Controversy

by Adrianne Byrd

  “Step out of the vehicle,” Kyson shouted, his gun leveled on the Damon that was behind the wheel.

  “Aw, man. This is some bullshit.”

  “Open the door and then put your hands in the air,” Kyson commanded. The driver moved slowly, but did as he was told though hostility glimmered in his eyes.

  “Forget this,” the Damon in the passenger seat said, bolting out of his door to take up running down the parking lot.

  When Kyson swung his gun toward the running man, the Damon in front of him capitalized on the mistake by delivering a hard chop against the back of Kyson’s neck. Stars exploded before him and he dropped his gun. Before he could recover, the muscular Damon sent a hard punch across his jaw.

  Since Kyson had been taken by surprise, he sustained a few hard blows before he finally sent his own sucker punch into Damon twin number one’s hard abs.

  “Oomph!” The man folded at his waist.

  Kyson straightened and then delivered a powerful blow across the man’s jaw.

  Damon fell to one knee and struggled to get back up.

  Now jabbing a one-two punch, Kyson watched the man fall flat on his back.

  Out of nowhere, sirens pierced the air and a line of Sunnyvale police cars screeched into the complex parking lot, surrounding Kyson, the fallen Damon and even Damon number two down the parking lot.

  Immediately, Kyson threw his hands up in the air.

  Michael pushed past her embarrassment at being caught in a highly compromising position, but she was more than grateful to Kyson’s younger sister for popping up when she did.

  Now dressed, she rushed to the phone and struggled to remember the number she’d scrawled across her palm yesterday. She needed to warn the Damon twins of Kyson’s visit. She hated to think how the men might react to a cop showing up unexpectedly. Why, oh, why didn’t she go see them yesterday so they could get their stories straight?

  When the phone just rang, Michael’s gut twisted into knots. Was she too late?

  She hardly heard a word from the jabbering Naomi Dekker. “So how long have you and my brother been dating?”

  “What?” Michael finally caught one of the girl’s questions and frowned. “We’re not exactly dating,” she said.

  “Oh.” Naomi’s eyes raked over her and then glowed with a new understanding.

  “It’s not like that, either,” Michael said, not wanting her to think that she was a hooker or something.

  “Let’s just say that my and your brother’s relationship is complicated.”

  A smile returned to Naomi’s face. “All of his relationships are.” She perked up when Michael grabbed her bag. “Are you leaving?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Michael glanced around, spotted her bra from last night and grabbed it. “I don’t want to intrude on a brother-and-sister reunion. Just, um, tell him I’ll call him later,” she lied. Chances were if Kyson ever saw her again, he’d probably try to throttle her for lying to him. She was on her own to solve Phil’s murder.

  “Well, all right,” Naomi said, smiling. “Goodbye.”

  “Bye.” Michael slammed the door behind her and raced down the sidewalk in a rush to get out of the apartment complex.

  In a flash, sirens filled the air and a team of police cars surrounded her. She stopped cold, dropped her bag and threw her hands into the air.

  She recognized the cops jumping out of the first vehicle in front of her: Detectives Griffin and Martinez.

  “Michael Adams,” Martinez said, approaching. “Please get down and place your hands behind your back.”

  Heart racing, Michael followed the cop’s instructions. When she lay flat against the concrete, Martinez approached and slapped a different pair of handcuffs on her wrist—one that bit into her skin.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law…”

  Tears splashed down Michael’s face as she listened to the rights being read to her. When she was done, several pairs of hands aided in getting her to her feet. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Kyson standing behind a cop car and watching her arrest.

  The look on his face ripped out her heart as she was led to a patrol car, but before Michael was shoved inside, she mouthed the words I’m so sorry.

  Kyson’s face turned to stone a second before he turned and walked away.

  Chapter 28

  The Trial…

  “Please place your hand on the Bible and raise your right hand,” the bailiff instructed.

  Michael’s hand sprang into the air.

  “Please state your whole name,” the stoic bailiff droned.

  “Michael Anthony Adams,” she said nervously and then cleared the boulder blocking her windpipe. If anything, she made it worse.

  “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”

  “I—I do.” Damn. Why had she stuttered? Her gaze shattered across the crowded courtroom to access the damage—nothing but a wall of stony faces and accusatory gazes stared back at her.

  They are going to give me the death sentence!

  “You may be seated,” Judge Carter said, turning in her seat so that Michael had her full attention.

  Michael lowered herself into the witness seat while the bailiff returned to his post and District Attorney Harold Joplin approached the witness stand in an impressive suit.

  “Good morning, Ms. Adams,” he greeted with a smile that missed his eyes.

  Not sure she could trust her voice just yet, Michael just gave him a curt nod and forced herself to sit up straight. She didn’t dare look to the front-row bench behind the defense. No doubt the sight of her family, minus her father, fidgeting in their seats with openly terrified expressions would bring on the tears again. Her father’s death left a gaping whole in their lives. The guilt of her father’s fatal heart attack was something that would haunt Michael for the rest of her life. Frankly, they had done enough crying throughout this exhausting trial.

