Naive by Charles Royce (world best books to read .txt) 📕

while the jail escort begins to take Micah back to the Tombs.

“Could I have just a quick moment?” Shawn asks the jail escort.

“Sure.”

Shawn grabs Micah’s arm and sits him down.

“Now, that last part didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped,” Shawn says, “but most of these last few days have gone pretty well. I’m still confident you’ll be acquitted. But I need to know if you are interested in a plea deal, to the lesser charge.”

“Do you think it went that badly?”

Shawn makes a flat hand and moves it sideways left to right. “So-so.”

“Whatever you think is best, Shawn, I trust you,” Micah says, hoping that the situation won’t come to that extreme. “Wait, what’s the jail time for the what’s-it-called?”

“We have to go,” says the jail escort.

“Criminally negligent homicide. With no prior record, it could be anywhere from one to four years.”

“Do it.” Micah is halfway out the door.

Astrid watches him leave, then addresses Shawn.

“Ready to make a plea deal?” Astrid asks, with a post-eavesdrop snicker.

“Haha. Nice move making buddy-buddy with our witness’s parents. And his friend’s parents, geez. Too bad you didn’t end up calling him as your witness, you could have knocked it outta the park.”

“Ahh, you underestimate me, Mr. Connelly. Could have been my plan all along.”

“So what about that deal? Criminally negligent homicide, two years.”

Astrid laughs. “You know, you’re pretty good, Shawn. Yesterday, I might have been inclined to take that deal. Today, mmm, not so much.”

She grabs her bag and begins to saunter toward the door.

“See you tomorrow,” she says.

“So that’s a no?” Shawn replies.

C h a p t e r   4 1

“Yes, baby?” Shawn asks.

Haylee has been giving her husband Shawn some space ever since he got home from the long, emotional day. Noticing that he has relaxed into a more peaceful state, she seizes the moment.

“I have something to tell you.”

“You finally remembered where you saw the Ghost logo?” Shawn says, leaning upward in his chair. They’d talked about this so often, it had become a running joke.

“God no,” she says, defeated, as if the wind had been knocked out of her gut.

Shawn, still reeling from his earlier self-observation with Talbot, recognizes his mindset is still exhibiting a need to win, this time with his own wife. He stands and walks toward her with both hands outstretched.

“Baby.” He invites her to come closer to his arms.

She takes his hands.

“Funny that you call me baby right now.” She pulls his hands and places them on her stomach.

Shawn looks at her. His mouth drops.

He begins to touch her belly, staring at it. He begins to weep. He falls to his knees, his hands dropping from her stomach to her thighs. He pulls her closer, pressing his face into her abdomen.

“Honey.” She places her hands on his head. She plays with his hair. “It’s gonna be okay. Shhh. It’s gonna be beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

He continues to cry. Objection! he thinks, I’m an awful human being who essentially accused Jenna of murder, who didn’t know that Talbot’s friend Frank had died, who doesn’t deserve to be a father.

“And you’re going to be an awesome father,” Haylee says, as if reading his mind.

He looks up at her and tries to smile. She smiles and continues rubbing his head, taking some of his hair in her finger and twirling it.

“Case closed,” she says.

C h a p t e r   4 2

“You may begin your closing argument, Ms. Lerner,” Judge Wilson announces.

“Thank you, your Honor,” Astrid says. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your time and patience, and commitment to this community and its process for justice.

“The facts of this case are overwhelming and indisputable. Blood spatter results show definitively that the defendant was at the scene of the crime at the exact moment the victim was originally stabbed. DNA also places the defendant, and only the defendant, at the scene of the crime when the victim finally gave in to his thirty-three fatal wounds and his last breath was literally pounded out of his body by the defendant.

“Gaps in both the defendant’s recollection of the evening and proven video and GPS surveillance of the night show clearly that the defendant had enough time to dispose of the murder weapon, which incidentally is the same type of knife found in their apartment, and any sort of other evidence that would link him to the crime. Testimony revealed a propensity toward violence, an actual threat of murder, an incongruence of a ‘Good Micah, Bad Micah,’ a questionable psychopathic tendency, and a frightening rage that could often be triggered by unrelenting jealousy.

“And keep in mind that we also have a confession. We have the exact moment, on video, of the defendant realizing what he had done.”

She grabs the remote and pulls up an image of Lennox. He is smiling a crooked grin, with creased dimples engulfed by the perfect amount of scruff. His face is skinny, but his body is well defined even through his tight shirt and suit.

“Now, imagine with me for a moment. The defendant’s husband, Lennox Holcomb, age 37, as you can tell quite a handsome man, a successful vice president of finance, a loving and giving partner, has just taken a shower. He is naked, walking around his home, as many of us do from time to time. He decides to fix some cereal, sit down at his desk, maybe read the paper, look at his phone. With not a care in the world, he is simply passing time before he meets his sponsee. He loves his recovery work. He has devoted his life to helping others through the addiction that he has overcome, just as others have helped him.

“Suddenly he feels a sharp pain in his back. Then another in his abdomen. Still fueled by rage over an affair, his money-obsessed, so-called loving husband begins to stab Lennox in his chair over and over, over and over, eventually dumping him on the living room carpet like