Order in the Court Read online

  Order in the Court

  By Casey Lawrence

  The Survivor’s Club: Book Two

  After witnessing the murders of her three best friends and having their killer arrested, seventeen-year-old Corey Nguyen is having trouble adjusting to life after high school. As a freshman in college, all she wants is to put her dark past behind her, make some new friends, and keep her head down.

  Her new world comes crashing down when the killer changes his plea to not guilty, claiming he was coerced into a confession. Corey must now testify in a murder trial, making the panic attacks and flashbacks to the night of the murders intensify. To top it all off, she’s pretty sure her mother is having an affair with the prosecuting attorney. To Corey’s dismay, the story clearly doesn’t end with the murder of her friends.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  May 26th

  December 5th

  May 26th

  April 10th

  September 3rd

  May 26th

  September 24th

  May 26th

  September 30th

  October 7th

  May 26th

  October 7th

  November 12th

  May 26th

  December 2nd

  November 23rd

  May 26th

  April 1st

  March 24th

  May 26th

  October 13th

  January 16th

  November 25th

  October 31st

  May 3rd

  December 15th

  January 3rd

  May 27th

  March 24th

  January 25th

  May 20th

  May 24th

  May 29th

  May 30th

  June 15th

  June 26th

  More from Casey Lawrence

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  About the Author

  Visit Harmony Ink Press

  Copyright Page

  For my mother, Heather, who always believed in me and never let me watch Law & Order: SVU.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my parents, for encouraging my love of reading and writing and for supporting my crazy dreams. Dad, this one was your idea! Thank you to Billy Dickerson for being my sounding board, first reader, and an incredible long-distance friend. Thank you to Mr. Balsom for being the very first person to preorder Out of Order and for making my high school experience exactly what I needed it to be. Thank you to my English teachers in high school, Mr. Poloniato, Mr. Fast, Mrs. Smith, and to all of my English professors at Brock, but especially Dr. Conley, Dr. Pendakis, and Dr. Allard, for indulging my love of literature and my off-the-wall ideas. Thank you to all of my friends (you know who you are). Thank you to Mr. Williamson for fostering my interest in law and social justice, to Collin for making me ask the big questions, to Christy for having my back, and to Steve for accepting all of my crazy. Thank you to the lovely people on Twitter and Tumblr who pushed me to finish the first draft, to NaNoWriMo for its continued support of writers across the globe, and to NaNoWriMo Niagara for being the community I needed to finish the bulk of this book in November 2014. To everyone mentioned here and many more, this book belongs to you: I couldn’t have done it without any of you.

  May 26th

  MY PALMS were wet, and I wiped them carefully on the pleats of the beige skirt I had borrowed for the occasion. It belonged to Ricky, but her dad said I could have it. The blouse, teal cotton, was my mother’s. I felt as if I was sweating through it. My thighs were sticking to the sleek, polished bench under them. In my lap was a copy of my sworn statement, the edges wet with perspiration, the paper creased from constant folding and unfolding.

  I couldn’t forget or change the slightest detail, or my testimony would be thrown out. That’s what my lawyer told me. The real one, the prosecutor, not my mother.

  Being a witness is not what it looks like on television. You can’t be in the courtroom before you testify. You have to know your testimony backward and forward. Don’t lose your temper, don’t answer too quickly (but don’t hesitate for too long, either), don’t estimate times, don’t volunteer information, and don’t look to your lawyer for help, even if you don’t understand the question. Always ask for clarification.

  It was like an exam—the biggest test of my life. Worse than the SATs, worse than any test I’d ever taken, because this test would determine whether the man who killed three people I love would pay for it, or go free. It was a test recorded forever from a dozen camera angles, a test that would be taped and transcribed, reported on in the newspaper, forever public record.

  When it was my turn, I handed my mother the damp, creased pages of my sworn statement and followed the bailiff to the stand. He was black, over six feet tall, and had broad shoulders and hands the size of dinner plates. His face reminded me of Robert Shay, with his quiet strength and broad nose, but when the bailiff briefly touched my back as I climbed into the box, I did not feel comforted. He was not Robert.

  “Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  Right hand raised, left hand on the Bible, I said, “I do.”

  My palm left a sweaty circle on the cover of the Bible. I would have affirmed instead of sworn, but for Jessa. Her parents were in the audience, their eyes trying to meet mine. I resolutely did not look at them, though my swearing on the Bible was more for them than for anything, since I do not believe in God.

  I did not look at the Fuenteses behind the prosecutor, or at Mr. O’Brien in the second row, or at my parents beside the Fuenteses, or at Amanda Barrett, on the other side of the courtroom, seated behind her son. I did not look at Dustin, in his crisp suit. The prosecutor stood and I looked at him only, his flat gray eyes and gray pinstripe suit, his silver tie embroidered with tiny white flowers, his slicked-back gray hair. His name was Harry Haywood. He was a ghost, no color even in his cheeks or lips, but he was kind. He had coached me for this.

  A clerk said, “Please state your full name for the record.” I did not look in her direction.

