Trial Junkies

moment Hutch wondered if he could have had something to do with the sudden discovery of the knife.

But no, that didn't make sense. This was all Langer.

As Keating disappeared from sight, Hutch squeezed Ronnie's shoulder. 'Sit tight,' he said. 'I'm gonna fix this.'

Then he turned and crossed to a desk near the judge's bench, where the court clerk was busy gathering some paperwork. 'I need to speak to O'Donnell.'

The clerk looked up at him and blinked. 'I beg your pardon?'

'The judge. I need to talk to the judge.'

She eyed him warily. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Hutchinson, but he's in the middle of-'

Hutch didn't wait for her to finish. He stepped around her desk and pushed through the door behind it. Heard her calling out to him in alarm as he moved into a short and narrow corridor.

'Mr. Hutchinson-stop! You can't go back-'

The door closed behind him and he kept moving, heading down the corridor until it opened out into a large room with desks, the judge's support staff busy behind them. They looked up at him in alarm as he quickly scanned the room, spotting a door with flags on either side of it.

'Can I help you with something?' a young guy in a shirt and tie said, getting to his feet. Probably one of the judge's clerks.

'No thanks,' Hutch said. 'I think I've got this.'

Then he beelined it for the judge's door and pushed it open. Inside was a large room with a massive desk, a wall of bookshelves, photos and commendations and law degrees decorating another wall.

O'Donnell was seated behind the desk, Abernathy and Waverly occupying chairs in front of it. Startled, they all looked up at Hutch as he burst into the room and threw the file folder atop the judge's desk.

'There's your killer,' he said. 'Not Ronnie. This trial is a waste of time.'

O'Donnell jumped to his feet, looking like a man who had just witnessed a car wreck. 'Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing?' Then he called toward the doorway. 'Ed, get security in here- now.'

Waverly was on her feet, too. 'Mr. Hutchinson, get out of here, this isn't going to-'

'Look at it,' Hutch said, pointing at the file. 'His name is Frederick Langer. At least that's the name he's using now. He's been stalking Ronnie for months and sitting in that courtroom every day. We have evidence that he may have killed at least four other women in three different states.'

'We?' Abernathy said, then turned to Waverly. 'What's going on here?'

'Just look at the file,' Hutch said. 'We think he may have set this whole thing up to make Ronnie look guilty. The sweatshirt, the scissors-you might even be able to trace the dog hairs back to him.'

O'Donnell's face was red with rage. 'Young man, I don't know who the fuck you are, but you almost gave me a goddamn heart attack just now, and if you think for a minute that I give a shit about whatever's in this folder, you're sadly mistaken. This is a court of law and you have no right to come barging in here like some goddamn psychopath.'

The judge's gaze shifted and Hutch heard voices in the doorway behind him. He turned as three uniformed security men, including the bailiff, rocketed into the room and grabbed him by the arms.

Hutch swiveled his head toward Abernathy. 'If you care anything about justice or whatever your office is supposed to stand for, then you'll look at that file. You're prosecuting the wrong-'

'Get this son of a bitch out of here!' O'Donnell shouted. 'Lock him up!'

Hutch struggled as they started dragging him toward the doorway. 'Do your fucking job,' he said to Abernathy. 'Veronica Baldacci is not a killer.'

'Oh?' Abernathy said, on his feet now. 'I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I just got a call from the lab with confirmation that not only is Veronica Baldacci a killer, she's one of the most brutal I've ever had the displeasure to meet. I know it, the judge knows it, and so does her attorney. Right Karen?'

Waverly was silent, but the answer was plain on her face.

Abernathy smiled. 'So what do you have to say about your girlfriend now, asshole?'

— 54 -

They put him in a cell downstairs.

He sat there for the rest of the morning and late into the afternoon, convinced that the discovery of the scissors would pretty much seal the deal for Abernathy. Ronnie was toast unless Hutch could get the ADA or the judge or even Waverly to listen to reason.

But he'd pretty much blown any chance of that ever happening.

What the hell had possessed him to barge in on them like that? What weird glitch in his thought process had led him to believe they'd be receptive to the ravings of a post rehab has-been?

Hutch had always been a creature of impulse-impulses that had often gotten him into trouble-and now here he was again, a victim of his own irrational behavior. Worse still, Ronnie would suffer because of it, too.

But he refused to give up. There had to be a way to get her out of this.

The question was how?

With Frederick Langer possibly in the wind, how could they ever prove anything against him? Hell, they didn't even know where he lived, for chrissakes-and following him had been an exercise in futility, not to mention humiliation.

Hutch might have his heart in the right place, he might actually (for once in his miserable life) be playing the good friend, but right now Ronnie needed a miracle worker, and Hutch had spent the last nine months just learning to stand up straight and not piss himself.

The truth was, the only thing he'd ever been any good at was acting, and even that had turned out to be a sham perpetrated by Jenny's father. He'd gotten lucky and the show had managed to beat the odds and become a hit, but once he left, his career had spiraled, along with the rest of his life.

So what exactly was he looking for here?

Redemption?

Forgiveness?

He had no fucking clue. He just didn't want to see Ronnie go to jail. To see her spend the better part of her life-maybe her entire life-separated from that little boy, or even the cold fish of a mother who blamed her for everything wrong in her life.

The truth was, Hutch cared far more about Ronnie than he had ever intended, and had actually begun to see the possibility of a future with her. A relationship that wasn't based on benefits, but on-and here was that word again-love.

Jesus.

What the hell did he know about such things? Hutch was a rolling disaster and had proven that quite nicely today, thank you. Even if Ronnie were to go scot-free, why would he inflict himself on her? She may have worshipped him from afar, but all she had to do was get up close and stay there long enough, and the feeling would quickly fade away.

Just look at him now. Sitting here in a jail cell throwing a pity party of the highest magnitude. Who the hell wanted to hang around with that?

Nobody, that's who.

Even Hutch needed a break from himself.

He didn't know what time it was when Waverly showed up. Court was obviously done for the day, but without the benefit of a watch or a window, his timekeeping skills were poor to nonexistent.

He was sitting there still feeling sorry for himself, still wondering how he could fix things for Ronnie, when the