John Lescroart - The 13th Juror

Which it was. He sits there in his chair for about an hour and then – real calm again, which should have been a warning – he says he's going to go out for a while and think about things.

By midnight he's not home and I finally fall asleep.

I wake up screaming, but there's a sock or something in my mouth and I can't breathe or make any noise and there's this awful awful pain down… down in me… and Ned's on top of me, holding me down.

The next day I can't move. My insides feel broken, ripped up, I still can't breathe, there's blood on the sheets and my hands are tied to the bed. I see that my closet is open and half the clothes are pulled out, cut into shreds, thrown around the room. On the floor I see the knife – it's a butter knife – he's used the dull end, poking it in me.

I wake up again and he's there, untying me, he's straight again. Helps me get in the bath. I'm scared every second now. He's being calm and says he can make things disappear without a trace. I'll find out it's true, he says.

So I take a sick day – I couldn't have gone in anyway – and then it's the weekend and one of the nights Ned has scored some coke and he wants me to get high with him. We'll have fun, he says. It'll be like old times. What old times? I never used drugs.

Well, I can't do it. I'm so scared, I'm still hurting bad. Ned starts to get upset with me again – I've got to stop that. I can't take it any more, not right them, so I try to be nice, do what he wants, and he wants to have sex.

Can you believe this? I'm pleading with him, saying I hurt real bad, but he says so what, I'm his wife, get on your back. And I do. And I'm not sure at the moment I'm going to die.

But I don't. That was the worst, not dying. You know how many times I wished I had just died then? How many other times? I mean, truly die, not wake up, just be gone from all this? And believe me, once you feel that – like you really want to die – it's not too far to want someone else to be dead. Why does it have to be me?

I wake up sometime early and Ned is lying next to me, not moving. For a long time I watch him, thinking, hoping, he might be dead. I pinch him in the leg and there's no reaction, then he snores or snorts or something. But the idea stays, the germ of it.

A couple of days go by and I'm starting to heal and things look different, the way they do. No one really wants to believe there's no hope, do they? Even though, really, there isn't.

I'm back at work, I'm putting Harlan off with some excuse and suddenly I realize I haven't seen Boots – Boots was my cat – I haven't seen her in days. Sitting at the front desk at Harlan's, then, all of a sudden, I just know, the only way out, what I have to do.

Don't kid yourself, there wasn't any escape. Ned can make things disappear without a trace. He was proving it. I was next.

I arrange it so he thinks we're going to get high. I'm sorry I've been so difficult. I'll be a fun person the way I used to be…

This time it's easy. I give him the shot, take a long hot shower, drive out to the beach and bury the stuff, go to my parents' house for breakfast – just visiting, which I still did back then. When I get back home I call the police, tell them my husband's had an accident.

John Lescroart

Hardy 04 – 13th Juror, The

The tiny airless interview room smelled of sweat and wet wool.

Freeman sat, legs crossed, in the chair that he had pushed back against the wall in the corner away from the door.

Hardy's mouth was dry, his back stiff. He had not moved a muscle in fifteen minutes. He found that he believed every word that she had said, and was struggling to keep his perspective. "You could probably have pled that as a Murder Two," he said, "which would take it out of capital."

Freeman said, "We got a dismissal. That takes it out of capital, too."

"I don't care what the law says." Jennifer brushed her hair away from her face. "I knew him. There was no other way."

"You should have tried calling the police. They could have done something." Hardy, arguing against himself now, realized how lame it sounded.

Jennifer allowed a one-note laugh. "No, they couldn't. Don't you understand? This had been going on for two years and they couldn't have done a damn thing even if they wanted to, even if they believed me."

"Why wouldn't they believe you?"

Because that's not how it really works. You should know better. You think the law's here to protect potential victims? Wrong. What the law does is punish people who've already broken the law. Until somebody's already hurt or killed, they've got no business-"

"But you were hurt. And Ned did break the law, he would have been punished-"

"Jesus, in your dreams." Jennifer looked to Freeman. "Is this guy for real? Does he live in the real world?"

"I live in the real world, Jennifer, and you can't-"

"Oh? Well listen, here's the real world. If I'm lucky, Ned gets no bail – impossible right there – and then gets a year, if that, for a first offense. Meanwhile I've got maybe a year to move, change my name and my life. Then, guess what? – Ned gets out of jail and comes and gets me, wherever I am, and I disappear just like Boots. My cat. Do I have to explain this? Do I have to draw you a picture. I'm the one whose life is ruined, if I stay alive."

Hardy leaned back in the chair and tried to stretch the crick from his neck. In the guards' room through the glass a woman had just come in for the night shift and was shaking out her raincoat, hanging it on a peg by the door, saying something to somebody outside of Hardy's vision.

"I don't know, from my perspective, I'd say Matt's life is pretty ruined. Even if Larry was beating you-"

"I've told you, Larry wasn't beating me," she said, glaring at him.

Hardy slammed the table with the flat of his palm. "Oh, cut the shit, Jennifer!" He was standing now. The chair tipped, crashed to the floor behind him. "I know for certain that Larry was beating you. I know the doctors you went to see and I know the lies you told them."

He picked up his briefcase and grabbed for the chair to set it upright. Freeman still hadn't said a word.

"I did not kill my son-"

"Good for you."

"I didn't kill Larry, either."

"Or if you did, I'm sure you had a good reason."

"I didn't, goddamn it, I didn't kill them. I have no idea who did."

Suddenly she was in his face, coming at him, arms flailing. He tried to back away but in the constrained place there was nowhere to go. The back of his knees hit the chair behind him and he lost his balance, falling over.

Somehow Freeman had gotten between them and maneuvered Jennifer back down into her seat, giving the high sign that everything was all right to the guards through the window. Hardy was pulling himself up, and Freeman, who was aware that he stood blocking the exit, said that in his experience every trial worth its salt produced at least one good display of honest emotion. "I think we can all get through this," he said. "It's to all our advantage."

John Lescroart

Hardy 04 – 13th Juror, The

It had been a tense five minutes, but they were all seated again, clustered around the table. Hardy had agreed to talk, to listen. Now he stared at his partner. "You don't care what, in fact, happened, David. You've made that point a hundred times."

"No, that's not strictly true. What I said was that, legally, it doesn't matter what the facts are if they can't be proven. Personally, though, I care. I care a great deal. It's why I'm a lawyer. Which is telling you more than you deserve to know. I could ruin my reputation."

Hardy turned to Jennifer. "Here's a quick-quiz question. Did Larry beat you or not?"

"Yes." Finally.

"A lot?"