Room Service by Summer Cooper

Author:Summer Cooper [Cooper, Summer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Love Books
Published: 2018-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

They walked in like two action heroes, striding confidently to the table on their side of the room. As soon as Andrew and Jenn were seated and had spread out all their documents on the table, the courtroom doors opened again and there stood Richard Connelly, his son and his entire team of six attorneys, each of them calm, poised, and ready for business. The hospital team surveyed the room with laser-like eyes. Steve’s own gaze revolved around, locking onto Jenn’s eyes, and lingering there coldly for a moment before continuing.

So it began. The presiding judge opened the session and allowed both sides to start with an opening statement. Each went as Jenn expected; Andrew put up an impassioned appeal to the jury to present Jenn as an unwitting victim, and Bill presented St. Benedict’s staff and executives as victims of a slanderous scheme by the Walsh family to obtain loads of hospital money.

Then it was Jenn’s turn to give testimony. The judge called upon Andrew to present the prosecution’s case to the jury, and both Andrew and Jenn stood up from their seats slowly. As Jenn stood up, her head swayed slightly; she suddenly felt dizzy, but she couldn’t tell if it was just her mind tricking her body into being more nervous than she was. She took the stand awkwardly, and after being given the oath, she began to answer Andrew’s questions establishing the facts of the case.

By now, this was old hat: Jenn had become used to explaining everything that had happened to her quickly and succinctly, and here she was again, recounting the painful events of her recent past. For all the time’s she’d said it, it never got easier. Some days explaining the realization of her secret rapes and abortion was excruciatingly traumatic, and as she gazed out over her audience today — an audience that contained her former boyfriend, Steve, who was now taking sides with the perpetrators as far as Jenn could tell — she felt her chest seize with anxiety and pain thinking again about the details.

Andrew began questioning her gently, asking her to merely establish the facts of the case, no more than that. The prosecution had to present Jenn in a sympathetic light for the jury, but her story wrote itself in this way. None of Andrew’s questions were different than Jenn had answered for either of her media interviews, and Jenn sat calmly and spoke in as straight a voice as she could manage.

Between responses, Jenn watched Richard and Steve closely. They alternated between staring straight back at her with cold, unreadable facial expressions and whispering among themselves, perhaps in preparation for when the defense would get its chance on the stand. Steve sat erect in his chair, his stiff suit mirroring that of his father’s. Jenn had a premonition of the future; she could easily see Steve being in the exact same situation as his father one day. The thought shook her, and she shuddered on the stand.

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