his forehead and exhaled hard. He didn’t owe anyone in the room an explanation about his actions. “Katy and I barely saw each other the whole time I was in Bloomington.”

Katy gave him a look, and something about it was sad. It occurred to him that he probably sounded callous, as if the time they did spend together meant nothing to him. He tried to tell her with his eyes that they would talk later, but again everything felt strangely terrible. As if his whole world were spinning off its axis.