A Raging Dawn by C. J. Lyons Read Free Book Online Page B

too cold for tears. Unlike Devon, he didn’t twist and spin or play on the swings. Instead, he closed the space between us and took my hand in his.
    “Are you okay?” he asked. The question had many layers, like the man himself. He’d been a detective with the Major Case squad before being demoted to work Advocacy Center cases. Only, Ryder didn’t consider it a demotion.
    “I need—” I broke off, no words to encompass all I needed.
    He filled the void my silence left in its wake. “How about if I drive you home?”
    Without me answering, Ryder guided me to my feet and helped me into my coat. Good thing, because now that my fugue had passed, I was suddenly shivering.
    “Not home,” I said as we walked toward his car, a city-owned gray Taurus parked in front of St. Timothy’s, where it wouldn’t block the official vehicles clustered at the opposite end of the block around the Tower. I stared at the Tower, counting down from the rooftop where I’d killed Leo last month, to the floor where Tymara lived. My insides twisted, and my mouth went dry. Where Tymara died. “To court.”
    “Court? The case is over without your witness.”
    “Maybe not. I need to talk to Manny Cruz. He’s the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case.” I could have called Manny, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t approve of the faint inkling of a plan that I was formulating. Maybe I should go straight to the judge? I wasn’t sure if that was against the rules or not; honestly I didn’t have enough energy to care.
    We arrived at Ryder’s car. He opened the door for me. For a moment as I settled into the seat, I was looking up at his face, his eyes a shade darker than the sky behind him, his expression one of warm concern. “Sure you’re okay?”
    My jaw clenched, and I couldn’t answer. Everything hit me at once. Louise’s diagnosis; seeing Tymara, so young, her life full of promise, turned into a thing, an object, something less than human. Anger shook through me, an invisible earthquake, fierce and hot, unstable.
    Ryder surprised me. I thought I was so good at containing my emotions, locking them into invisible Pandora’s boxes, showing the world only what I wanted it to see. But I couldn’t hide from Ryder. He crouched inside the open car door and bundled me into his arms, holding me so tightly that the strangled feeling in my chest finally eased and I could breathe again.
    He knew better than to offer empty platitudes or promises destined to be broken. Instead, he simply held me, shielding me from any prying eyes, giving me time to glue together the pieces of my shattered facade.
    “I’m here,” he whispered. “Just tell me what you need.”
    I needed him. A desperate need that shamed me with its intensity. But as my plan crystallized, I pulled away, took a deep breath to prove to myself that I could, that I was in control. Of something. Anything.
    “I need to see Eugene Littleton and his partners fry in Hell,” I told him.
    Ryder squinted at me, assessing more than my words, then nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s see what we can do about that.”
     
     

Chapter 7
     
     
    JACOB VOORSANGER GLANCED at his watch. Ten thirteen. Something was wrong.
    He and his client, Eugene Littleton, waited at the defense table in Judge Shaw’s courtroom. The courtroom, with its high-arched ceiling crisscrossed by thick wooden beams, lit from overhead by a century-old, cobwebbed chandelier and from the sides by stained-glass windows depicting Justice in all her glory, reminded him of a European cathedral.
    Cathedral of justice. Jacob liked that. Liked the way the air, despite the many drafts, felt different inside the courtroom. Not just this courtroom, any courtroom. Heavier, filled with gravitas. Life-and-death decisions weighed in the balance.
    Sometimes, when the reality of the law with its wheeling and dealing and hairsplitting grew too stressful, Jacob liked to come into an empty courtroom like this one and simply sit in