Breaking Free (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Grae McTavish

  Judge Wrenn nodded, and Danny sat back down with a small sigh of relief before the judge continued. This was definitely going to be an interesting case, as was evident from the large crowd gathering. “This should be an interesting case. Mr. Prosecutor, are you ready to begin?”

  “Y–yes, Your Honor,” Prosecutor Brooks stammered as he came to his feet. “However, I must object. We were not made aware of the defense’s change in attorney. I would remind the defense that they are required to disclose all evidence. These last-minute changes are for show, to throw attention off the matters at hand.”

  Coming to his feet, Gabe smiled benignly at his opponent before turning warmly to the judge. “Your Honor, I am well aware of the rules of our legal system. No new evidence will be disclosed without giving the plaintiff equal time to depose it. I volunteered my services to the defendant because I have a complete intolerance for injustice.”

  Judge Wrenn’s eyes darted knowingly between the two. “Counsel, approach the bench, please.” When the two were in front of her, she continued in a softer voice. “I am well aware of the publicity this case is getting. It’s a big trial in a little area, so I won’t have grandstanding from either one of you, do I make myself clear? Save your opinions for closing remarks, understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison, but Gabe counted it as a victory. She was going to let the last minute change in attorney drop without further comment. Danny’s court-appointed attorney had been more than happy to step down once Gabe had impressed upon him his desire to defend his woman.

  “We’ll have opening remarks now, gentlemen.”

  Mr. Brooks turned first to the courtroom at large and then to the judge. “Your Honor, we are here to determine if the evidence against the defendant, Ms. Eldridge, is sufficient to convict, and I’m quite certain you will find it so. On the evening of October ninth, the defendant wantonly did attack and ultimately, grievously injure the plaintiff, Professor Dandridge, esteemed professor at Aurora University. This was after Professor Dandridge had spurned her attempts to renew their relationship. The defendant stalked, terrorized, and ultimately assaulted Professor Dandridge, and we will present evidence to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Thank you.”

  Gabe rolled his eyes at the continued emphasis on the fact that Dandridge was a professor. Standing, he let his gaze sweep the room, letting the anticipation rise for several seconds before beginning. “Your Honor, while the prosecutor is correct, in the fact that an assault took place on October ninth, that is about all within his opening testimony that could be considered factual. The truth of the matter is, Mr. Dandridge, should be sitting on this side of the courtroom.” He emphasized the ‘mister’ portion to bring him back down to the level of a common man, answerable to man’s laws. “It was the defendant who broke off the relationship after catching him in a compromising act with one of his students, and it was the plaintiff who attacked the defendant when she spurned his attempts at reconciliation. She was the one attacked, and therefore her actions can only be viewed as self-defense.” This caused a loud stir in the court audience, and the judge was forced to bang her gavel to regain silence.

  “If this is correct, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Judge Wren interjected when there was finally silence. “Then why weren’t charges filed?”

  “I have urged my client to do so, however, she feels that it is best to let bygones be bygones. She’s moved on with her life and wants as little to do with Mr. Dandridge as possible.”

  “Now see here,” Dandridge sputtered coming to his feet, but the judge cut him off. The professor was used to being in charge, and Gabe figured having to hold his tongue was killing him.

  “Professor Dandridge, you will take your seat and be silent until you are called to testify. Is that understood?” she ordered sharply. The prosecuting attorney yanked his client back down, and hissed for him to be silent. “Very well, if you are finished with your opening remarks, Mr. Cavanaugh, we will begin.”

  “I am, thank you, Your Honor.” Gabe nodded and sat down, casting Danny a confident smile. Dandridge’s outburst had been telling.

  Mr. Brooks began, “I’d like to call Professor Dandridge to the stand, Your Honor.” Wesley shuffled his way to the witness box, making great show of groaning over his injuries. When he’d been sworn in, the attorney started his questioning. “Professor Dandridge, can you give us a bit of background on the situation, please?”