  “Ms. Adams, did you kill your ex-husband?” Joplin asked, wasting no time getting to the nitty-gritty.

  “Absolutely not!” she stated emphatically.

  A loud wave of gasps and murmurs rose from the courtroom spectators.

  What had everyone expected? That she’d agreed to take the stand so that she could throw herself on the mercy of the court?

  A smile finally lit Joplin’s blue eyes as if he was going to relish his time nailing her to the wall.

  Michael didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop herself from shooting a daggerlike gaze over to Detective Kyson Dekker.

  Kyson’s polished black orbs met her gaze unblinkingly. The heat radiating from them caused her to look away first.

  “Ms. Adams,” Joplin thundered, slicing through the tension between the police officer and the defendant. “Do you know Ray and Scott Damon—otherwise known as the Damon twins?”

  She cleared her throat again, but the boulder still refused to budge. “I—I do.” Damn. She did it again.

  “Do you recall Ray and Scott Damon testifying before this jury that it was you who had told them that you wanted to kill your ex-husband?”

  Her back grew even straighter remembering those two idiots on the stand mixing fact with fiction. “I do recall that.”

  Joplin braided his well-manicured fingers together while he began a slow pace before the witness stand. “Do you also recall Ray and Scott Damon telling this court that it was you who’d told them exactly how to break into your ex-husband’s house, how to bypass the security system and even how they could cover their tracks?”

  Michael drew in a deep breath. Did she really have to answer the smug attorney’s questions?

  “Answer the question, Ms. Adams,” Judge Carter directed after Michael’s long insolent silence.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then is it your testimony that Ray and Scott Damon perjured themselves here at this court?”

  She drew another d
eep breath, cast a look to her four fidgeting sisters.

  “Ms. Adams,” the judge cut in again.

  “No,” Michael answered softly.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Adams,” Joplin said. “Could you please speak up? I’m not sure everyone in the jury heard your answer.”

  “I said no. Ray and Scotty didn’t lie.”

  The court erupted with a loud din of whispering.

  Michael had a sudden premonition of being strapped to a cold steel table and waiting to be administered a lethal injection.

  “Order in the court!” Judge Carter rapped her gavel. “Order!”

  Slowly, the voices lowered to disjointed whispers.

  Joplin was finally in his element, preening like a peacock.

  “I told them how to kidnap Philip, not kill him.”

  “They didn’t kill him. You did.”

  Michael jumped to her feet. “That’s a lie!”

  “I object!” Billingsley finally woke up from his nap in time to participate in the proceedings.

  The court was abuzz again.

  “Order! Order!” The judge rapped her gavel again and then told Michael, “Please remain seated, Ms. Adams.”

  Michael did as she was told, but continued to glare at the district attorney while simultaneously coaching herself to remain calm.

  “No more questions,” Joplin said, smirking his way back to his seat.

  Billingsley stumbled to his feet and pushed up a pair of glasses that were as thick as old Coca-Cola bottles. “Ms. Adams,” he said in a thick Louisiana accent and rubbing a hand across his wiry cotton hair. “The court has heard the Damon twins’ version of events. Maybe you should give everyone here your side of the story.”

  Michael bobbed her head and flashed a pleading look in Detective Dekker’s direction. True, it was imperative that she convince the jury of her innocence, but no one’s opinion meant more than Kyson’s.

  Mainly because during the course of the past crazy months, he’d come to mean more to her than life itself.

  Michael met Kyson’s onyx gaze, once again charging the room with undeniable electricity. Perhaps it was the hard, stubborn set of his jaw that caused tears to burn her eyes.

  “Ms. Adams?” Billingsley prompted.

  “Yes,” Michael said, pulled herself together and started her story from the beginning. Halfway through her version of events, she stole a glance at the jury and knew she was in trouble.

  “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”

  “I do,” Kyson affirmed, his deep baritone rumbling through the courtroom. He then removed his hand from the Bible and took his seat.

  He’d promised himself that once he was on the witness stand he would keep his attention focused on the examining attorneys and far away from where Michael sat, watching him. However, that vow proved to be harder to keep than he’d expected.

  Her dark chestnut-colored eyes were like two hypnotic magnets that drew his gaze to the defense table the moment he took his seat. The subsequent pain in his heart was a direct result of witnessing the absolute misery and hurt reflected in her eyes.

  In the time they’d known each other so much had transpired between them: distrust, lies and even love.

  Love.

  When the word drifted across his mind, it made him pause. He’d chosen a hell of time and place to realize that he loved her. But who chose such things?

  “Detective Dekker, you were here in court yesterday when Ms. Michael Adams came to the stand, were you not?” the district attorney asked as he approached.

  “I was.”

  “Does Ms. Adams’s rendition of your first meeting match your own of that day?”

  “It does,” Kyson answered, but didn’t like how Joplin’s smile appeared calculated and manufactured.

  “Detective, was that your one and only encounter with Ms. Adams?”

  A flash of Michael’s naked body rubbing against his flashed inside of his head. A brief audio clip of her melodic moans and his heavy sighs filled his ears.

