She Trusted a Fake Lie Detector, So I Left Her the Truth novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: No Bail
The courtroom was full by a quarter to nine.
Reporters filled the back rows, and the boy from the airport had come with his mother and a phone.
Sadie sat beside me in the second row with her hand against my knee.
She had not said anything about the night, and she didn't have to.
Two officers brought Dane in through the side door in an orange jumpsuit.
He had a fresh bandage on his cheek, and his hair had been combed by someone who cared about it.
He saw me, and he smiled.
Rhoda sat in the first row behind the defense table.
She wore gray and pearls, and she did not turn her head.
The judge came in, and the room stood and sat.
Dane's lawyer was the tallest of the three men from the black SUVs.
"Your Honor, my client is a deeply troubled young man," he said. "He suffers from a documented condition. We ask that he be released into the care of a private psychiatric clinic, at the family's expense."
"He's charged with attempted murder," the prosecutor said.
"He's charged on the word of an estranged husband and a recording of unknown origin."
"The recording is Mr. VanHorne's own voice," the prosecutor said. "I'd like the court to hear one minute of it."
"Objection."
"Overruled," the judge said. "One minute."
The speaker on the clerk's desk crackled, and Dane's voice came out of it in that warm, gentle tone.
I did the brakes, and I'd do it again.
He was a chain. He was the rope that tied you to that house.
Sadie's hand tightened on my knee.
A woman in the gallery began to cry.
Dane's lawyer sat very still.
"Your Honor, the recording was made without his knowledge."
"It was made on a line his sister opened," the judge said. "One party consented. Go on."
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