Page 57 of Michael's Awakening
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael
A Few Weeks Later
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep, calming breath. This damn case would be the death of me.
Gary Reynolds, the man accused of abusing his twin children, was on the verge of being released because of a damn screw-up. The sick bastard had confessed to his crimes, but the damn fax I just received informed me that the confession was thrown out due to evidence that it may have been coerced by one of the police officers.
That confession was what the prosecution was relying on most for conviction. With that confession, everything was going smoothly for the trial process. Confessions from the accused are the strongest forms of evidence that can be brought to trial, but now that there was evidence that the confession could be false, the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession must be assessed.
The outcome of the case looked bad. Really bad. When the jury heard that the confession was coerced, other questions would arise and convicting the sick bastard would be much harder. It would just end up looking like the mother falsely accused the man out of spite due to trouble in their marriage. Which happened quite frequently in this line of work.
I honestly believed the man to be guilty, and that’s why my blood boiled at the unexpected turn the of the case.
Sitting in my office, I slammed the papers down on my desk and stood up from my chair. The court date was set for the next Monday, Decembertwenty-second, so I had just a little under a week to figure out something to present to the judge and defense attorney or the case would be dismissed. Pacing in front of the window to my office, I thought of those two small children who’d never have justice for that fucking sorry piece of shit that wronged them, if I failed.
I needed their testimonies.
When I suggested that option previously, their mother shut me down and informed me that she didn’t want the children testifying during the trial. She said she’d testify in their place, but that wouldn’t help the prosecution’s case much, since she hadn’t witnessed the abuse first-hand. Her testimony would just be a form of hearsay and she wouldn’t be an effective witness.
After hearing about the coerced confession, however, I had called the mother and informed her of the unfortunate direction the case had turned and she agreed that having the children testify might be a possibility.
Mightbeing the key word there.
Crimes of sexual abuse were some of the most difficult to prove, mainly due to the lack of evidence. It was normally a crime committed in private, with no eyewitnesses. So, the child’s testimony was of great importance to the success of the case. However, it was somewhat of a double-edged sword.
If the only evidence I had was the children’s testimonies and nothing else, the defense attorney would kick my ass during the cross-examination and try to prove that their allegations were tainted by a faulty memory or swayed by hearing the publicity of the case circulate, or by being swayed by their mother’s words.
I’d need to corroborate the evidence, but so far, I hadn’t been able to discover any past crimes from the defendant. His record appeared to be clean.
Fuck.
Pulling out my phone, I looked at the time and sighed. I would need to work late that night if I was going to get this done in time. Finding Gabriel’s number, I called him.
“Hey, my sexy stud,” Gabriel answered, making me smile.
Damn, I missed him already. I didn’t know how I was going to stay away from him for a few more hours.
“Hey, Princess, I’m going to have to work late tonight. An unexpected situation arose with my case and it’s going to cause me to pull some major strings.”
“Oh.” I heard the disappointed tone in his voice and it killed me. “That’s okay. I haven’t seen Melissa in a while, so maybe I could call her over for some girl time.”
I heard his car chime as he opened the door and started the ignition. He’d gotten his car back from the shop a week ago and it looked even better than it had before it had been vandalized. I might’ve had something to do with that, but I’d never tell him. He hated when I spent money on him, which of course just made me want to spend it on him even more.
I smiled at his reference to himself as a girl.
“That sounds good, Angel.” I stood by the window and looked outside. The weather was cold, but the sun was shining bright in the sky. It was a beautiful day. Too bad I’d have to be stuck inside all day, and probably a good portion of the evening as well. “Tell Mel I said hello.”
I’d met Gabriel’s friend Melissa a few days after Thanksgiving, and she was everything Gabriel told me she would be. It was reassuring to know he had a great friend like her.
“I will.”
Gabriel sighed and I held the phone close to my ear, wishing I could be with him. Being in love was sometimes a pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Gabriel was my entire life. I knew that sounded cliché, but it was true. Not a day had passed since our first date that I hadn’t seen him. And ever since I showed him my scars and told him about my past, not a night had gone by without him lying next to me. Sometimes we stayed at his apartment, but mostly we stayed the night at my house. He loved the tranquility and solitude that my home gave to us, and I loved being anywhere, just as long as he was beside me.
If I had it my way, I would just have him move in with me. I didn’t want to pressure him, though, so I had decided to bring up that topic at a later date.
