“You three…two,” our lawyer clears his throat and tries to act like us being minus one is okay. “You two stand a very good chance here. So will Stefan, if and when he decides to appear for the trial date that he knows is today.”

Look at Ball Buster, Esquire, here, acting like Stefan, and I don’t know that we need Stefan to actually show up for the trial today.

“I know that we’ve dug up enough, they’re going to throw shit at us, but you can make sure none of it sticks.” I grit my teeth at our lawyer, Stewart Trelawney, who seems to have decided to call Stefan not showing up yet for court to be the final thing he’s going to put up with. This was after he made clear that he wasn’t pleased with my partners and I digging up our own dirt on Al Jefferson and then the three of us refusing to consider throwing Elodie under fire if need be. That was a shitty strategy that would have gotten his ass fired on the spot but we resisted because it was too late to fire a lawyer who was highly competent when he wasn’t being a fucking asshole. Okay, so he’s a lawyer, so he’s highly competent when he’s being an asshole.

David leans closer to me, hand gripping my shoulder. “Not many lawyers were willing to go up against Al Jefferson, so where the fuck is Stefan?”

“I don’t know,” I say loud enough for them both to hear.

Hopefully, Stefan is just running late.

David drops his hand to his side.

“The defendant may present their opening arguments now,” the judge announces.

Trelawney steps into the space between the jurors, defendants, and plaintiff, and looks over the crowd. “Ladies and gentleman of the court, today, you’ll see Titans and pillars of this community face off. It will get ugly; I won’t lie to you. In fact, that’s the important point here. Lying – a thing we all do. But sometimes, you’ll see lies have malcontent, and they do not. The story we will decode today is one that proves my defendants’ innocence. I will show you that what began with an innocent lie, my clients agreeing to not tell anyone that the plaintiff was shot rather than in a car accident, was wrapped up in a shady, unscrupulous lie involving a scandal much worse than any illicit tapes…” Trelawney wins the jurors over momentarily with his words and gets everyone considering this big moral battlefield that’s at stake. He thanks them, and I barely hear any of it as I fidget.

I want to look at Elodie but I know I need to try and focus on the trial and put our best image forward, so I resist…for now.

Al Jefferson’s lawyer, Zachary Cranston, saunters out from where he’s sitting and gives a shit eating grin. “My client’s case here today is a sad one that any city, especially one as great as Havenfield, should have to endure. Still recovering from injuries sustained and attested to be healed by the hooligan defendants, now my client must suffer the indignities that the defendants committed not just to my client but to his own family. I will demonstrate today that the professional negligence that brought this case to court is mirrored in the indecent, immoral acts that the defendants also engaged in that show they have the same disregard with their own personal decorum as they clearly did professionally…” Cranston waves toward Jefferson, like, hey look at this sick old man these big bad doctors hurt, and keeps droning on in circles with a dramatic tone that has some of the jurors actually glaring at David and me.

“…And one of them has not even bothered to appear in court, though what has been known to take up his time lately can’t be the answer.” Cranston raises an eyebrow, and he doesn’t have to say or look at Elodie, because all of the jurors shoot her looks of disdain.

Fuck, I’d say this isn’t starting out too well, is it? So far, not so good. I have to fight to keep from tapping my foot nervously, and in doing so, I tune everything out until I see Terrance making his way up to the stand.

He gives me a smile that doesn’t say, you said I’d be fine and now I’m here in court…but I’m clenching my fists at whatever is about to happen.

The lawyers start setting up and dissecting why he’s here. I got the tox screen without following proper protocol, so Cranston says my “credibility should be called into question” because I would use someone on the grounds that I saved their child’s life.

He flings the word use out like it is an expletive, and the jury is looking at me like I ate a baby instead of saving it.

“He wanted information that hadn’t been tampered with, and he knew that he could trust me!” Terrance says, and I can see him starting to sweat. “And why should we believe that instead of the much more likely scenario that he wanted someone who could tamper with the document to support these claims Julian Degraves is making about my client?”

Terrance starts stuttering, and my ears are starting to ring. I put my hand on my forehead and hope that my lawyer can dig us all out of the shit piles we’re getting shoveled into.