Murmurs of conversation escalated in the packed room, but the sound of her gavel silenced the crowd. The bailiff swung the door wide, allowing the jurors to file into the room. They sat in the same chairs they had been occupying for more than six weeks.
United States Senator Warner Hamilton Lane of Missouri tried unobtrusively to take an aisle seat at the back of the courtroom. Heads turned and whispers eddied around him. The crack of Judge Merrit’s gavel echoed off the walls as her gaze held Warner’s. “I won’t tolerate disruption in my courtroom.”
Warner nodded. A rosy flush heated his neck and cheeks. He angled his body for a better view of his wife. Carolyn, seated at the prosecution table. Honey-colored hair crested her shoulders. She sat on the edge of her chair, muscles taught, reflexes honed, like a runner waiting for the bark of the starter’s gun. It was a race she intended to win – at all costs.
God, he missed her. Juggling two careers took its toll, especially with hers in Missouri and his predominantly in Washington, D.C. He’d flown in that morning, and now he could only watch her from a distance. Lately, it seemed that distance defined their relationship.
Carolyn rose to address the jury. Her once-shapely figure was lost in the cream Chanel suit that hung on her frame. He knew she lost weight with every case she tried, but this time the change was drastic. It worried him.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” Warner leaned forward as Carolyn began her closing argument. Though their phone conversations, he knew she’d agonized over her summation.
“Today your work begins. Today the attorneys will have their last words, and then the case is yours. Today you become the arbiters of justice…”
Warner watched the faces of the jury. Each set of eyes locked on Carolyn as she paced and gestured.
“… Will justice be served? That’s a question only you can answer. I believe it will, because I have faith that after each of you carefully considers the facts, you will find beyond any measure of doubt, that Albeit Roit is guilty on all counts.” She turned to glare at the defendant. The jury glared with her.
“As we review this case. I only ask one thing. Always keep in the forefront of your minds the thought of one person, Jessica Barnes. She is who this case is about. The defense would like you to believe that it is about Albeit Roit. It’s not. It’s about a young girl whose difficult life has been shattered.”
Warner knew that Carolyn understood the cost of a destroyed childhood and stolen innocence. At the age of six. Carolyn had lost her mother, the only family she’d ever known, to a drunk driver. Wrenched from a loving environment. Carolyn found herself a number in the social service system. As a foster child, she suffered sexual abuse and battery from her male caretaker. Warner knew that these intensely private scars drove her to become one of the top prosecutors in the state. She treated every case as if she were prosecuting the man who’d gotten away with abusing her. She never revealed her source of strength, too proud to see pity on the faces of her colleagues.
Carolyn reviewed the diagrams that detailed the sexual abuse inflicted on the child. Fury resonated in her voice as she repeated the words of the psychologist treating the thirteen-year-old girl. One juror wiped tears from her cheeks. Another sniffed loudly. A third dabbed at the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief.
Warner looked around the gallery. Not a whisper could be heard; all eyes were fixed on Carolyn as she fought for Jessica Barnes. To Carolyn this case wasn’t just about one foster child, it was about a horribly flawed system that victimized many children. Children that Carolyn felt a responsibility to save.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant. Albeit Roit. became a foster parent, not because of his concern for children, not to give love and support to those who desperately need it. He wanted the money to buy drugs. He wanted the government subsidy for the care of each foster child to maintain his drug habit. Albeit Roit did not stop at taking money from Jessica. No. he also stole her childhood – and her innocence.” Again Carolyn glared at the defendant, her mouth a tight line. “Albeit Roit took everything materially possible from Jessica Barnes, and when that wasn’t enough, he raped and brutalized her. In his final act. he tried to take the only thing she had left. Her life.”
Albeit Roit stared back at Carolyn and licked his crusted lips. She recognized that vile leer. The door on her own private hell cracked open, releasing the demons of her childhood.
Every night, just past midnight, the hulking form of her foster father. Uncle Vince, would cast a shadow across her doorway. He always smelled of cigarettes, dirty socks, and whiskey. “Hush, now, hush,” he would warn, his speech low and slurred. “I just want to hold you…”
The judge cleared her throat and Carolyn snapped back to the present. She turned to the jury. “It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to fight back, to show Albeit Roit and others like him what happens to people who abuse our children. It is time.” Carolyn paused, “to put Albeit Roit in jail for the rest of his life.” Her voice rose to a crescendo. “Give me a guilty verdict so I can do exactly that.”
Warner swallowed hard against the lump of emotion in his throat. During the pause in her summation. Carolyn’s face had drained of color. magnifying the dark circles that pooled around her eyes.
Although the physical ramifications Carolyn suffered during the child-abuse trials were obvious. Warner could only guess at the emotional scars. But he knew that regardless of the personal toll, these trials intensified her commitment to righting the wrongs that harmed children.
He felt an overwhelming desire to draw his wife to him, to wrap her in his arms and protect her. Warner pulled a business card and pen from his pocket then wrote:
TWO
Warner arrived home at nine-fifteen that evening. Carolyn’s car was parked in the garage. and he knew she’d be unwinding upstairs in their bedroom. He tiptoed into the kitchen and rifled through cupboards, finding two crystal champagne flutes and a silver ice bucket.
Grasping the flutes in one hand and a bottle of Dom Perignon and the ice bucket in the other, he made his way up the stairs. With the tip of his toe. he gently pushed open the door to the master suite.
Unaware of his presence. Carolyn sat propped up against the pillows of their four-poster bed, legs stretched out in front of her, reading. Her shoes lay haphazardly on the floor, her suit jacket tossed across the nearby desk chair, and stacks of briefs and documents surrounded her.
“What’s all this?” Warner asked. “Tonight you’re supposed to celebrate. You won.”
Carolyn jumped. “You startled me.”
Warner raised his voice and the champagne flutes in unison. “Guilty on all counts – it’s all over the news. Or did they forget to tell you?”
A smile lit her deep brown eyes. She placed the brief she was reading on the pile beside her. “You should have seen Roit’s face. And Jessica’s. Thank you. sweetheart, but really the work has just begun. Now that I’ve got him, I want to make sure he goes away forever.”
Warner sat by her side, opened the champagne. and filled the glasses. “Surely you can take off a few hours.” Their eyes met and held. He leaned over and kissed her. “Congratulations,” he whispered against her lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered back.
“Did I tell you how gorgeous you looked on the five o’clock news?” Warner unbuttoned her silk blouse.
“No. you neglected to mention that.” she purred.
He kissed her neck. “Maybe now that the case is over, we can get down to creating the next generation of Lanes.”
Carolyn stiffened. Warner leaned back and looked into her face. She avoided his gaze as she pulled herself out of his embrace. “I can’t do this right now. I – I really have to work.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just-”
“Just what? We aren’t getting any younger. It’s time to start our family. Hell, it’s way past time.” he said.
“Worried about your biological clock?” She forced a laugh at her lame joke.
He shook his head. “What happened to all our plans of a big family? Lots of kids? Shit, that’s all we used to