  “Corinna Mai Nguyen,” I said, remembering just in time not to shorten my name to Corey, though I’d practiced this part a hundred times. I almost winced but held it back. A little stutter so early wouldn’t hinder the case. Seventeen-year-olds are allowed to be nervous in court.

  “Your witness, prosecution,” said Judge William Gillis, sounding exactly as he had in the video clips Mr. Haywood had shown me before the trial—his voice was booming, a heavy undercurrent of bass that made him sound perpetually angry, even when it was clear that he was not. I had been told not to be intimidated by him. He was fair, methodical, and a good pick for this case: he had two daughters of college age.

  “Corinna,” said Mr. Haywood, using my first name to make me seem younger and more familiar to the jury. He’d told me all his tricks. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen, sir. I turn eighteen in a couple of weeks.” Youth and innocence were on my side, making me a compelling witness. I had my hair pinned back in a bow, wore no makeup, and stood only five foot five in flat shoes.

  “And where do you go to school, Corinna?”

  “McMinn University,” I answered.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be in college?” Haywood looked at the jury, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

  “I was identified as gifted in the first grade and put ahead a year in school when we moved out of the city,” I started, finding the easy flow of conversation Haywood and I had practiced. But that familiarity was instantly taken from me.

  “Objection,” the defense lawyer said dispassionately, barely glancing away from her fingernails to look to the judge. “Relevance?”

  The judge looked to Haywood, who shrugged and said, “Establishing the character of the witness, Your Honor.”

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said, but it was already too late. My nerves had been fried by the interruption. Going off-script had never been part of the practice for direct examination. I’d been ready for it in cross-examination—no telling what the defense would ask—but not so soon.

  “Corinna,” Haywood started again, his voice lulling and soft, trying to counteract the boom of Judge Gillis. “Tell me about Erica O’Brien.”

  I heard Mr. O’Brien’s sharp intake of breath. Phillip and I had seen more of each other in the past few months than we had during the entirety of my friendship with his daughter. It was a shame, really, that he hadn’t been around much for the last months of Ricky’s life.

  “I called her Ricky,” I started, taking a deep breath to steady myself. We’d skipped over some of the script—I was supposed to tell the jury about being valedictorian last year, about my volunteer efforts and prefect duties, about the Gay-Straight Alliance I’d helped to form. I didn’t mind the change of pace; I’d never been completely comfortable talking about myself anyway. This was easier. “She thought that Erica was too girly and uppity sounding, so she made everyone start calling her Ricky in the fifth grade.” I smoothed my hands on her skirt again. “I’m wearing a skirt borrowed from her closet today. We were about the same size.” I smiled a sad little smile, risking a glance at the jury. “Ladies’ extra small.”

  December 5th

  “YOU CAN take anything you want,” Phillip said roughly. His voice always had a tired edge to it now. I didn’t ask if the nightmares were ba
ck. “I’m sure some of it’s yours, anyway.”

  I picked up a cardigan off the back of Ricky’s desk chair and folded it. “This is Jessa’s, actually,” I said, barely believing that he hadn’t been in her room even to pick up the mess strewn everywhere, but the room was like a time capsule; dirty laundry in the hamper, bed left unmade, a book held open next to her pillow by a pen stuck down the middle. “I’ll give it back to her parents for you. They’re donating whatever the girls don’t want to keep.”

  Phillip nodded. “Thanks for doing this, Corey.” He awkwardly rubbed at the stump of his left shoulder, a habit that used to freak me out when I was younger. I knew it caused him pain now; sometimes a tingle or an itch he couldn’t scratch, sometimes the phantom pain of a bone splintering out of skin that no longer existed. In a T-shirt, the absence of his arm was even more noticeable than when he pinned an empty sleeve to his side.

  I looked away guiltily, realizing I was staring again. “It’s no trouble,” I said, absently petting Jessa’s cardigan. “I helped the Fuenteses a few weeks ago.” The cardigan felt soft and cool, having sat unworn for months in this room. I tried to remember if I’d seen Ricky wearing it, if she had borrowed it for a special occasion, or if Jessa had simply forgotten it here—but nothing came to mind. It was too long ago.

  A few of my things had been among Jessa’s when I helped her parents clean out her room, but not many. Much of the stuff I’d carried off in the cardboard box I’d taken home were things of hers, the things that her family didn’t mind me having. Pictures of the four of us, a book she’d promised to lend me, some clothes and things. Nothing of value, nothing that Jessa’s little sisters would want later.

  The cardigan would make its way into Mary-Ellen’s closet, or else a donation bin. I smoothed out Ricky’s comforter and placed it on her bed, starting a pile of things I’d take with me. I would take it to the Fuenteses the next time they invited me for dinner, which was often.

  “You can have anything you want,” Phillip reminded me again. “I don’t have any use for… clothes and things. Makeup. Shoes.” He leaned against the doorway, not crossing the threshold. “If you find any pictures, I would want to—I mean, you can have copies, but—”

  “Of course,” I said smoothly, opening the jewelry box on Ricky’s night table. In it were some things of her mother’s: a cross on a delicate chain, a pair of gold earrings, a few tarnished rings. I took out a tangle of bracelets; some of them were homemade, beads strung by Kate or Jessa or myself. Those I added to Jessa’s cardigan on the bed.

