Scorched to Ash Beneath the Blazing Sun novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Sentencing

The courtroom was packed by nine-thirty, and the air was kept at sixty-two.

Reporters filled the back three rows.

Brody sat behind the prosecutor, in a borrowed suit that fit him badly, and when I came in he stood up.

He didn't say anything.

He just held the rail and nodded once.

I nodded back.

Rhonda and Brice took the seats beside me in the second row.

Brice had a thermos of coffee and a folder of water-cache maps under his arm, because he said he could not sit through anything without a task.

They brought Lance in at ten.

He wore the orange jail shirt, and he was walking on his own.

His color was good.

That was the strangest part to look at.

He looked the way he had when I met him three years ago, tall and clean and well, except that his eyes were wrecked.

The judge took her seat.

"Mr. Lyle, you have signed a plea agreement to all counts. Do you understand the sentence the state is recommending?"

"Seven years, Your Honor."

"And that you waive appeal?"

"Yes."

"Is anyone forcing you to do this?"

"No," Lance said. "I'm doing it because it's true."

His lawyer stood at his shoulder with his tie knotted perfectly straight.

The judge looked down at her papers.

"Does the victim wish to be heard?"

"I do," I said.

I stood and went to the podium.

My hands were steady.

"Your Honor, I'm not here to ask for less," I said. "He left me to die and he lied to the ranger, and he did it for hours while I called out on the radio."

I looked at Lance.

"Seven years is right."

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