Sweet Anger(17)
Pinkie was sitting across the room beside the open window. Bonnie had dictated that if he insisted on smoking, he had to sit by the window. With unaccustomed meekness, he had complied. Not out of deference to Bonnie, but to Kari. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”
“Empty,” she said softly. Neither he nor Bonnie missed the fragile hand that smoothed down her concave abdomen.
“For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell us you were pregnant? Why didn’t you—”
“Pink-ie,” Bonnie ground out.
He glowered at her and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “I was only going to say that if we had known, we would have made damned sure she took better care of herself.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Pinkie,” Kari said. “There’s only one person to blame for this.” Hunter McKee, Hunter McKee, Hunter McKee, her brain chanted. How she hated the name.
The doorbell startled them all. Pinkie jumped up to answer it. “Is Mrs. Kari Stewart Wynne here?” the uniformed official asked.
“No,” Pinkie said curtly and was about to close the door.
“It’s all right, Pinkie,” Kari said from her resting place. “I’ve been expecting this. It’s a subpoena, right?” she asked the official as he stepped around Pinkie into the room.
“That’s right, ma’am.” He laid the document in her outstretched hand and took his leave as briskly as he’d come. Pinkie called him a rude name and slammed the door behind him.
“I’m to appear in court on the seventeenth,” she said, reading from the subpoena.
“The seventeenth?” Bonnie said. “That’s only—”
“The day after tomorrow!” Pinkie finished for her. “Out of the question. I’ll call McKee myself, tell him the circumstances, tell him—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Kari said, springing erect. The sudden motion taxed her strength. She fell back onto the cushions. “I’ll be there when I’m supposed to be.”
“But you can’t,” Pinkie protested. “You can barely make it from bed to chair. My God, Kari, you’ve had your insides scraped out. …”
“Pinkie, shut up!” Bonnie yelled. “You’ve got about as much tact as a steamroller. Now be quiet.” Properly subdued, he hunched down in his chair. Bonnie knelt beside Kari and took her hand. “Honey, are you sure you should put yourself through that right now? It would be a terrible ordeal at any time, but now … Let us call him and say that you’ve been ill. We won’t mention the miscarriage if you don’t want us to. We’ll just say that you’re not feeling well.”
“No,” Kari said firmly. “He’d think I was goldbricking to avoid facing him. I won’t let that man think I’m a coward. He called it, but it’s going to be my day in court.”
She was wearing black.
He saw her the instant she entered the courtroom. It was a two-piece suit with a cream-colored blouse underneath. The skirt was narrow. The jacket fit her to perfection. All that showed of the blouse were the bow beneath her chin and an inch of cuff at her wrists. Her hair had been pulled into a short curly ponytail at her nape, secured with a sedate black velvet ribbon. There were small pearls in her ears. Her green eyes were the only vibrant color about her. They looked unusually large in her pale face.
They flickered toward him, stopped, and stared unblinkingly and emotionlessly, then gradually moved away. They didn’t come back.
She looked like a victimized angel. He had never felt so villainous.
Guy Brady, one of his junior assistants, whistled softly under his breath. “Jeez, what a looker she is. Even better in person than on TV.”
Hunter swiveled around and scowled at him so menacingly that the young attorney quickly absorbed himself in the legal briefs spread out before him.
As unobtrusively as possible, Hunter watched Kari. She took a seat in the second row. Accompanying her was a short, stocky yellow-haired man with a ruddy complexion. He hovered over her like a bodyguard.
The judge’s entrance was announced; the court was called to order; Hunter proceeded with the case he had been building against the defendants for the last few days. He called two witnesses. Their testimonies were cut and dried and only repeated information the court had heard from previous witnesses. Cross-examination was equally as boring.
The next name on Hunter’s list was Kari Stewart Wynne.
He pondered the name. This was it. Do I or don’t I? If he didn’t call on her to testify, he might have a chance at winning her confidence, and then her friendship, and eventually … Maybe, but it was an optimistic pipe dream.