Serena and Bryah were still, but their faces had grown intense.
“Ms. Brookes.” Durand turned to Winnie. “The evidence against you is…quite overwhelming. You are facing a certain life sentence. You are quite fortunate that France does not have the death penalty.” He rolled his hand. “But now you will receive forty years because of the absence of intent. A long time, yes, but preferable to life. You will still have good years left.”
Winnie was speechless. It wasn’t a terrific offer but Durand had struck a chord with her. The evidence against her was very strong. In her wildest dreams, she hadn’t expected to receive an offer of any kind from the prosecution.
“And Ms. Elliot,” he said, turning to me.
I took a breath.
“You did not cooperate, but neither did you shoot the men or plan a murder. For your lack of cooperation, you will receive a sentence of twenty years.”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t possibly have the authority—”
“You’ll really just give me ten years?” Bryah cut in.
“I’ll really just give you ten years,” said Durand, still staring at me. “And Ms. Elliot, you think I do not have the authority? I am Central Intelligence. I am the authority.” He looked at his watch. “It is two hundred hours. You have until sunrise to make a decision. Then the offer will expire.”
He gestured to the two goons, who followed him out the cell door.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, peering at us through the bars of the cell. “This is what you call a package deal, yes? Either all of you accept, or none of you accepts.”
He slid the cell door shut with a metallic clang and disappeared.
CHAPTER 55
WE ALL SAT for a moment in shock. Could this be? Was this some cruel, sadistic hoax? No, I thought. The French government wanted this trial over now, before there could be any more bomb threats or riots or assassination attempts. “What happened today was a black eye for them,” Dan Ingersoll had said. Of course. They wanted a quick confession, the passing of a sentence, and closure.
“I’ll take the deal,” Serena announced.
“Oh, you’ll take it, will you?” Winnie sprang to her feet. “What happened to ‘They tricked me into signing that statement’? You’ll just throw me under the bus, then?”
Serena popped up as well. “I’m not the one who made us go to that nightclub. I’m not the one who was secretly meeting her boyfriend. And I’m not the one who forgot to mention that her boyfriend was the damn president of France!”
“As if that would have mattered. You had your eyes—and hands—all over Luc the moment you saw him. Don’t make this my fault.”
“No?” Serena moved closer. “And how do we really know that while we were sleeping, you didn’t go out and kill them, Winnie? How do we really know that? I mean, it sounds like your president boyfriend was about to dump you!”
“You think—you actually think that I could have—” Winnie gasped and placed a hand on her chest.
“Guys,” I said. “Come on. Don’t do this. This is what they want.”
I was sure of that last point. Durand knew as well as anyone that we’d been separated from each other since our arrest. We’d each harbored some resentments and this was our first opportunity to vent them. Durand was forcing an all-or-nothing plea bargain. He was making Serena and Bryah an offer so inviting that they couldn’t possibly turn it down, thus forcing the hands of Winnie and me.
“I’m accepting it, too,” said Bryah, standing next to Serena. “Craig’s only four. I have to think of him. Winnie, the cold fact of the matter is that whether you did it or not, they have you dead to rights. You’re right lucky to get forty years, you are.”
“Well, isn’t this just lovely?” Winnie stepped forward, her hands in fists. “And Bryah, I couldn’t help but notice that all the blood and DNA and fingerprint evidence—you seem to have been left out of it completely.”
“Everyone stop,” I said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Bryah cried.
“Oh, I’m just saying how very convenient that is for you, love. The rest of us look guilty but not you—”
“Convenient?” Bryah stepped forward and slapped Winnie hard across the face. “Convenient? You think any of this has been con—”
Winnie lunged at Bryah, punching her shoulder and grabbing her hair. They locked in a struggle, an awkward dance, slamming against the wall before I managed to slice an arm between the two of them and separate them.
“Stop now!” I demanded, holding each of them at arm’s length. “This isn’t going to solve anything.”
“She has to face facts, Abbie,” said Bryah, panting. “If she doesn’t accept the deal, none of us gets it.”
“This is your fault, Winnie.” Serena poked the air. “You got us mixed up with these people and now our lives are ruined!”
Winnie started to respond but halted. She looked back and forth at Serena and Bryah, two of her closest friends, and then collapsed to the floor. She began to sob uncontrollably, wailing like a wounded animal, pounding the floor with her fist, her body convulsing as if she were being shot full of electricity.
Serena looked at me. “You have to convince her, Abbie. You’re the only one she’s ever listened to.”
Winnie went on like that for what felt like an hour. Her wails finally turned to dull moans, and then she curled into a fetal position and grew still. She stared forward at nothing. I didn’t need to convince her of anything.
“I can’t…do this anymore,” she said, her voice flat and scratchy, void of any life at all. “I’ll take the deal.”
I dropped my head. Look at us. Winnie was deteriorating before our eyes. So was our four-way friendship. We were scared beyond comprehension and trying to find a way, any way, out of this mess. There were no good options—only shitty ones and less shitty ones.
