Free Compulsion (Max Revere Novels Book 2) by Allison Brennan Page B

since Mandy and Ginger left and only split Saturday night with me. I checked out, but left my car in the garage so I could go shopping.”
    “What time did you check out?”
    “Around eleven in the morning.”
    “Where did you shop?”
    “Um, first I went to H and M, then the Nike store for new running shoes because they were having a sale, then I had a late lunch at Fringe.”
    Fringe. Bingo. Max wrote rapidly. Fringe was the bar that Bachman worked at, though he had Tuesdays off.
    “Had you been to Fringe before?”
    “Yes—on Sunday, after I saw Rock of Ages .”
    Max looked at Bachman. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at Ava or at the judge.
    Charlene said, “Let the record show that Exhibits Nine through Twelve are receipts from Ms. Raines’s hotel and shopping that day, confirming the time line.”
    “So noted,” the judge said.
    “When did you leave the restaurant?”
    “About two thirty.”
    Charlene said, “Let the record reflect that Ms. Raines paid for her meal at two twenty-one, per the time stamp on the receipt.”
    Ava said, “I hung around another few minutes, texting Ginger.”
    Charlene introduced those texts into evidence. “Did you make plans?”
    “I told Ginger I was leaving the city and maybe we could get together later. I was still mad, and wanted her to apologize, but I also needed to apologize because I said some mean things.”
    Charlene said, “Let the record show the exchange of text messages between Ms. Raines and her friend Ginger.”
    “So noted,” the judge said.
    “What did you do when you left Fringe?” Charlene asked Ava.
    “I wanted to get out of the city before traffic. I walked back to the hotel, but stopped at this little gift shop first—I can’t remember the name. But they had these apple earrings in the window. They were so touristy, but I loved them, and I think I bought them.” She frowned.
    Charlene said, “Let the record reflect that Exhibit Fifteen is a receipt for a pair of apple stud earrings from Big Apple Gift Shoppe, time-stamped two forty-eight P.M. ”
    She prompted, “Then you went back to the hotel?”
    “I think so.”
    “Objection,” Warren said.
    Charlene said, “We have testimony from Ms. Raines medical team as to why she has a memory loss at the time she was drugged. I would ask for leniency here, as we’re trying to determine exactly what Ms. Raines remembers and what we’ll be able to prove with other witnesses.”
    “Overruled,” the judge told Warren.
    Good, Max thought. Tarkoff was tough but fair. So far Max didn’t have any problems with the way he’d run the trial. She didn’t even have a problem with the no electronics rule—iPads and computers and cell phones could be distracting. Even the sounds from the pens on paper from the reporters around her were annoying.
    “You say you think you went back to the hotel,” Golden prompted.
    “I remember looking at the earrings and wanting them. And I see myself walking down the street and turning the corner. I thought someone was following me, but there’s always so many people in Times Square. I didn’t want to be paranoid. I’ve lived on Long Island my entire life. I come to the city all the time. I turned around and saw a blur and a hand and my neck hurt. The next thing I remember I woke up with my feet and hands and mouth tied up and I was in a car. A trunk.”
    “Just to clarify, you don’t remember who was behind you on the street outside the Big Apple Gift Shoppe?”
    “No, I don’t. It’s fuzzy.”
    “You woke up in the trunk. Then what did you do?”
    “The car was moving, slowly. I heard lots of noise from cars, and knew I was in traffic. It was dark in the trunk, but I saw a little light coming in from a seam or crack or something. At first I didn’t realize it was my car, but then I felt my shopping bags, the ones I’d been carrying around, I just kind of knew. And there’s this screw on the trunk lid. I rubbed my wrists against it trying to