The Guilty Read Online Free

lawyers. But, blame them she did.
     
    When the afternoon session had finally ended, the jury had been left with a dozen questions that Claire could not answer. The questions had ranged from why she wore what she wore, to why she had waited two days before going to the police to lay charges against Morris. Despite his sudden dislike for Perron, Bratt knew these were perfectly fair questions, the kind every lawyer would ask. Last night, with Jeannie and Bratt in her apartment, Claire had been able to provide acceptable answers for all these questions and others too. But her apartment was a million miles away from the courtroom, and was but a distant memory to her that afternoon.
    Judge Dion had barely left the courtroom at the end of the day when Claire had rushed out and headed for the nearest bathroom. Bratt tried to put his arm around Jeannie’s shoulders to comfort her as they walked out the courtroom’s double doors, and that was when she had turned and yelled at him.
    “YOU’RE A HEARTLESS BASTARD, JUST LIKE HIM! YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHO’S TELLING THE TRUTH AS LONG AS YOU COME OUT ON TOP!”
    Then she turned and ran down the hallway after her best friend.
    Bratt was stunned at being blamed, although he knew all too well what Jeannie had meant. He’d had nothing to do with Claire’s mistreatment, yet he couldn’t shake the sense that he was as responsible as Perron.
    He realized, with some embarrassment, that her loud voice had drawn some amused looks from several people who had been leaving the courtroom behind them. He was relieved that the one reporter covering the case had continued to follow Claire as she ran down the hallway, and so wasn’t able to record Jeannie’s words for posterity. Perron, of all people, had been nearby and had heard her, though, and he placed a hand in sympathy on Bratt’s back.
    “That’s the problem with young girls, Bob,” he said. “They can’t control their emotions.”
    Bratt glowered angrily, not particularly welcoming Perron’s commiseration just then. He had a strong urge to rip into him, but stopped short when he noticed the crowd that was gathering around the smiling lawyer, and the reporter rushing back to get some pithy comments from Perron for the next day’s papers. He suddenly didn’t have anything devastatingly clever to say.
    “I gotta go, Tony,” was all he could mumble, and he pushed his way through Perron’s gathering admirers and strode quickly toward the nearest exit.
    All that was left of the trial was Morris’s testimony, which would start the next morning. Having heard Morris testify with calm and false sincerity four years earlier, Bratt knew that he’d have no trouble getting the jurors on his side.
    They would surely waste little time in acquitting him, Bratt thought, all the while clucking to themselves over the naïve young girl who had gotten in over her head and now was trying to hold the older man responsible.
    He was as confident of the outcome as if he had pleaded the case himself.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 2
     
     
     
    Sometime during the night Bratt finally drifted off to sleep. When he woke up, after hitting the snooze button on his clock radio three times, it was nearly eight o’clock. A small, vengeful part of him hoped that Jeannie had slept as badly as he had, but he regretted the thought right away. It had been hard enough on both of them to witness Claire being cross-examined. He would try to be a little more understanding about why she blamed him along with Perron for how it had gone. The little voice in his head, which had been quite insistent the night before, woke up just in time to ask him if Jeannie wasn’t right to do so. 
    “Shut up, already,” Bratt said out loud.
    Great, now I’m talking to myself , he thought as he headed for the shower. From now on I mind my own business .
    He showered and shaved, and ate breakfast while reading the