  “Detective Dekker?”

  Kyson blinked and then coughed to cover his embarrassment. “No, it was not.”

  Joplin nodded. “Then maybe you could tell this court your version of the events leading up to the arrest of the defendant.”

  Kyson’s gaze drifted back over to Michael, but this time she kept her gaze averted. That only deepened his pain and heartache because his testimony would likely get her the death penalty.

  Chapter 29

  Juanita and her Neighborhood Watch gang were local celebrities. Discovering Michael Adams’s second victim, Vanessa Delaney, in Phil Matthews’s home, news agencies seemed to get a kick out of the older ladies’ crime-fighting abilities. Now that Michael’s trial was under way, they were once again thrown into the limelight for their opinion on the proceedings.

  “I knew the girl was trouble the first time I laid eyes on her,” Juanita said, sitting on her sofa in her living room. “Mrs. Matthews—that was her name back then—always had trouble conforming to the rules and regulations of our fine Home Owner’s Association. I just think that it’s a pity that her ex-husband didn’t see the kind of woman she truly was—and that poor, poor woman she killed out of blind jealousy when she realized Phil had moved on. I read somewhere that he and Ms. Delaney used to work together at his old job—Initech—or something like that. My friend Estelle said they build top-secret stuff for the government, weapons or something like that for the military. Anyway, Phil had a brilliant mind. Such a loss,” she said sadly into the cameras.

  “Why, it seems like yesterday he was just fooling around in the backyard. He was a master gardener, you know. We shared many secrets. He would even run errands for me, even though he was a very busy man. He’d work long hours. Of course, now I know he was likely working those long hours so he could stay away from that crazy wife of his.”

  “So you definitely believe that Ms. Adams had a hand in his murder?” the reporter asked.

  “They wouldn’t have arrested her if she wasn’t guilty,” Juanita said flatly. “I just regret our little Neighborhood Watch couldn’t have done more to prevent those senseless crimes.” She shook her head. “You know, I was the one who saw those evil twins taking off in their getaway car that night.” She sighed. “The last time I saw Phil…”

  “The last time what?” the reporter nudged.

  “Well, the last time I saw him, he gave me a package he wanted me to hold for him. Said it was a gift or something like that. Hmmph. I’d forgotten about that. I just stored it in the basement and plum forgot about it. I probably need to contact his next of kin or something.”

  The man punched the off button on the television and turned toward his partner. “Did you just hear that?”

  “I heard and I can’t believe it.”

  “Do you think…?”

  “It has to be. We’ve searched everywhere else.”

  “You think our old employer will still be interested in our retrieving it?”

  “It’ll definitely make up how we botched the job,” the woman said.

  A smile slithered across the killer’s lips. “I’ll be damned. It looks like we’re back in business.”

  After a long day in court, Kyson arrived home emotionally and mentally exhausted. Now that he’d quit the force, he’d taken a job with his brother at K. D. Dekker Investigative Services.

  The job wasn’t as bad as Khail had led him to believe. The pay fluctuated, but it was enough to help him complete the last few classes to get his engineering degree.

  It broke Khail’s heart when Kyson announced he was retiring from fighting, too. After all, it was Khail’s dream, not his. He still frequented King’s Gym, mainly to relieve much of the stress of the trial. Watching the proceedings was much harder than he dreamed it would be. Seeing Michael on the stand and sticking to her story about not killing her ex-husband and his girlfriend.

  She and the Damon twins adm
itted to the kidnapping fiasco, and the Adams sisters had all stuck to their guns about Phil escaping the trunk of Michael’s car alive. Then again, the guilty often stuck to a lie until they were about to receive the needle.

  Kyson’s heart lurched. Michael could receive the death penalty.

  Thinking of the possibilities was more than he could stand most days. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed two beers and proceeded to drink them one after the other. It was hard being in the apartment sometimes. Remembering the night that he brought her to his place haunted him.

  He’d only been in love twice in his life. One woman was murdered and the second one could be put to death.

  Life had a funny way of sucker punching him.

  Kyson stopped and thought about the word love drifting around in his head. Had he really fallen in love with Michael Adams? Who fell in love that fast?

  Cared—yes.

  Love?

  He shook the word out of his head and commanded himself not to think about it anymore. Yet, he knew it was an order he couldn’t carry out.

  There was a rap on the door before Khail breezed inside.

  “Man, when are you going to stop busting in here like you’re paying rent?”

  Khail laughed and made his way to the refrigerator to retrieve his own beer. “Hell, I keep thinking one day I’m going to discover a naked woman cuffed to your bed.”

  Kyson rolled his eyes. Naomi never missed an opportunity to remind him of that day either.

  “Besides,” Khail said, “after today, I thought you needed the company.” He popped open his beer. “How did it go on the witness stand?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Instead of answering, Kyson nodded.

  “Tough break, bro.” Khail took a long pull on his beer. When he came up for air, he pounded a hand against Kyson’s back. “I hope this experience hasn’t scared you off from jumping back into the dating pool. So you fell for a murderer, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “They haven’t proved that she killed anybody.”