CHAPTER 249: CHAPTER 249 AND PULLED THE TRIGGER THREE TIMES

The judge picked up the photos she submitted and went through them for a minute before dropping them.

"You provide photos of a house claiming it’s your client’s, but I don’t see her in any one of them."

"Oh, forgive me, my lord. Those photos were taken while the entire family was out of the house. However, I have the lease document from the apartment building’s owner, Jett Adler," Jane quickly retorted, rushing back to procure the papers.

When the judge verified that she was indeed telling the truth, he dropped both hands on his desk and turned to look at the prosecutor.

"Prosecutor, from what I just saw in the photos, the defendant’s house doesn’t even have a back entrance she could have used to drag a body through."

"Also, I’d like to point out that the only reason we’re all here trying to decide if she’s guilty and should be jailed for manslaughter is because her fingerprints weren’t found anywhere else on the victim’s body besides her hair."

"So even I find what your witness said about seeing his daughter commit the murder too much of a lie, and I’m compelled to call him a liar."

Jane couldn’t help the smile threatening to break out across her face, so she lowered her head to hide it, not wanting to appear as if she were gloating.

The prosecutor, however, could see her cheeks stretch and resisted the urge to sneer.

Clamping both hands in front of him, he smiled forcefully. "I apologize if it seems that way, Your Honor, but my client has been in prison for a while now. It’s his first time, and it seems to have taken a toll on him."

Jane’s head instantly whipped toward him, eyes narrowing. "Are you saying you called a mentally unfit man to the stand to give testimony that could condemn a young woman for the rest of her life?"

He briefly glanced at her before returning his attention to the judge, continuing, "Mr. Sutton is not unfit to testify. He’s neither mentally unstable nor traumatized by his recent time in prison."

"To ensure that was indeed the case, I have a certificate of him being analyzed by a psychologist who declared him mentally stable to give a witness account today."

"And as for what he said, Your Honor, could it be that he really did see his daughter dragging someone through the back of the house?"

"Prosecutor, don’t be absurd. We’ve already established my client doesn’t have a back of the house to drag anything through..." Jane was snorting when the prosecutor returned to his desk, scrambling through his files for a moment before producing a document and waltzing back.

As he watched this happen, Jerry’s eyes followed the prosecutor until he got to the judge, then he shifted it to Kelsie.

Unlike him with several thoughts racing through his mind, she sat calmly through the court proceeding.

For someone who was also betrayed by her own father, she barely looked toward his direction.

She felt someone’s eyes on her and naturally followed the direction it came until they locked eyes.

Then she looked away after some seconds and he swallowed.

It was a closed hearing with only Daniel, the two detectives from yesterday, and a few officers stationed around the room.

Because he sat closer to the judge, Jerry could hear some of their arguments.

While he appeared calm, under the desk he was fidgeting with his fingers.

He’d clawed at his thumbnail so hard it was bleeding, yet he didn’t feel it and continued.

All he could think about was the written note that had been delivered to him in the warden’s office.

He’d had only a few hours to memorize it, then sit through a faux mental session with the prison therapist.

After that, he’d been instructed to deliver some documents anonymously to an address he didn’t even recognize.

He was already under so much stress, he couldn’t remember most of what he’d read and felt he fumbled in the testimony he gave.

If Kelsie’s lawyer found a loophole in his testimony and she escaped this charge, he’d surely be heading back into that horrible hell he just came from.

That place was the worst he’d ever been in. He’d sworn to do whatever it too never to return there, but with the way things were going...

"Don’t you see her signature on it? She bought a house! A fucking bungalow just yesterday!"

The prosecutor’s irritated voice suddenly rang through the quiet courtroom.

"Prosecutor, control your tone and refrain from using such words in my courtroom." The judge warned almost immediately, eyeing him stoically.

Jane snatched the supposed house document from him and flipped through it for a while before scoffing and pushing it into his chest.

"I don’t know what this is about, but my client never made such a transaction. First things first—she was arrested on her way to her practice after dropping off her children at school."

"Then she stayed in interrogation until noon before I had her released. I personally drove back with her to her practice afterward."

"And this document says she signed it around that time. But even if she did, she wouldn’t sign anything without me."

"You’re still a lawyer, so you should know a woman like her knows better than to sign something like that without informing me."

At this point, the prosecutor didn’t know what else to say as he had run out of evidence to prove Kelsie was guilty.

But the more smoothly Jane dismantled every claim he made, the more convinced he became that Kelsie was guilty.

Exhaling deeply, he dropped the document to his side and stepped closer to the judge, speaking more calmly, "Your Honor, I’ll say this in the most respectful way possible. If you let that woman go, you’ll be releasing a very dangerous person into the world."

"Not only will more people like Charlotte Hastings end up dead, but those responsible will feel no accountability. They’ll escape justice—just like Kelsie Sutton is doing now."

"When that happens, I want you to remember that it’s your fault, and the deaths of those people will be on your hands."

His words made the judge think, but even if the judgment was in his hands, without sufficient evidence and with a lawyer like Jane defending her, there wasn’t really much he could do about anything.

Nevertheless, he waved them off and sent them back to their seats before turning to convene with the others on the bench.

As they whispered among themselves, Kelsie glanced at the time.

It was already the end of the arraignment—and Jett wasn’t here.

Fair enough. She’d expected it.

"Turns out, I didn’t need the secret weapon after all. But if you had another lawyer, I do imagine how thrown off they would’ve been by a document suddenly appearing with your name. And it looked even genuine"

Kelsie frowned. "There was a document like that?"

She hummed, "If I hadn’t been so adamant and bombarded the prosecutor with questions about it—he would’ve insisted on checking the surveillance cameras around your practice."

"Along the line, he would’ve found out the document was signed about twenty minutes after I left, and you could’ve easily bought a house in that window and had someone mail the document to me."

"A brutal prosecutor would argue it’s probably sitting in my mailbox since I’ve been bouncing between your case and others I certainly have going on at this moment."

Kelsie shifted in her seat, eyes still pinned on the judge, then raised a question. "You’re saying something insignificant could’ve..."

She didn’t need to finish the sentence for Jane to get it.

"Mhm. Honestly, I think we got lucky. At first, I thought he was a hardcore prosecutor, but prosecutors don’t stop. They’re brutal. They walk into a courtroom with one goal: prosecute. And they don’t stop until they’ve exhausted their target."

"So you think this is a... delay." Kelsie swallowed, her eyes darting behind her as her palms suddenly turned clammy.

Jane nodded solemnly.

"It’s, unfortunately, a feeling I can’t shake. But you’ve got nothing to worry about. In a few minutes, you’ll be walking out of here a free woman."

An uncomfortable feeling overwhelmed her, and she finally realized why she’d been so calm through everything.

Gripping the chair tightly, Kelsie lowered her gaze to the goosebumps suddenly rising along her arms.

What was this?

"The court has made its decision..."

The moment the judge’s voice boomed, the door to the courtroom was kicked open, and a bare-faced Serbian Howard strolled in, both hands buried in his pockets.

"This is not an open hearing. We’ll have to ask you to leave." Two officers approached him immediately to escort him out.

But he shoved them aside with his left hand and pulled a Glock from his pocket with the right.

Just as the detectives and officers rushed him, intending to knock the weapon out of his hand, he promptly raised and aimed the Glock at Kelsie...

And pulled the trigger three times.