Abused by Aime Austin

Author:Aime Austin [Ausin, Aime]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644140697
Publisher: Moore Digital Media, Inc.

Seventeen

Nicole

November 26, 2007

“Thanks for coming. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.” I gave Sienna Walker the warmest smile I could muster despite putting my foot in my mouth. She’s probably had a crap holiday. Though mine hadn’t been much better. In a different situation, we could have commiserated about families.

“You didn’t give me much choice,” she retorted. There was nothing friendly about her tone. When Juliana Clarke’s daughter hadn’t returned the calls from me or our investigator, I’d left another message, set a time, then had Darlene Webb pick the girl up from her mother’s apartment.

“Are you working?” I asked. “I didn’t mean to interfere if you have a job.”

“I’m not working. I was to start school in Edinburgh in September but have deferred instead. I can start midterm in January or next fall. Either way I wanted to be here for my mother.”

Did that mean that she’d be on her mother’s side? I was a Daddy’s girl and had been hoping that maybe Sienna was one as well. But I had no idea whether there had been any abuse in her home, or what she’d made of everything that had happened there. It was like a black box mystery.

It was time to open the lid.

“Here you go,” Darlene Webb said as she placed a plastic cup full of water on the conference room table in front of Walker.

“Thank you for this at least,” Walker said. From under her curly bangs, she flicked her brown eyes first at me, then at Webb as if we were holding her hostage, then took a sip of the water.

“Your mother’s trial is scheduled in two and a half weeks,” I said. It wasn’t a question, but most people couldn’t keep their mouth shut in the face of silence. I waited a beat. Looked at Walker.

“I have it marked on my calendar,” she finally said.

Surly.

Alrighty, then. This was going to be like treating her as I would a hostile witness on the stand.

I dropped nice and switched to matter-of-fact.

“We’ve added you to our witness list. I invited you here because the prosecution is going to want you to testify.”

The girl shifted in her chair, then went still a long time before speaking.

“About what?”

“As a rebuttal witness,” I answered without explanation. When handling potentially volatile witnesses like her, I found it easier to keep them on an information diet.

“Rebutting what?”

“Look…can I call you Sienna?” I asked. Information diet or not, I still needed to know as much as I ever could what she would or could testify to on the stand. The element of surprise in a courtroom made for great television. It did not work that way in real life. Too many surprises and I could find myself well out of my temporary digs just when I was getting comfortable with the title of head of Major Crimes.

“No, you may not call me Sienna. We’re not friends like that.”

I flicked a glance toward Webb. Her headshake was nearly impossible to detect, but I got the message.

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