Taylor ordered a glass of wine and a bowl of French onion soup. The men all ordered drinks and steaks, as if celebrat-ing the victory they had yet to win. Or perhaps it was the liberating sense of it all being over, out of their hands. Taylor didn’t know, but she found her own spirits buoyed by the conversation and the wine. She ate the soup, marveling at the fact that her sense of taste had come back.
Only rarely did anyone make reference to the trial. “How long will the jury take?” Michael asked at one point.
“It’s impossible to tell,” Talmadge said.
“The usual expectation,” Mark Hoffman said, jumping into the conversation probably as a result of his second bourbon on the rocks, “is that if they come back quick in a criminal trial, that’s often bad news for the defendant. If deliberations take a long time, that means it’s up in the air, anybody’s game.”
Talmadge looked down at his watch. “They’ve already been in over an hour. That probably means they’ve had time to eat lunch and take a preliminary poll. If we don’t hear anything in the next half hour, then we know they weren’t unanimous.”
Taylor, on the back side of the table, next to Michael, her back to the exposed brick, picked up her wineglass, finished the last of the Merlot, and signaled for another. Taylor almost never drank during the day, but this was one day when it simply felt right.
Two hours later, they were all full and buzzing slightly from the alcohol. There had been no word from the court.
Carey, who had indulged in nothing stronger than iced tea, drove them back to the courthouse, dropped them off, then headed for the parking garage.
Inside the courthouse, their footsteps echoing off the floor, their voices muted by the cavernous hallways, the group went back up to the third-floor courtroom. Inside the courtroom, a lone court officer was sitting at a table reading a newspaper. Talmadge looked at him, questioning. The officer shook his head and turned back to the paper.
“Holding pattern,” he said to Michael and Taylor. “No word yet.”
Taylor sat down on the hard wooden bench, the place where she’d spent more time than she ever imagined or intended the past few weeks.
“I’m so tired,” she said absentmindedly.
“Me too,” Michael offered. He sat down next to her.
“When this is all over,” he said, “when this is behind us, let’s go back to Bonaire. Back to where we started. We can make a fresh start.”
Taylor looked at him. “Does life give you that kind of do-over? Ever?”
“It can if we make it,” he said. He reached over and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. “I want you very much. As much as I always have. And I’ve missed you.”
She instinctively drew back. “Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.”
He nodded, then turned away from her. A few seconds later, he stood up and walked back over to Talmadge and the other lawyers, who were huddled around the defense table.
Taylor felt as if she were dragging time behind her like a ball and chain. She looked at her watch-two twenty-five.
An hour later, she looked at it again and only ten minutes had passed. The soup and the wine in her belly washed around like waves pounding sand in a hurricane. She thought for a moment that she might be sick, but then took a few deep breaths and steadied herself. She realized her hips and legs were going numb; she couldn’t sit on this damn wooden bench any longer.
She walked out of the courtroom, pacing up and down the hallway, stopping and looking out the tall windows at the traffic and the milling crowds below. The news vans were parked bumper-to-bumper, all awaiting the verdict.
Michael and Talmadge walked out into the hallway and stood next to her. “How long will this go on today?” she asked.
Talmadge shrugged. “Forsythe’s a slave driver,” he said.
“He’ll make them go at it until dinnertime, anyway. My guess is he’ll keep ‘em here until they’re too tired to work anymore, then he’ll send them back to the hotel.”
Suddenly, a group of people hurried past them. Reporters, hangers-on, spectators. Talmadge, Michael, and Taylor turned.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked.
Talmadge shook his head. “I don’t know-”
Then his cell phone went off. Talmadge jerked it open.
“Yeah? When? Yeah, okay. We’re on our way.”
He snapped the cell phone shut. “Let’s go.”
“They’re done? The jury’s back?” Taylor felt her gut tighten.
Talmadge nodded. “Yeah.”
Michael suddenly looked flushed, his face tense, his breathing rapid.
“You okay?” Taylor asked.
“Look,” Michael said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.
No matter what happens in there, I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
“Okay,” Talmadge offered. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Michael said. “This’ll only take a minute. You go with Taylor.”
“Are you all right?” Taylor asked again.
“I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”
Talmadge turned and started down the hallway. “Don’t dawdle,” he said over his shoulder. “We don’t want to do anything to piss Forsythe off.”
Taylor hurried to follow him. At the courthouse doors, Taylor pulled up behind him as they stood in the crowd trying to get in. She reached out and touched his arm. He turned, a serious look on his face.
“I’m scared,” she said.
Talmadge looked directly into her eyes. “Me, too.”
Once inside the courtroom, she fought her way to her seat and jammed herself in between two other people. The room seemed stifling. Talmadge and the other two attorneys sat at the defense table as Collier and his assistant, Jane Sparks, paced around the prosecution table. Court officers buzzed around, the clerk taking her seat at the table in front of the judge’s bench. There was a din of background chatter and the shuffling of bodies vying for seats.
A court officer came over to Talmadge and said something. Taylor read his lips as he answered, “In the men’s room.”
Minutes passed, the energy in the room seeming to build by the second. Talmadge looked around nervously. A court officer came in through the doors to the judge’s chambers.
He looked over at the defense table, his face stern, almost angry, and crossed quickly over to Talmadge.
“Where’s your client, Counselor?” he demanded. “The judge is waiting.”
“He’s in the men’s room, damn it, the man had an attack,”
Talmadge said, his voice tense.
“Get somebody down there to check on him. Quick, or you’ll have some explaining to do to the judge.”
Talmadge turned and nodded to Hoffman. “Go get him,”
he said, his voice low.
Hoffman wove his way through the crowd quickly and disappeared through the doors. Taylor felt a lump growing inside her. She swiveled her head around, scanning the crowded courtroom. In the back of the room, standing against the wall, stood Agent Powell. Their eyes met and locked for a few moments, then Powell raised his left arm to his waist, pulled back his coat sleeve, and checked his watch.
Hoffman pushed through the crowd back to the defense table. He leaned down and whispered something in Talmadge’s ear. The lawyer sat up straight, his body almost stiff, as he glared at Hoffman. Taylor stood up, leaned over the rail, and motioned to the defense table. Hoffman saw her and stepped over to the rail.