  “Yes, of course,” Dandridge stated in his best, kindly professor voice. “As you stated, the defendant and I were at one time involved in a romantic relationship, however I was forced to break it off with her because of serious intimacy issues on her part. I’m afraid she’s quite frigid, and after years of patience on my part, I was forced to admit that she was never going to seek help and had no desire to change.”

  “Ha!” The retort exploded Danny’s mouth!

  This earned her a sharp look from the judge. “Mr. Cavanaugh, you will control your client as well.”

  Standing, Gabe shot Danny a reassuring smile. “Yes, of course, Your Honor. We apologize, however, I do object. What credentials does the professor have to make these clinical judgments on the defendant? He is a professor of history not psychology, if I am not mistaken.”

  “Objection sustained. You will stick to the facts, Professor Dandridge.”

  Wesley seemed to object to this and sputtered for a second, but a hard look from the judge redirected his thinking. “Danika refused to take no for an answer. She began showing up at my house at all hours of the night. She left me notes and gifts to try and regain my affection.” He paused, the action obviously rehearsed to Gabe’s practiced eye.

  The prosecutor lifted a set of papers, a teddy bear, and bottle of wine and presented them to the judge. “We would like to present Exhibits A through C, Your Honor.”

  Danny made a face but kept silent. They’d seen photos of the fake evidence and Gabe was prepared to disprove it.

  “Continue,” the prosecutor urged his client.

  “Finally I couldn’t take her harassment anymore, so I went to her office at the Aurora Library to confront her. It was quite awful! She begged, screamed, and pleaded, saying she couldn’t live without me, but…”

  Gabe cut him off. “Objection, hearsay.”

  “Sustained. Stick to the facts, Professor.”

  Wesley let out a long-suffering sigh. “When it became obvious to me that she was not going to listen, I attempted to leave, letting her know I was going to file a restraining order. That was when she went berserk, Your Honor. I was taught to never hit a lady, and I’ll tell you it took all my power not to do so. You’ll never know how relieved I was when campus security arrived, or else I would have been forced to defend myself.”

  Looking pleased, Prosecutor Brooks, nodded. “Nothing further from this witness, Your Honor.”

  Gabe stood and slowly walked forward. It took all his years of practicing as an attorney to appear as calm as he was. Inwardly he was seething. He wanted nothing more than to reach over the tall, wooden box and wring the little weasel’s neck. Instead he smiled predatorily, and anyone who knew him, would have known to be afraid.

  “Mr. Dandridge…” he began, only to have the witness pompously interrupt him.

  “That’s Professor Dandridge.”

  “As you say.” He let that go. He’d made his point. “You allege that the defendant stalked you on numerous occasions. Can you provide specific dates?”

  This seemed to throw Wesley for a second before he answered. “Well the week after we broke up, that Friday, she spent the entire night banging on my door.” Gabe ground his teeth. He knew Danny usually went home and curled up with a book on Friday nights because she was tired from the week. It was a safe bet that Dandridge knew it too.

  “What if I told you I could provide a witness to prove that the defendant was occupied elsewhere that night?” Gabe asked innocently, knowing that was the first night he and Danny had made love.

  “W–
well,” he stammered. “I may be wrong on the date, after all it’s been quite a while, but it doesn’t change the fact that she did.”

  Nodding, Gabe picked up the stack of letters supposedly written by Danny to her ex-fiancé. “You claim these letters were from the defendant begging for reconciliation, correct?”

  “Yes, as I said…” he began condescendingly, only to be cut off.

  “It’s a simple yes or no, Professor Dandridge.”

  “Yes.” Wesley harrumphed with a sour look on his face.

  Turning back to the defendant’s table, Gabe picked up a piece of paper. “Your Honor, I’d like to enter into exhibit the sworn affidavit from a certified handwriting analyst. You will see that it states the letters were written in a different handwriting than the defendant’s.”

  Judge Wrenn nodded before turning back to the witness. “Do you wish to maintain your testimony, Professor Dandridge?”

