Free The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace

hand back into his top drawer, “could you bring me that Sports section? I wanna find out how the Dogs look for the weekend.”
    “Will do, sir.” Jim closed the door behind him and exhaled. C.C. wouldn’t know the law if it jumped up on the bench and bit him right in the neck.
    He headed down the quiet hall outside the judge’s chambers to his own office.
    Well, that was done…the appeal was over. The death sentence was affirmed.
    The prosecution at trial could rest easy.

9
    “W HAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?” CRUISE SPIT THE WORDS through the wall of glass that separated him from Leonard.
    The attorney’s lips curved into a thin smile. “Not happy to see me? What’s wrong, Clint? I thought you’d be happy. Come on, show some enthusiasm…it’s not like you’re flooded with visitors.”
    If it weren’t for a wall of thick plate glass that separated them, Cruise would have made a lunge for him. As it was, all he could do was sit here, chained in shackles, waiting for his useless lawyer to say whatever he had to say and make Cruise read or sign whatever he had to read or sign.
    Useless. That was what Cruise thought of Matt Leonard and his weak, pathetic performance at trial. Damn him, the way Hailey Dean walked all over him. Cruise knew the deal. Leonard wanted the celebrity of being the big-time death penalty hero, but he just couldn’t deliver. Cruise had read up on him, found out his firm was rolling in federal and state grant money for the so-called Death Penalty Project.
    Cruise didn’t know exactly how much money, but he did know both Leonard and even his paralegal drove Mercedes. Thanks to Google and the penitentiary law library Internet, he also knew Leonard lived in a huge three-story on Habersham near the governor’s mansion. Leonard’s crapper was probably bigger than Cruise’s whole cell.
    Damn Hailey Dean, too.
    The day of the verdict, he went for her in court and made it all the way to where she stood, alone in the middle of the courtroom. Because of her, he was clubbed in the head from behind. Then, they nearly tore his arms off pulling him from the courtroom. He turned back for one last look, and saw a juror had actually made it aroundthe jury rail and was hugging Hailey Dean, right there at the podium. Over the juror’s shoulder though, Dean was staring straight at him, watching when they hooked the leg irons on him.
    The moment the sheriffs got him alone in holding just outside the courtroom, they cursed him out and punched him over and over, right in the stomach. The walls were soundproofed, though, and Cruise knew no one in the courtroom heard a damn thing.
    “This is for Hailey, you sick little perv,” one of them said, landing a punch that knocked out one of Cruise’s teeth. The beating went on.
    At the end, Hailey’s investigator, Fincher Henson, sauntered back into the holding pen. The other sheriffs got real quiet when he strolled through the door, like the damned President walked in.
    Cruise remembered it like it was yesterday.
    “Uncuff him,” Henson said.
    The cell went quiet and nobody moved. Not one sheriff so much as shifted his weight. Who the hell did he think he was…God?
    Cruise would be damned to hell if he’d have given him the courtesy of looking up.
    “Uncuff the son of a bitch,” Henson turned and barked at the nearest sheriff, who stepped up to Cruise, jangling the cuff keys attached to his belt.
    The cuffs were unlocked and removed.
    “Stand up, asshole,” Fincher growled low in his throat.
    Cruise had stayed doubled over against the wall. No way would he stand on command.
    “I said, stand up!”
    Cruise paused for one moment before hurling a thick wad of spit on Henson’s shiny black shoes.
    “I don’t give a damn if you spit on me, you little asshole. But you will never touch Hailey Dean again. And this is to make sure you don’t forget. Remember, Cruise, if you ever do see the light of day, which you won’t, I’ll be waiting for you.” Fincher