Inside the District courtroom.
High up on the bench, the judge presided with a mask of stony impartiality, while the members of the jury, seated in tiered rows, kept their backs straight, with solemnity and morbid curiosity that common citizens have when they are given the power to judge the life of another.
Seated in the first row, just behind the defense table where his mother was, Lief suppressed a yawn.
The Italian-cut suit, although elegant, was starting to feel like a straitjacket.
"Silence in the courtroom!"
The trial officially began.
The first to stand up was Kevin Lomax.
He adjusted his tie knot quickly and walked toward the jury without hurry.
His body language projected absolute calm and magnetic confidence.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began with a soft voice. "Today we gather here to unravel a truly tragic accusation. The plaintiff is a young teenager with a future ahead of her."
"And the defendant is my client, Mr. Lloyd Gettys, an educator who has served diligently in our schools for twenty-five years."
He did not attack the girl, instead he placed all the weight of the story on his client's side of the scale.
"Twenty-five years... Think about what that means. It means that when many of you were still learning to tie your shoes, Mr. Gettys was already in a classroom, molding minds and guiding futures. He has dedicated his entire life to the next generation."
"His reputation was not bought, it was built brick by brick, class after class, with dedication and now..."
He lowered his tone, making it painful.
"Now, that monument of integrity runs the risk of being demolished in a single day due to a... baffling accusation."
From his seat, Lief grimaced.
'He is good, he is already convincing me.'
Sarah listened in silence, with her gaze fixed straight ahead, rhythmically drumming a finger on her notepad. Her face was unreadable.
Kevin continued, turning to look the jury in the eyes, one by one: "I am not here to tell you that Miss Barbara Rhode is lying with malice. No, God forbid I suggest that."
"But I ask you to remember what it is like to be fifteen years old... It is an age of turbulence, of confusion, of hormones, and of a desperate need for validation. A bad grade, an argument at home, or a misunderstood criticism can feel like the end of the world."
He spread his hands, appealing to reason.
"Should we, based solely on an emotional narrative and without physical evidence, destroy the life of a good man? He asked, Is the word of a moment of confusion worth more than a quarter of a century of impeccable service?"
With that question hanging, he nodded respectfully to the jury and returned to his seat.
In the defendant's seat, Lloyd Gettys, the accused teacher, lowered his head at the right moment, showing an expression of dignified and resigned sadness.
A murmur ran through the room, the jury's gazes were already beginning to soften when looking at him.
"Attorney Connor," called the judge. "Your opening statement."
Sarah stood up, but unlike Kevin's fluid movements, hers were deliberate and heavy.
She walked to the center of the room and planted herself there, firm as a statue.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Attorney Lomax has just painted you a beautiful picture," she said with a clear, cutting voice. "A venerable teacher and a brilliant resume. Sounds moving, right?"
Her tone changed abruptly, "But justice is not a popularity contest and the law does not let itself be dazzled by seniority in a position. The law only looks at the facts!"
Taking a step toward the jury, she invaded their visual space.
"And what are the facts? The fact is that a fifteen-year-old girl has gathered more courage than most of us will have in our entire lives. She has stood up to accuse a man who is older than her, more influential than her, and who in the eyes of society is a 'saint'. Why would she do something like that? For fun? For attention, as the defense subtly suggests?"
She shook her head, in disbelief.
"I ask you: who would bet their own innocence, their privacy and their future just for a 'possibility'? What this girl faces is not attention, it is the judgment of her peers, the whispers of the neighbors and the scrutiny of strangers."
"She will have to open her deepest wounds in front of all of us and no one chooses that hell unless the pain of keeping silent is unbearable.... Unless it is the truth."
Kevin's serious face tensed for a fraction of a second.
"The prosecution calls Barbara Rhodes to the stand," Sarah announced.
Barbara, held by her mother's arm up to the railing, separated to walk toward the witness stand.
She was pale and trembling visibly, like a leaf in the middle of a hurricane.
Lief noticed how her shoulders hunched under the weight of the gazes of the whole room.
'She is going to break'
Without making any abrupt movement, he closed his eyes for an instant and silently mobilized a thread of his energy, an extremely diluted Holy Light and let that warmth flow from him toward the stand, wrapping the girl in a bubble of comforting temperature and emotional stability.
Barbara sat in the witness chair, clinging to the armrests while keeping her head down, unable to look up.
Sarah approached the stand and her posture softened instantly.
"Barbara," she said with a maternal voice, "Don't be afraid. Look only at me. We are here to listen to you."
Under the combined influence of Sarah's guidance and Lief's support, Barbara's breathing stabilized a little.