  Wesley adamantly nodded. “Your Honor, she has several student aids working for her. She could have had any number of them write the letters for her,” he replied smugly.

  Again Gabe let the issue drop. The evidence could speak for itself. “On the day in question, October ninth, you allege the defendant begged and pleaded for you to take her back, yet no one was aware of anything going in her office until you started to shout, is that correct?”

  “Well, yes, but her office is in the back of the library.”

  “But the door was open and anyone could have walked in, correct?” Gabe hid a grimace at that since he was the idiot who had walked in and made the biggest mistake of his life.

  Wesley stared at him oddly for a second, before recognition struck him. “You’re that filthy man who walked in on us that day. But I don’t understand?” He turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I think you should check this man’s credentials. I don’t believe he’s an attorney. Why on earth would an attorney dress the way he did that day?” Gabe knew his mind was too closed to accept the obvious.

  Gabe saw the prosecutor grimace and realized he recognized Gabe for who he actually was. The judge apparently agreed, because she shot the witness a sharp look. “I am well aware of Mr. Cavanaugh’s credentials as an attorney, and they are all in order, Professor Dandridge.”

  Wesley sputtered, but apparently couldn’t think of an appropriate response, and Gabe used his silence to go in for the kill. “You are correct, I was there that day, and were your arms not wrapped around the defendant, were your lips not plastered onto hers?” His question came out seething, and Gabe fought down the image that replayed in his head. It was taking every bit of his self-control not to strangle the spineless professor, lest he ruin things for Danny.

  “I…I was comforting her,” Wesley managed, more than a little intimidated by the open hatred in Gabe’s electric-blue eyes. “She b…begged for one last kiss.”

  “I see,” Gabe nodded, unable to stand the sight of the lying little bastard any longer. “I have no further use for this witness, Your Honor.”

  Wesley cut Gabe a wide berth as he made his way back to his seat.

  Next the bailiff called the campus security guard. He appeared sympathetic to Danny, and it was obvious what he thought of the obnoxious professor, but his testimony was given factually. All he’d seen was Danny standing over her bloody and bruised ex-fiancé.

  Next came the emergency room doctor’s testimony. Wesley’s nose was indeed broken and one rib had a slight crack.

  “Would you say Professor Dandridge’s injuries were consistent with an assault?” Prosecutor Brooks questioned.

  “I just treated him.” The doctor hedged. Gabe sensed that he didn’t want to answer, and the prosecutor seemed to as well.

  “How many years have you been an emergency room doctor?”

  “Just a little over ten,” the doctor answered, a confused expression on his face, and Gabe wondered where this line of questioning was going.

  “On average, how many assaults do you see in a week?”

  “I don’t know the exact statistics.” Again the doctor seemed to be hedging.

  “Object, Your Honor, relevance.” Gabe called, uncertain what exactly the prosecutor was trying to prove.

  “Please, Your Honor, a little leeway,” Brooks replied.

  The judge seemed to debate this for a few minutes before she made her decision. “You may proceed, but keep it brief.”

  “Thank you.” The prosecutor turned back to his witness. “In an average week would you say you see at least ten assaults?”

  The doctor considered this for several moments before nodding. “Yes, that’s probably a good answer. We’re not huge so we don’t see the numbers the big cities do, but yes, we see our share.”

  “So at least ten a week, with fifty-two weeks in a year, for ten years, that’s over five thousand assaults in the last ten years. Correct?”

  “I guess that’s about right,” the doctor hesitantly replied.

  Gabe definitely didn’t like the direction this was going.

  “So we can consider you an authority on assault.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know that I’d go that far.”

  “Are the Professor’s injuries consistent with other assaults you’ve seen?” Brooks persisted.

  “I…” He hedged.

  “Please answer the question, doctor.”

  He finally answered, his voice filled with reluctance. “Yes, they are.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tiffany and Mariah showed up at the courthouse just as the judge was dismissing everyone for lunch. They joined Gabe, Danny, and Gloria as they sat in the court’s tiny cafeteria quietly discussing the case.

