Silence. No, not a full silence. She could hear the steady ticking of a clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. The seconds were sliding by. Sophie wasn’t trying to stop her, not anymore. “I was on my hands and knees. I had the knife. I couldn’t walk…my whole body felt heavy. He-he grabbed me. Screamed that I couldn’t fight him because he’d kill me.” She looked down at her hands. The cast was so big.
“Julianna?” Faith prompted. “What happened next?”
“He wasn’t going to rape me. He’d hurt me enough.” Her gaze lifted again. “I struck out with that knife. He screamed when it cut him.”
Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock seemed even louder.
“I pulled the knife out of his chest.” Her breath came faster. “I tried to crawl away, but he lunged for me again.” Her fingers flexed. “And I remember bringing up the knife…”
Tick. Tick.
“Did you drive that knife into him thirteen times?” Faith asked.
Julianna flinched. “I don’t remember. I-I can’t remember anything else.”
Faith’s eyes narrowed on her.
“Self-defense,” Sophie said immediately. “This is an absolute clear case of self-defense. My client had to protect herself and she did the only thing that she could—”
Faith held up her hand, stopping Sophie. “You stabbed him twice, that’s what you remember?”
She nodded.
“And his blood got on you when you stabbed him.”
“Yes.” She could see the blood soaking his shirt, dripping from the knife.
“You say you were drugged?”
Her gaze lowered to the surface of the table. The wood was old and scratched. “I think I was. I didn’t feel…right.”
“Maybe that was the rage. I’ve seen people snap. Go crazy with fury and everything around them seems different. They’ve told me the whole world was off when that killing rage hit them.”
Julianna shook her head. “No, no, it wasn’t that. I was leaving him.” Killing him hadn’t been her plan.
“Why then?” Faith moved closer. Julianna looked up at her. “You stayed with him for two months. Two months during which…you didn’t sleep with him, but he hurt you. Your testimony. You stayed with him, you didn’t flee. You didn’t—”
“Victim blaming,” Sophie snapped. “Faith, you are better than that.”
Faith’s eyelids flickered. “I know my victims. I know all about them. I know about women who stay with fucking psychos because those bastards have beat them down until they think they can’t do anything else. I know about women who take hits again and again because they’re protecting their kids, because they think staying with the monster is better than being alone on the street. I know women of every color and every income who live in fear because there’s some fucking bastard out there swinging his fists…I know those women because my mother was one of them.”
Julianna couldn’t take her gaze off the detective.
Faith inclined her head toward her. “I saw the signs with you. The way you tensed when men came too close. The way you seemed to shrink into yourself when you were pressed too hard.” Her jaw hardened. “And you know what my money is on? I think you stayed because you believed you were protecting someone else. Just who were you protecting, Julianna? Who was it?”
“I—” She shook her head.
A knock sounded at the door. Faith turned away. Marched to the door.
“If you want to stay out of a jail cell,” Sophie whispered in Julianna’s ear. “Let me do my job. Stop, for the love of God, just stop talking.”
When Faith opened the door, a young, uniformed cop stood there. He handed Faith a manila file. She opened it and thumbed through the contents in silence. After a while, she sighed and said, “This changes things.” She looked up and focused on Sophie. “You’ll be getting your own copy of this report soon enough. For now…” She headed back across the room and gave the file to Sophie. “So…just to be clear, we all know that ADA Eastbridge was batshit.”
ADA Eastbridge? Why were they talking about him?
Julianna peered over at that file. She knew that Sophie had gone through hell with the ADA recently—because the guy had been stalking her.
“All of the ADA’s cases are being re-examined,” Faith continued. “And with that re-examination, well, I focused my energy on his most recent cases.”
“He destroyed evidence,” Sophie said as she read the report Faith had just given her.
Faith nodded.
“Sophie?” Julianna pressed. “What’s happening?”
Sophie glanced up at her. “You were drugged. Eastbridge destroyed the original lab results, probably because he knew no jury would convict you for murder—you couldn’t have been legally responsible. Jeremy gave you so much Zolpidem that I’m actually amazed you woke up at all.”