  “Friendship bracelets,” I said, looking toward the doorway, but Phillip had disappeared. I could hear his heavy steps heading toward the kitchen.

  From Ricky’s closet I took a few items of clothing I wanted to keep. Some T-shirts, a pair of ripped jeans, and the baggy sweater with the elbow patches I liked; we didn’t have a similar style, although we were about the same size. Cautiously, I poked through the fancier side of her closet, passing dress after dress I’d never seen her wear. Pink and lacy things, for weddings and parties I didn’t attend. I was looking for something to wear to court, something nice. The prosecutor mentioned my jeans and T-shirts every time I saw him, reminding me time and again that juries don’t like “average” teenagers. I needed to dress for my IQ, look studious and not like a slouch.

  Phillip reappeared in the doorway. I pulled a respectable-looking beige skirt from the back of the closet. The pleats in the front were fastidiously ironed in straight lines I’d never have been able to replicate if I were the one washing it.

  “May I borrow this?” I asked, holding it up.

  “You can have it,” he said.

  “I won’t need to keep it… I just need something respectable for the trial.”

  Phillip’s brow furrowed a little, but he shrugged his one shoulder absently, nearly spilling the cup of tea in his hand. “You always look respectable, Corey. You’ve grown into a very respectable young woman.” He awkwardly looked down at his tea and took a huge gulp, probably burning his mouth.

  I glanced down at myself, dressed in a baggy flannel shirt of my father’s thrown over a Batman T-shirt and jeans. “Juries are picky, I guess,” I said, thinking of Mr. Haywood’s words. “And if I’m going to be a piece of evidence, I have to be one they can trust.”

  Phillip stepped into the room and put his tea down on the desk. It was a small space; he barely had to take two of his huge steps in order to lay his hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to do great,” he said gruffly, his voice low and hollow, as though it came right out of his chest. His hand was heavy on my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what you wear, or even what you say. The jury is going to know they can trust you. You’re a good girl.”

  “Ricky was a good girl too,” I said, and his hand clenched down on my shoulder for a fraction of a second before Phillip let go and pulled it back, stuffing it in the front pocket of his jeans. “I just want to do right by her.”

  Ricky’s father nodded solemnly, and then looked at the skirt in my hands. “You sure that won’t be too short?” he joked. He sounded so fatherly I couldn’t help but smile as I held it to my waist, where it hung to my knees. It would’ve been shorter on Ricky, who was all legs. “No, you’re right. That’s the perfect thing.” He sounded sad. How often would he be able to judge a skirt for appropriate length now that his little girl was gone?

  My smiled dropped. I added the skirt to the few things I wanted to keep for myself. “I’ll give it back after the trial,” I said. “I’m just borrowing it.”

  “Keep it for as long as you need.” Phillip picked up his mug again, looking around the room. “This place is an absolute pigsty. For a girl who I taught how to make hospital corners, she sure was a mess.” He sounded incredibly fond as he ran his fingers along her bookcase, which had accumulated a layer of dust in her absence.

  “We all were, I think. I’m still a mess.” I put the things I was going to take in a bag I’d brought and then set about sorting the rest into piles of “keep” and “give away.” Every object that got put into the “give away” pile was like a stone falling into my stomach, hard and obstructive.

  Some teenaged girls were going to buy Ricky’s things from the thrift store and never know the girl who had so lovingly hung her collection of skirts in order of length or color or, once, alphabetically by store. Obsessive, I’d called it then. Joked about it. Laughed. It felt wrong taking her things out of the order she’d so meticulously kept them in. How she could stand her room being such a mess when her closet was so neat I’d never know.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Phillip said again, from the doorway, where he’d once again set up vigil with his mug of tea. I could see, in the set of his jaw, the military-straight back, and the clench of his fist around the mug’s handle, why some people were intimidated by him; I could also see the man who sat a tiny seven-year-old Ricky on his lap for bedtime stories, sewed a sparkly patch onto the ripped knee of her favorite pair of jeans in the fourth grade, and braided her hair every morning for years with only one hand. I was not scared of this man, straight-backed in the doorway. I felt incredibly sorry for him, for his compounded loss of limb, wife, and now daughter.

  “Thanks for letting me” is what I responded this time, feeling the weight of the words in my chest. I was thankful to be here, thankful to be able to help. Having my hands all over Ricky’s things was a bit like touching her again; the clothes still smelled like her, even after all this time.

  May 26th

  “RICKY WAS the quiet type, shy. She wanted to make everybody happy, so she’d always go along with whatever we wanted to do. Whenever I wanted to join a new club, she was always the person willing to sign up with me, even if it was something she wasn’t interested in. She was just that good a friend.”

  Haywood bobbed his head, nodding as he walked confidently across the courtroom. “Would she ever hurt someone? Pick fights, get in trouble?”

  “Never,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “She wanted to study nursing so she could work in a retirement home helping the elderly. You couldn’t convince her to say a bad word about anyone, even if they really deserved it. She always saw the best in people. It made her a little naive, maybe, but we loved her for it.”