  “We’re sorry, Ms. D. We can’t find Noir anywhere,” Tiffany informed them dejectedly.

  “It’s like she’s disappeared or something,” Mariah added with a confused shake of her head.

  “It’s okay. I think it’s going pretty well, don’t you, Gabe?” Danny asked hopefully.

  Nodding, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s going very well. Dandridge’s testimony was weak at best, and the rest is just circumstantial. I’m pretty confident that once Danny testifies, the judge will rule in our favor.”

  “There is one thing, while we were staking out his house, a delivery man from Vin Doux delivered several bottles of Vino de Bella. Tiffany distracted him while I peeked in the package,” Mariah said, obviously quite proud of their undercover detective work.

  Danny and Gabe glanced at each other for a second before looking back at the girls. “I thought I told you two to be careful,” Danny gently admonished.

  Mariah waved that off before she continued. “You don’t understand. This chick, Noir, she’s one of the big student advocates against drinking. I heard her give a speech one time at one of the homecoming rallies, and her parents were killed by a drunk driver. She won’t touch alcohol.”

  “Hum, wonder who it’s for?” Gabe pondered. “Might be a way to break her if we could get her on the stand. Infer that he’s stepping out on her.”

  Gloria and Danny’s eyes met. “I…uhm…might know who it’s for,” Gloria told them softly, drawing everyone’s attention. “Vino de Bella is Danny’s favorite wine, but Wesley always picked on her, saying it was too sweet, that a real wine was hardy and robust.”

  Danny shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense though. What would he have to gain from buying my favorite wine?”

  “You,” Gabe muttered, frowning with jealousy.

  “Oh, that’s silly. Why would he want me back after what I did?”

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “I wonder.”

  “And, think about it. If he has you backed into a corner, where you think he’s the only one who can save you, then you’re more likely to give him another chance, come crawling back,” Tiffany reasoned with surprising wisdom for her young age.

  Gloria nodded. “He always liked having you under his thumb. And he’ll never do better than you.”

  “I think you’re all
a little biased.” Danny blushed before continuing. “But after what I did to him? I don’t understand.” It still didn’t make sense.

  Mariah shook her head. “Some people are into some kinky shit, Ms. D. Thankfully you have a real man now. You don’t need his paisley-tie-wearing self.”

  Danny turned to Gabe and was surprised to see him blushing under their compliments. Reaching over, she tweaked his chin. “Where’s my big, bad biker man now?” Her teasing brought chuckles from the girls and a growl from Gabe.

  Catching her hand in his, he pulled her close and whispered against her lips. “Little girl, I’m going to show you just how big and bad I am if you don’t watch it.”

  Blushing furiously, Danny turned to Tiffany and Mariah to try and laugh it off, but their dreamy sighs stopped her. What was to explain? She was hooked.

  Gloria just rolled her eyes again. “I think I’m going to gag.”

  * * * *

  When court reconvened after lunch, Prosecutor Brooks announced that he had no further witnesses.

  Gabe had been reluctant to put Danny on the stand, knowing that a good lawyer could get a witness to say most anything, but now he had no choice.

  “I call Danika Eldridge to the stand,” he said as everyone settled into their places for the defense’s portion of the trial. Watching her take a seat in the large, wooden witness chair, he felt his gut twist. She looked so small and vulnerable sitting there in her prim suite and wire rimmed glasses. Her hair was in its usual tight bun, and her small hands shook slightly as she folded them into her lap. To anyone who didn’t know her, she appeared the picture of meekness, but he knew her strength and integrity were equal to those of people ten times her size. This was what he intended to show the court. “Danny, you admit to once being involved with the plaintiff, Professor Dandridge?”

  “Yes, we met my last year of college. He was my history professor. I’d always been shy, so it seemed really flattering that someone like him noticed me. Of course, now I realize he notices a lot of his students,” she added the last with a wry smile.