She looked up, finding her lawyer's eyes.
"Tell us... what happened that afternoon?"
Barbara opened her mouth, although at first no sound came out, but then, with a small and broken voice, she began to speak.
Every word was soaked in a visceral fear.
"Mr. Gettys... he locked the door..."
Silence fell over the courtroom.
There were no longer murmurs nor doubts; only the sound of the suppressed sobs of a girl narrating her nightmare.
Lief's gaze shifted away from her and fell like lead upon the man sitting in the defendant's bench.
Lloyd Gettys maintained a perfect posture, with his face reflecting a mixture of stoicism and pain, as if the very idea that a student would accuse him of such vileness broke his heart.
But Lief saw beyond.
Under the defense table, hidden from the view of the jury and the judge by the wooden panel, Lloyd's right hand rested on his thigh and was not still.
His fingers moved in a slow rhythm, rubbing the fabric of his pants with a repulsive cadence.
While he listened to Barbara's sobs narrating the abuse, the body of the "exemplary teacher" did not react with horror, but with excitement.
'Sick son of a bitch...'
Lief's knuckles cracked as he closed his fist.
His instinct made him scan the rest of the room immediately, his eyes swept the gallery looking for an expensive suit, a diabolical smile, Al Pacino... John Milton.
In the movie, the Devil was always nearby at crucial moments to tip the scales.
However... there was no one.
Just bored journalists and local retirees.
He frowned, confused.
Was this Kevin Lomax really just a simple lawyer?
Were his sixty-four victories the product of pure talent and not intervention...? And if so, how could such a brilliant man not see the monster sitting next to him?
Just as Lief was struggling with these doubts, Barbara's testimony came to an end.
It was the turn of the cross-examination.
Kevin stood up, composing his face into an expression of professional but empathetic curiosity.
He was ready.
He had a progressive questioning strategy designed to make the girl contradict herself on the smallest details until her story collapsed.
"Miss Barbara," he began with a soft voice, approaching the stand. "You stated a moment ago that Mr. Gettys locked the door to start the tutoring, is that correct?..."
As he formulated the question, he turned slightly to look at his client, seeking visual confirmation for the jury, expecting to see the righteous indignation of an innocent man.
But his angle of vision had changed.
His gaze inadvertently fell to Lloyd's lap, partially visible from his new position.
His pupils contracted violently.
He saw it...
He saw the hand rubbing the thigh rhythmically and worse yet, when he looked up, he saw that Lloyd's mask had slipped for a fraction of a second.
While he watched the girl cry, his eyes showed no sadness, they shone with a fleeting but unmistakable expression of delight.
He was savoring the memory.
He was reliving the moment right there, in the middle of the courtroom!
"...."
Kevin's world stopped, feeling an electric chill run down his spine, followed by a wave of nausea.
The arguments, the traps, the questions he had prepared... everything got stuck in his throat as if he had swallowed glass.
He had memorized Barbara's file. He had analyzed her grades, her social life, her fights with her parents.
He had convinced himself that she was a troubled teenager seeking attention.
He had built a reality where his client was the victim.
But now...
That hand movement... That glassy look of pleasure...
An innocent man, an educator with a twenty-five-year career, does not get aroused seeing a girl crying while she narrates how she was raped.
'What she said... is true.'
The realization hit him hard.
There was no "gray area".
He was using his gift to protect a predator and about to destroy a girl so that a beast could go free and do it again.
His 64-0 record? His glory? Was all that worth it if the price was becoming an accomplice to this?
Sweat began to bead on his forehead. He looked at Barbara, and then looked back at his client.
The disgust he felt was so intense that he had to fight not to vomit right there.
"Attorney Lomax?" The judge's voice sounded impatient at the defense's prolonged silence.
Kevin snapped back to reality.
His gaze crossed the room and met Sarah Connor's.
She was watching him with an unsettling calm, as if she knew exactly what had just gone through his head.
"Your Honor..." Kevin made a decision. "The defense requests a ten-minute recess!"
"Counselor?" The judge arched an eyebrow, surprised by the request in the middle of an interrogation.
But Kevin did not wait for formal approval. He turned around abruptly, returned to his table and grabbed Lloyd by the arm with a force that made the teacher grimace in pain.
"Kevin! What are you doing?" he hissed, frightened by the change.
"Shut your mouth!" Kevin growled through his teeth, with a barely contained fury that no one in the jury could hear, but that left Lloyd frozen. "You're coming with me. Now."
Dragging him, Kevin pushed the courtroom door and headed directly toward the men's restroom, leaving the courtroom plunged into a murmur of total confusion.
________
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