Free A Raging Dawn by C. J. Lyons

her.”
    The jurors gaped at me. I didn’t have to see Manny’s scowl to know it was a mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.
    Jacob took a step back behind the podium, his eyes wide at my use of the offensive verb. He glanced at his client, gave a small, regretful shrug of his shoulders. “Your Honor, permission to treat this witness as hostile?”
    The judge pursed her lips, her eyes creasing, and nodded. “Granted.”
    Manny glared at me, half-rising from his chair before slumping back into it, resigned. By having me declared hostile, Jacob had greater latitude in his questioning, could approach me, even try to manipulate my testimony.
    I’d played right into his plans. There was a good reason why this was my last case.
    Below the railing, out of sight of the jury and Jacob, I shook the blood into my hands, forcing myself to concentrate, to brick up my emotions. Manny was right about one thing: If we wanted to win, I needed to get the jury to trust me as a professional, keep my emotions out of it. After all, this whole psychodrama they called a trial wasn’t about me, it was about getting justice for Tymara.
    Jacob wasn’t making things any easier. He needed the jury to see me as flawed, emotive, weak—and therefore, not to be believed.
    “You testified that Ms. Nelson told you she faked an orgasm while engaged in sexual relations with my client,” Jacob said, facing me squarely. “Since she’s not here for me to question her motives, I’d like your expert opinion, Dr. Rossi.”
    Jacob was pushing things. And getting away with it, because the jury was eating it up, leaving Manny no way to object without making things worse.
    “Why? Why did Ms. Nelson do it?” he drawled, spinning to face the jury, impervious to my anger. “After all, according to your well-documented notes, she told my client she liked what he was doing to her, so much so that, and I’m quoting verbatim what Ms. Nelson told you during your medical history, she asked for ‘more, please, more.’ Enlighten us. If she lied to my client about how she felt in that moment of intimacy, is it possible that it could have been because she cared enough about him that she didn’t want to hurt Mr. Littleton’s feelings?”
    Littleton had scripted her words at knifepoint. Tymara had been begging for it to stop. But I hadn’t recorded her reasons for faking an orgasm verbatim as part of the medical record, so I couldn’t testify to it. Which Jacob damn well knew.
    If you can simmer with anger, can you boil over? I was about to. The courtroom was sweltering. If I took my jacket off, the jury would think I was shaken. They’d realize we were losing.
    Manny reached for his microphone. “Objection. Calls for speculation.”
    Jacob dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Withdrawn, Your Honor. I think we all know the answer without Dr. Rossi’s interpretation of what a woman told her seven months ago.” He pivoted to face me again. “Dr. Rossi, did you find any evidence that the sex between my client and Ms. Nelson was not consensual?”
    “Ms. Nelson told me—”
    “I’m not interested in hearsay, Dr. Rossi. I’m interested in the medical facts. Physical findings. Did your forensic examination reveal any physical evidence that my client used force?”
    Damn him, damn him to hell. Jacob was the last person I’d expected to resort to tactics like this. But he always played by the rules—and the rules stating his client deserved the best defense he could offer trumped the simple fact that Littleton was a rapist.
    I slanted a glance over at Manny, but all he could offer was a glare and a tiny shake of his head, reminding me this whole thing was my fault. The movement echoed through the air around him, shimmering in the red-gold light shining through the stained-glass windows.
    Shit, not now. I pinched the flesh at the base of my thumb, hard. The pain focused my vision, and the echoes of color faded, although the chimes persisted, an aural