Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

Breathe, Anna! Deep breath in! Slowly exhale! “Let me rephrase that question, Dr. Blake. Your response, your state of mind, was entirely due to what you’d been told by the watchmen, not because of anything you knew, personally, to be the truth.”

Anna frowned. “You’re suggesting they lied to me?”

The lawyer looked like he was going to explode.

“Sorry!” Anna said hastily. “I’m just not sure what the question is or what you’re getting at.”

The lawyer eyed her malignantly. “Are you involved with any of the watchmen?”

“Involved how?”

“Romantically.”

Anna felt the blood leave her face and then rush back. It hit her like a ton of bricks, so suddenly she wondered why she hadn’t realized it before, that this was why she’d felt as if all of them were holding her at arm’s length. They were afraid they would be accused of influencing her. She dragged in a calming breath, feeling strangely relieved by the realization, not further unnerved. “No.”

“You aren’t romantically involved with any of the men that have had you in ‘protective’ custody?”

He was hinting at something. She wasn’t sure what, but he knew something and he was setting a trap for her. “No.”

He sprang it. “You’ve never been intimate with any member of the group of watchmen?”

“In what way?” Anna asked, feeling her belly tie itself into a knot.

“Sexually.”

That was it! The bastards had video of her having sex with Caleb! She felt her face redden. “Oh! Well, yes. I had sex with Caleb.”

The lawyer stared at her. “You just said you weren’t romantically involved with any of them, Dr. Blake.”

“I’m not. I said we had sex.” She didn’t dare glance directly at Caleb, but even in her peripheral vision she could see that he was just as uncomfortable as she was.

“And wasn’t it your lover who convinced you that you should be afraid of your father?”

“No. I don’t have a lover.”

“Dr. Blake. You just admitted you’d had sex with watchman Caleb Andreas!”

Anna stared at him. “A lover implies a relationship. We don’t have a relationship.”

“But you had sex with him?”

“Yes—once. It’s called a one night stand. Haven’t you ever had one?”

“Objection!” the Attorney General complained. “I think he’s pursued this line of questioning long enough!”

“It goes to her state of mind!” the lawyer countered. “She already admitted that Paul Warner didn’t threaten her either verbally or physically. Nor did her father. She had to have had some reason to believe it was a kidnapping.”

“Which she already stated,” the Attorney General countered. “She was informed of the fact that he was the suspected leader of a terrorist organization!”

“I’ll allow it to continue, but you’re warned Mr. Lawson. Wind it up.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“So, Dr. Blake, you’re saying that your ‘one night stand’ in no way influenced your acceptance and belief that your father represented a threat to you?”

“Well, it was great sex,” Anna said, “but it happened after they’d told me about my father.”

The courtroom erupted into laughter.

The judge called the court to order and gestured to her to continue.

“I believed them when they told me because they are officers of the law and I saw no reason to doubt that what they’d told me was the truth. And also because I realized when they told me why my mother had run from him. She was afraid of him. That was why I was afraid of him.”

“Judge!” Mr. Lawson said angrily.

The judge shrugged. “You introduced her state of mind, Mr. Lawson.”

“No more questions at this time, but I’d like to reserve the right to recall her.”

Dragging in a deep breath of relief, Anna got up and went back to her seat, trying to ignore the grins she encountered along the way. Caleb looked almost as red-faced as she felt, but his eyes were gleaming with suppressed laughter when she glanced at him.

Simon, Ian, and Joshua were all stony faced, but she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or if they’d also found her dilemma amusing.

She thought she’d carried it off as well as could be expected, however. It would’ve been far better if she hadn’t had to make a public admission, but she knew there’d been no way to avoid it as soon as she realized they had to have taped it.

It irritated her. She was sure that they’d told her that the listening devices and cameras were all over her house—except in her bedroom and bath, but she realized abruptly that she’d been having sex with Caleb while Joshua was checking the rest of the house.

They hadn’t checked her bedroom or bath!

She supposed Caleb might have simply decided not to tell her because he knew it would upset her more, but it was more horrifying after the fact, damn it! She’d thought she had at least some privacy!

She narrowed her eyes at the back of her father’s head. Almost as if he sensed the death glare, he turned to look at her—and then scanned the men on either side of her.

There was something about the way he looked at them that chilled her to the bone.

“Not that I didn’t think you handled it well, all things considered,” Simon growled when they got home, “but it didn’t help us for you to admit that you’d had sex with Caleb.”

“They had it on tape,” Anna said tightly. “Do you honestly think I would have said anything about it at all if they hadn’t?”

Simon was taken aback. “How do you know they had it on tape?”

“I could tell