No One Knows Us Here(95)

“Mr. Ferguson,” she cried out a few decibels louder than before. “Did you and Rosemary Rabourne have a sexual relationship?”

Calvin slapped his hand on the table in front of us. “Objection, Your Honor!” This was a startled, angry objection. Not his style at all. I knew he was seething.

I didn’t register what Linda Murray had to say—I just heard the high-pitched, whiny cadence to her voice. The judge overruled the objection and told Sam to answer the question.

Sam didn’t shift in his seat or look the least bit uncomfortable. He said yes in such a curt, matter-of-fact way that Linda Murray looked momentarily off-kilter. She shuffled through her notes. She hadn’t been expecting him to admit it so readily, perhaps. She had wanted to beat the answer out of him in a cinematic courtroom moment.

She asked him when and for how long, and Sam said it had been about a year ago, for just a few days. She asked what the exact dates of our “affair” were, and Calvin objected to the term “affair,” and finally after Linda rephrased the question, Sam said he couldn’t recall the exact dates.

“And why did the affair—excuse me—the sexual relationship with Miss Rabourne end?”

“She ended it,” Sam said. Again, he showed no emotion whatsoever. I sat in my seat and mirrored him. No emotions. I wasn’t sure if Sam was truly over me, if he’d turned off the switch, snuffed out any shred of feeling for me, or if he was acting this way because he loved me, because he was, once again, trying to save me.

“Did she say why she wanted to end it?” Linda Murray asked.

“She said she wanted to be with Leo Glass instead,” said Sam, and the courtroom rumbled. The judge shot the crowd a warning look.

“She said—what?” Good old Linda was off her game again.

Had Sam perjured himself for me? No—he was telling the truth. I had told him I had a boyfriend. That was true.

“Asked and answered,” Calvin said, and I relaxed. He was back to his old self. We’d won this round—she hadn’t been able to prove that I’d cheated on Leo.

Right as Ms. Murray said, “No further questions,” I thought of something. I shot up in my seat and grabbed the pen right out of Calvin’s hand so I could scribble him a note: “I told him about the IUD.” I underlined it twice, ripping the page, and I gave Calvin an intense, begging look to make sure he understood the importance of this. He was already out of his seat, asking the judge for permission to approach the witness again.

“Mr. Ferguson, did you see Ms. Rabourne after her return from France?”

“Yes, I did.” Calvin got him to explain how I’d pounded on his door, beseeched him to help me. I’d dragged him up to the roof of our apartment.

“Why did she drag you there? Why not talk in the hallway, or inside one of your apartments?”

Sam told him what I was like that day, my skin prickled with an angry rash. My hair, which had been cut since he’d last seen me, was lank and tangled. I wasn’t acting like myself. I was afraid, Sam said. He could feel it radiating off me, the fear.

Linda Murray tried to object several times, but she was the one who had opened up the line of questioning in the first place, saying my relationship with Sam was relevant to establish a possible motive for the stabbing, so the judge let Calvin keep going.

The whole time Sam testified, I didn’t breathe. I sat as still as a statue in my seat, watching him. He was coming unraveled, a bit, under Calvin’s questioning. He was melting. His face had flushed, just slightly, and he ran his hands through his hair nervously.

“What was Rosemary so afraid of?” Calvin asked.

“Objection, speculation.”

Calvin held up a hand. “I’ll rephrase. What did Rosemary tell you she was afraid of?”

“She told me Leo was watching her,” Sam said. He inhaled audibly, and the pink flush deepened. The cords in his neck tensed. “She said he’d been watching her, watching her sister. She told me he’d paid her to be with him—he wasn’t her boyfriend, like I’d thought before. He was paying her.” Sam was upset now. The words were tumbling out. Linda Murray didn’t object—the jury knew this already, or they had guessed, anyway, after Sebastian St. Doug’s testimony.

Sam looked at me then, for the first time. Our eyes met, and I tried to telepathically communicate everything to him, that I didn’t want to break my promise but I had to, for his sake, but now that he was here, I needed him to help me. Please, Sam. I couldn’t go back to jail. A life sentence in prison—I couldn’t face it. I’d committed a crime, yes, a horrific crime, but locking me up forever wouldn’t undo any of it. If I got out of this, if Sam helped me get out of this, I would devote the rest of my life to—

“She told me he hurt her.” Sam’s voice shot out, carried over the courtroom. “Leo Glass hurt her. He watched her and he manipulated her and he made her get an IUD, and then, while they were in France, he tore it out.” Sam looked at the jury when he said it. “Leo Glass ripped the IUD out of her body with a pair of tweezers,” he said, and the jury, the audience, everyone seemed to gasp. I could feel it, the shock of it, ringing out.

“Thank you,” Calvin said. “No further questions.”



Our little victory didn’t stop Calvin Lewis from chewing me out afterward, as we exited the courtroom. “Never surprise me like that again,” he said into my ear. I told him I didn’t think my relationship with Sam was relevant to my case. It wasn’t an affair—hadn’t we proven that in court? And even if it was, cheating on your boyfriend isn’t a crime. I wasn’t on trial for being a slut. That’s what I said to Calvin.