Steven Womack - By Blood Written

Ms. Hooper nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“And on or about March twenty-fourth of last year, were you provided with a sample of carpet removed from the trunk of a 2004 Lincoln Town Car?”

“Yes, it was delivered to me directly at the Nashville Crime Lab.”

“And were you able to perform a PCR/STR analysis of this sample?”

“Yes, sir, I was.”

“Would you tell us the results, please?”

Ms. Hooper stepped to the side of the board and pointed to a series of photographs and charts. “As this graph explains, we look for certain pointers, or loci, which are areas on the actual DNA string that are unique to each individual. As you can see here, the material we obtained from the carpet matches both the samples discovered at the Charlotte Avenue Dumpster site and at the crime scene itself. The pointers match here-”

She tapped on the board.

“-and here-”

Again. The tapping echoed throughout the silent courtroom.

“-here and here and here.”

“So,” Collier said, his voice rising even higher, “in your expert opinion, the samples obtained at the crime scene, at the Dumpster, and on the defendant’s rental car all share the same DNA and therefore could only have come from Sarah Denise Burnham and Allison May Matthews!”

“Yes,” Ms. Hooper said, nodding her head. “That’s correct.”

My God , Taylor thought. Merciful God in heaven! He did it!

Thursday afternoon, Nashville

The bubble that had been slowly growing somewhere deep in Taylor’s subconscious had suddenly burst through to the surface. It was no longer something she could hide from or run away from. It was, she knew, inescapable. The defense lawyers would throw up every argument imaginable to convince the jury that the police had framed Michael, had set him up to vindicate their own incompetence.

Taylor knew better, though. He had done it.

Michael Schiftmann was a murderer.

How she knew this, beyond the evidence she’d seen earlier in the courtroom, she wasn’t sure. But over the past eight or nine months, ever since the first rumors of the indictment had leaked out of the DA’s office, she had begun to look at him in a different way. There had always been something in Michael’s makeup of artifice, or if not exactly artifice, at least masking. She had known him for years, had slipped into being in love with him almost without knowing it, had been swept along by her own loneliness and the passion within her that he had tapped into and found in a way no one else ever had.

But all along, Taylor realized that she never really knew him. Never really knew him deep inside, in his core.

In his heart.

And now she knew why.

Judge Forsythe had recessed court for the evening after the TBI crime lab agent had testified for more than two hours. Tomorrow morning, Wes Talmadge would go after her, tooth and nail. Taylor felt sorry for the young woman.

Michael looked ashen, almost gray as they all waded out of the courthouse through the crowd, past the cameras, and to Talmadge’s car. For the first time, Taylor saw what almost looked like fear on his face. The shouted questions from the reporters echoed in her ears like the background noise in a riot.

As they walked out of the courthouse and down the steps in the fading twilight, the January wind sharp and bitter around them, Taylor tried to keep her head down, to avoid eye contact with any of them. But someone jammed a microphone out of the mass of bodies directly in front of her, almost hitting her in the face. She jerked her head up, dodged to her right, and through a break in the crowd, saw him.

The FBI agent … Powell, that was his name. He was staring right through her. She had seen him several times before at the trial, had noticed him sitting in the back of the courtroom spectator gallery, but she had avoided really seeing him.

Now she couldn’t help it. They stared directly at each other for what seemed like several moments, then the crowd shifted and Taylor was shoved forward.

Everyone was silent in the car as they maneuvered through the thick, nearly impenetrable Nashville rush-hour traffic.

Carey Talmadge, grim-faced and tired, drove, with Taylor in the front seat next to her. Talmadge and Michael sat in the back. Finally, Talmadge spoke up.

“Don’t worry,” he said out of nowhere, “we knew this was coming. We get our turn tomorrow.”

Taylor turned, suddenly angry. “I didn’t know it was coming! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told you that they’d be throwing some things at us that looked bad,” Michael said defensively. “We can counter everything they’ve got.”

Taylor shifted back in her seat and stared out the front of the car. She clenched her jaw, regretting her outburst.

“Look, folks,” Talmadge said. “We’ve got to stay calm and keep cool here. This ain’t over by a long shot. Not by a helluva long shot.”

“Great,” Michael mumbled, “I’ve got an attorney that says

‘ain’t.’ “

Talmadge turned and glared at Michael, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve got an attorney that speaks the same language as your jury, hotshot. If I were you, I’d try not to forget that.”

At the hotel, Taylor and Michael got out of the car quickly and slipped into the hotel, unnoticed, through a side door.

They walked quickly across the cavernous lobby, their footsteps silent on the thick carpet. They hurried to the bank of elevators and were lucky enough to get one alone.

“Can we have dinner together?” Michael asked quietly as the elevator door slid shut.

Taylor stared at the front of the elevator, her hands at her side. “Michael, I’m not hungry. I don’t think I could eat a thing.”

“Well,” he said, as the floor buttons above them lighted one after the other. “Would you spend the night in my room tonight? We could really use some time alone together. It’s been a while.”

Taylor felt her stomach convulse, then tensed, trying to hide it. “I’m exhausted. It’s been an awful day. I think I’ll just take a bath and read for a while, then go to bed early.”

Michael turned and faced the front of the elevator next to her. “This isn’t working very well, is it?”

“I’m just tired, Michael. Having your fiance on trial for murder tends to take a lot out of you.”

The buttons above them clicked from 9 to 10.

“You’re not starting to believe them, are you?” Michael asked.

“Can we not do this now?” Taylor whispered.

The elevator door opened on their floor and they stepped out into the hallway. Michael’s room was two doors down from hers. They stopped as he pulled out his key card. “I’ll just get room service, I guess. I can’t exactly go walking around downtown, seeing the sights. I’ll just watch a movie and go to bed, I guess.”

Taylor nodded. “I hope you get some sleep.”

Michael pushed the door open. “Listen, you change your mind, all you’ve got to do is knock on the door.”

Taylor nodded. “Good night,” she said.

Then he was gone.

Taylor walked down to her room and ran her credit card-size electronic room key through the reader, then walked in. The room was cold, the air dry and stale. She tossed her bag down on a chair, took off her overcoat and hung it in the closet, then sat on the edge of the bed and took off her shoes.

Her feet hurt; her head pounded.

She still couldn’t believe it.

But she had to believe it.

The pounding in her head quickened. She realized she was hungry, that the headache was probably the result of a blood-sugar crash. She needed to eat, but she couldn’t imagine putting food in her mouth.

She wandered into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Deep dark purple pockets nestled under her eyes, visible even through the makeup. Her eyes were bloodshot.