Trial by Fury by KG MacGregor

Author:KG MacGregor
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781594934926
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2016-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Gloria wrinkled her nose as she wiped the excess makeup from Theo’s face. “Stand still or you’ll have this crap all over you. Whose idea was it to use bronzer?”

“You know I hate looking washed out on TV.” Theo eyed herself in the ladies’ room mirror, noting the brown streaks across her cheek.

“What do they make this stuff with? Baby shit?”

She could always count on Gloria for a frank opinion of anything. “Forget it. I’ll do it.”

“Hold on, I’m almost done.” She’d already gone through half a box of tissues. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to ease up a little. Philip thinks you hit it out of the park, but I couldn’t stop thinking about your jury pool. That take-no-prisoners approach isn’t going to work with men, especially sports fans.”

And especially not in Atlanta, where many of the potential jurors were Harwood fans.

“Yeah, I know.” Theo usually showed more restraint on TV. The “angry woman” played well in the feminist blogosphere and social media, but not on the network news. “I’m trying to thread a needle here. There’s a better than average chance this case will never get to court. I need to provoke enough outrage to get something that looks like justice for a rape victim.”

“You mean the DOJ?”

“Or the DA. You know Justice won’t investigate unless the public demands it. And by the way, Ms. Women’s Studies Scholar, this is where you come in. We need to stir up a few of your militant women’s groups. Get them started on petitions, protests and vigils for Hayley. Preferably without having our fingerprints all over it.”

Gloria mumbled a curse at finding a smudge of makeup on the cuff of her white blouse. “I’d be surprised if they didn’t stir themselves. Your problem is timing though. All the campuses—Harwood, Emory, Georgia Tech—they’re out for the summer. It might be hard to get critical mass.”

“A community group then. Get Jalinda to help.”

Theo checked her face one last time and deemed herself fit to be seen in public. As she left the ladies’ room, she ran into Penny.

“There you are, Theo. A woman called in a couple of minutes ago, says she’s a sophomore at Harwood. She saw you on the news and wants to tell you something. She left a number.”

Gloria nudged her from behind. “If she’s a Hornets fan, that something will probably be ‘Go to hell.’ Our phone’s going to ring all day.”

“True,” Theo said. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been inundated with calls, faxes and emails complaining about one of their cases. Some of the more vicious trolls threatened to rape and kill her, and they’d posted her home address on the Internet inviting the unhinged to follow through. “But I did just tell a few million viewers there were probably more women out there with stories like Hayley’s. Try to screen them if you can, Penny. Get this one back on the phone and put her through.”

As she waited, she checked for messages on her cell phone, finding one from Celia.

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