Page 96 of Broken Silence
“No.”
“No? You’re sure?”
“My team hadn’t stopped looking. Forensic tech experts have been working around the clock and they’ve managed to uncover folder on his laptop. There was a lot of encrypted files but this one… this one they managed to get to. They found it, Oakley, and brought it straight here.”
I coughed and cleared my throat. Clenching my hands over and over, I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “What folder?”
She placed her hand over mine. “The pictures of you.”
I nodded, my eyes welling with tears and stomach threatening to lose my breakfast.
He had them.
He still had them.
I pressed the palm of my hand against the nausea. “R-right… Um… So, what does that mean?”
“It means your side isprovento be true, and your father is exposed as a liar.”
I felt tears leak over my lids and roll down my cheeks.
Shuddering, I asked, “What happens now?”
“The public gallery has been closed. The jury will be shown the photographs and then the trial will be wrapped up. I see no reason to call your father back to the stand. The pictures speak for themselves, and John’s not calling for him to take the stand again. The new evidence will only make things worse for him if he tried giving his side.”
“Do I have to go back in there?”
She shook her head. “It seems unlikely that his defence will call you back in now that this evidence has come to light. I’ve got to go back, but Walter will take you to your family.”
“Linda,” I said, standing.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for not giving up.”
Her warm smile could’ve melted icecaps. “Thankyoufor not giving up.”
Cole spotted me first as I walked into the corridor in a complete, overwhelmed daze.
“Hey, we just heard,” he said, running to me.
I sobbed and fell into him.
His arms were like stone as he wrapped me in a hug. I wished I could stay there, hiding against his chest. I just wanted to disappear.
The photos were real.
I knew that, obviously, but now so would the world.
“How are you doing, honey?” Mum asked, rubbing my back. Her face was so pale she didn’t look alive.
“Don’t know,” I muttered.
“Okay, I’ve just spoken to… God, I don’t know who,” David said. “Linda and John are about to do the closing statements, then the Jury will deliberate.”
“Do you want to go home, Oakley?” Mum asked.
“No, can we get a drink and stay here? I want to wait.”
