The Prodigal's Return

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“DO YOU SWEAR to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” a courtroom officer asked sixteen-year-old Jennifer Gardner.

“What?” She blinked at the bailiff who stood before the witness box, tearing her gaze away from where Neal Cain slouched beside his father at the defendant’s table.

Tell the truth.

That’s what Neal wanted her to do, or so his dad had said.

He knows the prosecutor’s going to call you to testify, Mr. Cain had insisted as he’d prepped her that morning. He’d been more a surrogate father at that moment than the county’s top defense attorney. Don’t be afraid. Just answer the D.A.’s questions, and everything will be fine.

But normally fun-loving Mr. Cain had looked worried. After his wife’s death ten years ago, he’d built his world around his son and his law practice. Now, Neal was on trial for involuntary manslaughter.

Mr. Cain didn’t believe everything was going to be fine any more than Jenn did.

“Miss Gardner?” Judge Pritchard’s voice dragged her attention to where he sat on a dais beside her. “Even though this is merely an arraignment to determine if a trial is warranted, you are required to speak the full and complete truth, under risk of perjury. Do you understand?”

She nodded, and the legal proceeding began, with every eye in the room locked on her—all of them but Neal’s. She fought not to throw up as the district attorney took the bailiff’s place and forced her to relive the worst night of her life, one painful memory at a time. Like a vulture, he kept circling the fact that she’d allegedly chosen to leave the homecoming dance early, to walk the mile and a half home, alone, in her formal gown.

“Did you by any chance arrange to meet Bobby Compton at his car?” The ugly suspicion in D.A. Burnside’s question echoed what many in town had been thinking for weeks.

“No!” Jenn said to the entire courtroom. “I was going home. That’s all.”

Good little Jennifer Gardner, her father’s secretary had whispered to Mary Jo Reece last Sunday. She hadn’t noticed Jenn and her mother sitting only a pew away, so why bother with the charity and tolerance Jenn’s pastor father expected from his staff. I just can’t believe it. The preacher’s daughter, making out in the school parking lot. Drinking. Lord knows what else. And those two boys fighting over her. She was leading them both on, everyone thinks so. What else could it have been…?

“I didn’t know I’d run into Bobby when I left,” Jenn said, her tears blurring the D.A.’s face.

“Your statement to the sheriff says you became angry with Bobby Compton at the dance.” Mr. Burnside made a show of reading notes from a file.

“Yes, because—”

“Yet you left early without your date, so you could have a private moment with the boy in a deserted parking lot? A boy the defendant had just been fighting with.”

“Yes—no! I left early, but not to talk with Bobby. It wasn’t like that.”

The D.A.’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You told the sheriff you got into Bobby Compton’s car.”

“I couldn’t let him drive home the way he was.” She glanced at her dad.

Concern filled Joshua Gardner’s eyes. Sadness. Disappointment that she’d never seen, before a few weeks ago. Never thought was possible. Not from the man who’d been her hero. Her rock.

“Drunk, you mean?” the lawyer asked.

“What?”

“You stopped because you thought Bobby was drunk?”

“Yes. I…I’d seen him drinking at the dance.”

“And were you and Neal drunk as well?”

“No!”

Her parents and their pricey Atlanta lawyer had insisted that she not speak with anyone about that night, not even to defend herself against the rumors flying all over town.

“But you had been drinking with the deceased?”

“Y-yes.” Her father closed his eyes, crossed his arms, as the courtroom’s attention shifted his way. It had sent shock waves through the county, the preacher’s child admitting to the police that she’d been drinking since she was thirteen. “Bobby, Neal and some of the other football players snuck some beer in. A lot of us were drinking it, but Neal and I weren’t dru—”

“But Neal and Bobby had been fighting before you decided to leave the dance?”

“Y-yes.”

“Because Mr. Compton kissed you on the dance floor?”

“Bobby… He’d just broken up with Stephie Blake. He was upset. I was talking with him, trying to make him feel better… To get him to stop drinking. He said I was being so sweet, that Neal was lucky…Then…I’m not really sure how it happened, but—”

“Bobby Compton kissed you?”

She chewed her lip, shuddering at the memory of the argument that had followed. Bobby trying to shrug off Neal’s hand, hauling her even closer. Neal’s accusing glare as it shifted between her and his best friend. Her plea to Bobby to stop it. To let her go.

“Miss Gardner?” the D.A. pressed.

“Yes.” Neal wouldn’t look at her, no matter how long she stared. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night Bobby died. “He kissed me.”

Shock whispered through the room.

“And he and the defendant fought?”

“They… Neal was angry, and Bobby wasn’t thinking straight.”

“How long have you and the defendant been dating?”

“Almost two years.” The most perfect years of her life.