Twenty years, I thought. Objectively, a decent offer. My lawyer would be thrilled.
A life. Some kind of life, when I got out. If I got out alive.
“So we’re all agreed?” Serena asked.
“A package deal,” Durand had said.
Three down, me to go.
Hope, I always preached to Richie and Elena. Something to look forward to. A light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s a twenty-year tunnel. A chance to watch my kids blossom as adults. A chance to spoil grandchildren.
I took a deep breath. My head fell back against the wall. I looked upward. Maybe I was searching for a sign.
A sign that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t agree to this deal.”
CHAPTER 56
I WAS ALONE now in every sense of the word, after three hours with my friends, who had tried everything in their power to talk me out of my position. They’d begged me. They’d tried guilt. They’d threatened me. They’d even offered me money.
When Durand had arrived at dawn, Serena and Bryah pleaded with him to let them accept the deal without me, to sever me from the “package.” But he was steadfast. The point was to end the trial, and without me confessing, it wouldn’t end.
No deal, he said, unless I agreed to it.
“You can’t do this to us!” Serena cried to me, as the guards pulled her out of the room.
“Please, Abbie. Please reconsider!” Bryah pleaded as they dragged her away.
I was left alone in the room while the others returned to their cells. I buried my head in my hands and let time pass. At some point, sweeping exhaustion overtook the stress and I lay down on the concrete floor. I think I drifted off a couple of times for a few minutes, but mostly it was a long, timeless stare at the wall, pondering how my life had come to this and what lay ahead.
I raised my head at the echo of footsteps on the concrete floor. My stomach was calling to me, so it must have been somewhere approaching noon, but I really had no idea.
My husband walked through the cell door. A guard closed it sh
ut behind him and walked away.
“Rough night,” Jeffrey said.
I nodded. I got to my feet with some effort, pain shooting along my spine up to my neck.
“Abbie, this guy Durand? He said you have one more chance to say yes.”
I wiped at my eyes and shook out the cobwebs. “I can’t,” I said.
“What does that mean, you can’t? Of course you can.”
I looked away from him.
“Think of your friends—”
“Don’t do that,” I snapped. “Don’t make me responsible for them. It wasn’t my idea to make it a stupid package deal.”
“Then think of our family, Abbie.”
I looked at him. How could he say such a thing to me? What did he think I was doing? How could he not realize that my family was the only thing I was considering? Even at the height of my pain, after discovering his infidelity, I’d never felt a chasm between us as wide as the one I felt now. It was as if Jeffrey Elliot didn’t know me at all.
“Jeff, how can I ever look Richie and Elena in the eye again if I admit to something I didn’t do? How can I teach them to live their lives with integrity and courage if I abandon my principles the moment the going gets rough?”
He stepped toward me. “You tell them you did it so you could get out of prison someday. So you could spend time, later in life, with your children and with their children. I mean, really, Abbie.” He placed his hands together, as if in prayer, as if beseeching me. “Are the kids better off with a principled mother who spends the rest of her life in a shitty French prison?”
I brought a hand to my face and tried to keep my composure. “They’ll know that their mother had the courage to stand up for the truth. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Abbie—”
“And what about figuring out what the hell really happened, Jeffrey? Why aren’t you and Jules spending every waking moment trying to turn over every possible stone to figure out who really committed this crime? Has that thought ever crossed your mind?”
Jeffrey took a breath. “That’s not fair, Abbie. You know we’ve done everything we can.”
“Nearly nine months,” I said. “Nine months, and not a single clue as to who framed us? How is that even possible?”
“That’s not the point. Not anymore.”
I grabbed my hair and held my breath. This was sensory overload. Too much. Finally, I gathered myself and gave it one last thought. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I can’t.”
“Oh, my God.” Jeffrey opened his hands. “You’re really going to turn this down.”
“Jeffrey,” I said.
He put a hand against the wall to steady himself, shaking his head furiously.
“Jeffrey,” I repeated. “I need you to be with me. I can’t do this alone. Everybody—” My throat choked closed. I tried again, in a hoarse whisper. “Everybody else is against me. I need you on my side. Please.”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “I can’t support this. I won’t. You’re screwing over your kids, your friends, and me.” He raised his hands in surrender. “And why? Out of principle? Because of the truth?”
I drew a breath and took a hard look at the man I’ve called my husband. I had the distinct sense, at that moment, that I wouldn’t be calling him that much longer.
“That’s exactly why,” I said.
Red-faced and flustered, Jeffrey moved his face within an inch of mine.
“You realize, Abbie, this is all on you now. Like it or not. Whatever happens to Winnie and Bryah and Serena. Whatever happens to our family. It’s all because of this decision you’re making. It’s all on you and you alone. Are you prepared to roll the dice on all of that?”
