Chapter 18: Five Hundred Feet

Holly's POV

The courtroom smelled of lemon polish and old paper.

I sat in the front row in Annette's navy blazer with my hands in my lap.

Shane sat directly behind me, close enough that I could feel him there.

Dalton sat at the other table with a lawyer in a gray suit and his father's empty seat on his right.

He looked thinner than he had a week ago.

He didn't look at me once.

The judge was a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain like Annette's.

"Petitioner alleges harassment," she said. "Mr. Hargrove, you may call your witness."

"Your Honor, we call Melanie McCurry."

She came up the aisle in flats and a loose gray dress.

She took the oath in a small voice and sat down in the witness chair.

She did not look at me either.

Dalton's lawyer stood.

"Ms. McCurry, did you witness the respondent threaten Mr. Hargrove and yourself at the house on the afternoon of the wedding?"

Melanie looked at her hands.

The silence stretched, long and thin.

"I did not," she said.

The lawyer frowned and glanced at the papers.

"Ms. McCurry, your signed statement says..."

"I know what my statement says."

She lifted her head.

"Holly came to the door that afternoon to get her father's watch," she said. "She didn't threaten anyone. She asked me why I was wearing her robe."

The judge took her glasses off.

"Ms. McCurry, are you telling this court your statement was false?"

"I'm telling you I wrote it because Dalton asked me to."

Dalton came halfway out of his chair.

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