Zol—what?
“A dosage that strong can kill.” Faith’s voice was grim.
“That bastard Eastbridge,” Sophie snarled. “He destroyed evidence? Falsified reports? Why the hell would he—” She stopped and stared at Julianna in horror. “Because you were my client. Because if the real test results came out, there wouldn’t be a trial. He wanted the trial. Wanted us together…Oh, Julianna, I am so sorry.”
The throbbing in her head was getting worse. So was the nausea. “The wine…it was in the wine?”
“Your glass was shattered, but we examined the rest of the bottle. You were the only one who drank that wine. There was none in Jeremy’s system,” Faith explained.
Because why would he drug himself?
“Where did he get it from?” Sophie wanted to know. “There has to be a trail we can follow. Someone who—”
“His step-daughter, Heather, has trouble sleeping. Night terrors.” Faith’s lips curled in a cold smile. “I learned that last night. She was demanding that we give her the medication she needed. Her—”
“Zolpidem,” Sophie finished.
Faith nodded.
The throbbing in her head was like a drum, banging and banging. Why wouldn’t it stop? “Her drugs? But…but I…killed…” She tried to focus on Faith but black spots danced in front of Julianna’s eyes. She put her hand to her head. “Something…wrong…” Julianna stood, but her legs felt funny. “Dev…?”
“Julianna!” Sophie yelled.
Julianna hit the floor.
Chapter Thirteen
“Don’t even think of running…because I’d have you before you even made it to the door.”
Julianna blinked, her dark eyes hazy with confusion.
“You’re in the hospital,” Devlin told her, “and you’re staying here for the next twenty-four hours. Even if I have to tie you to that bed.”
She looked at the bed. Frowned. Then looked back at him.
“You passed out at the police station. An ambulance brought you here.” An ambulance he’d ridd
en in. They needed to get out of the habit of that shit. “You should have stayed here to begin with. You have a concussion. You don’t get to play around with something like that.”
Tears filled her eyes. Hell, no. “Don’t do it,” he snapped at her. “Don’t you dare do that.”
“They…told you what I did.”
Her big confession. “You pissed Sophie off, that’s what you did. When your lawyer tells you to stop talking, you should.”
She shook her head, sending her blonde hair sliding over the pillow. “No, Devlin, you know—”
“That the bastard drugged you? Tried to rape you? Yeah, I know that.” He sure hoped Jeremy Smith was spinning over a fiery pit in hell.
“That I killed him,” she whispered as the machines around her seemed to go wild.
Then she stared at him with wide, desperate eyes. Waiting for—what? Him to storm out? He bent forward and brushed back her hair. “Calm down, baby. The stress isn’t good for you.”
“D-did you hear me? I said—”
“He drugged you. He was going to rape you. You defended yourself.” He shook his head. “That’s not cold-blooded murder. That’s survival.”
Her lower lip trembled, but she caught it with her teeth, stopping that movement.
“You think I don’t know you’ve been living in a nightmare?” Devlin asked her. “You think I didn’t see the signs? I know, baby. I know. And I wish that I could take away all of your pain. I wish that I could make every fucking thing better for you. I wish…hell, yeah, I even wish that I had met you before you got tangled up with Jeremy. I would tell you to stay away from that bastard. Maybe I’d even kill him myself.”
She grabbed his hand. “No.”
He stared into her eyes. Eyes that were open and on his. He could see the flecks of gold in her gaze. He’d been watching over her, for hours. Tensing with every little movement. And realizing that he was in far, far too deep with her. And if he was this bad now…what would it be like a year from now? Two years?
She’ll have all of me. Even my soul.
“I would kill to protect you. I would eliminate any threat to you.” He thought she needed to know that. “So you seriously think I’d judge you for surviving? That I’d turn away from you? The fuck, no. The fact that you fought to survive makes me…it makes me want you even more.”