I wasn’t prepared for much of anything that was happening to me. And I wasn’t rolling any dice. I was just doing my best to keep my nose above water.
I’d lost so much. My privacy, my reputation, my life as I knew it. There was only one thing I still owned—my integrity. I couldn’t let them take that away, too.
Jeffrey was right. Fair or not, I was making this decision alone. And that, I now realized with a sensation so palpable it stole my breath away, was how I was going to get through this entire ordeal.
Alone.
CHAPTER 57
FROM OVERHEAD IN a helicopter, the west end of the Île de la Cité, the tail of the dolphin-shaped island, looked like occupied territory. The bridges on that end—the Pont Neuf, Pont Saint-Michel, and Pont au Change—were closed, blocked by armored vehicles. Civilians were not permitted in the quarantined zone. French commandos patrolled the streets. To the east, the army had closed all streets within a block of the Palais de Justice except one, the Quai de la Corse, where a checkpoint was set up; all unauthorized vehicles were turned away.
The effects of the rioting were visible from the air: streetlamps had been pulled down; portions of the roads still bore the torch marks from Molotov cocktails; collateral damage to some of the nearby restaurants and cafés and shops was evident from boarded-up windows or plastic sheets. Authorities had estimated the damage to the Île would reach the millions of euros.
“All because of us,” I mumbled, as the helicopter swooped into its descent.
The French had considered moving the entire trial to a military installation but ultimately decided against it, presumably because it would be symbolic of defeat. Still, the four of us defendants were now spending our evenings under military detention. French troops would occupy the perimeter of the Palais de Justice. The only members of the public who could enter the quarantined zone were the media, and only after showing their credentials and being escorted through the checkpoint in armored vehicles.
The helicopter landed, under heavy guard, in the courtyard of the palace complex only steps away from the building that housed France’s highest court. It was a full-scale military exercise just to get me out of the copter, involving soldiers in formation, shouting to each other and forming a protective cover around me as I was whisked into the courtroom building.
We shared one moment together in the anteroom, the four of us. Serena and Bryah looked at me with tears in their eyes. This was their last chance.
“You can’t do this to us,” Serena said. “Please don’t.”
And then the guards beckoned us and we filed into the courtroom.
Today, I would testify.
CHAPTER 58
INSIDE THE COURTROOM, the presiding judge’s face was crimson with anger as the session came to order. This was the first time the court had convened since the riot and the judge wanted to say his piece. “This is a court of law,” he said. “And in this court of law, justice will not be deterred. It will not be delayed. It will not be denied.”
He looked in my direction as he spoke, as if the riot had been my fault—as if it had been some elaborate scheme on my part to get a day off from trial.
“We will conduct this trial with deliberation but with dispatch,” he went on. “We will waste not another day on distractions. The people of this great republic want justice and they want it with all deliberate speed. They will have it.”
The court gave a presumptive nod and then turned in my direction.
“Ms. Elliot,” he said. “You wish to testify at this time?”
I rose and approached the microphone in the cage. “I do, Mr. President.”
“It remains your intention to contest these charges?”
That was a strange question to ask. He was referring to my refusal to go along with Durand’s plea offer.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“I am disappointed to hear that.”
Disappointed? “Mr. President, I didn’t do anything wrong and I—”
“We have already heard this from you, have we not?” The presiding judge, needing both hands to do so, held up the dossier and then dropped it with a loud thud. “You testified in full to the investigating judge, did you not?”
“I did.”
“And you stand by what you s
aid?”
“Every word.”
“Every word.” The presiding judge looked at the other judges on the panel.
“Mr. President, the court has heard other evidence that was previously detailed in the dossier. I would respectfully ask for the same—”
“The court does not require a lecture on its procedures, Ms. Elliot.”
I took a breath. “May I pro—”
“The court has reviewed your statements to the investigating judge at great length. The members of this court do not have any questions for you. If you have anything to supplement what you have previously said, the court will hear that testimony. But your general claims of innocence are well known to this court.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Do you have anything to add to your previous statements, Ms. Elliot?”
“Mr. President, I—I guess I’m not sure how to proceed.”
“Proceed by answering my question. Do you have any new information?”
I let out a breath and tried to calm myself as the heat came to my face.
“Mr. President—”
“Are you able to substantiate your claim that you were framed by another individual? Are you able to tell us who could have possibly possessed all the information and resources necessary to frame you?”
“I—no, I can’t give you a name.”
“Then we are left with your general denials. Which we will review again during our deliberations.” The presiding judge took a moment to look among his colleagues, to confirm their unanimity. “There is no need for any further testimony from you at this stage.”
“I don’t get to testify?” I cried. “Are you kidding me?”
Jules jumped up. “Mr. President, if I may have a brief moment with my client.”
The presiding judge stared at me, then at Jules, for a long count. “If you must. One minute. We will not recess.”
Jules leaned against the glass cage, speaking through the mouth holes. I put my hand over the microphone and leaned forward, too.