Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 95: Bearing Witness

\-Caleb-

We white-knuckled it in the back of Officer Alexander’s car, me laying across the floor, Jacey laying across the back seat. He’d suggested we go in separate cars, but we’d refused. If someone was being kidnapped or killed this time, we were going together.

This time, Officer Alexander was driving an unmarked vehicle. He said it was fitted with lights and sirens if we needed to make a mad dash for it, but unlike most ‘unmarked’ police vehicles, this one wasn’t obvious at all.

He pulled right up to the front of the courthouse and made a call. “They’re here. Yeah. I’ll be going with them, but back-up is appreciated. I also need someone to park the car. Thanks.” He hung up and looked back at us. “Stay down, just in case there’re snipers or something, until we can get the rest of your guards out here.”

“Snipers,” I muttered. “Great.”

“Sounds like something Masterson might do if he was desperate,” Jacey mused. “But he likes to make things up close and personal.”

“Tell me about it.” I shifted on the floor, trying to find a more comfortable position.

“If you two weren’t at it all last night, you might not be so uncomfortable,” Officer Alexander said, and I couldn’t tell if he was being fake stern or actually pissed off.

I grunted. “It’s not going to affect our testimony. All we have to do is tell the truth.”

Officer Alexander let out a short bark of laughter, and I realized he was messing with us. “Billy said he had to watch the entire Die Hard series—well, the good ones, at least—before he felt safe to go up to bed.”

“It had been a while,” I groused while Jacey turned pink. “Besides, we weren’t that loud.”

“Were we?” she squeaked.

He chuckled. “No, you were fine, as far as I know. We just like to give you a hard time.”

I wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. “So, these other guards…”

The back door opened, and my feet fell out of the car.

“Are here,” Officer Alexander said with a frown. “I don’t remember saying you should open the door, sir.”

“Well, it’s open now,” the suited man whose whole demeanor screamed FBI agent replied rudely. “Just be glad we’re letting you tag along.”

“Letting him tag along?” I scowled. “Look, this guy’s kept us safer than most of your agents. In fact, the majority of the agents we encountered could be bought. Are you one of those agents, or did you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

He stared at me as though I was a centipede who’d invaded his space. “I’m sorry, what did your smart mouth just say?”

It looked as though he was planning to put his boot down. I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his attitude.

“Let’s just go, Caleb. You and I can tell him to stuff it later,” Officer Alexander said. “Right now, we need to get you into the courthouse where it’s… probably safe.”

I sighed but swallowed my pride and sat up. So did Jacey.

“I want you to know,” she said primly to the FBI asshole, “Office Alexander is not just here as some courtesy. He’s the only reason we’re here at all. And if you don’t stop being a jerk, we’re going to let him take us right back where we came from.”

“I’m afraid you’re in FBI custody now,” the agent sniffed. “So you and your little boyfriend can—”

“Officer Alexander, I want to go home. He can say ‘hi’ to the Attorney General for us and explain why we’re not there,” Jacey said.

I reached out to pull the door shut.

The FBI agent wedged his body in the doorway. “You’re not running off on us again.”

“You’re not getting us almost killed again.” I gave the door a yank with my newfound farming muscles, which made the man wince at least, but he still kept himself in the doorway.

“You don’t seem to understand. Jacey said to take them back. I’ll put my foot down on the gas and drag you behind this car if I have to,” Officer Alexander warned.

The FBI agent’s jaw worked. “Fine. I’ll be more warm and cuddly. Now, will you please get out of the car?”

I looked at Jacey, then at Officer Alexander, who nodded. “Okay,” I said.

The agent stood out of the way while I wiggled out in the most dignified way I possibly could. Which wasn’t very dignified at all. Then I turned and held out my hand to Jacey.

She took my hand, and I pulled her out as well.

Six agents surrounded us immediately, a seventh switching with Officer Alexander and driving the unmarked car away.

Officer Alexander muscled his way into the phalanx to stand next to us. “Keep your heads down.”

We both ducked.

Together, the whole group of us shuffled into the courthouse. We stayed huddled until we were through the doors.

Then, Jacey and I went through the metal detectors while the FBI and Officer Alexander went around. The rude FBI agent gave the nod for Officer Alexander to skip the metal detectors.

The Attorney General was waiting for us on the other side. “Caleb, Jacey,” she said, not looking particularly happy to see us. “You’ve been dodging my calls.”

“We didn’t even know we had any calls,” I said with a frown.

Officer Alexander cleared his throat. “Like I kept telling your office, they weren’t going to be made available to be shot at for any kind of redo deposition when you’re the one who fucked up.”

She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You want to hear it in Spanish?” he asked.

“I’ve had just about enough of you.” She took a bracing breath. “As it is, Jacey might be excluded as a witness, and you’re on thin ice, Caleb. They’re taking this statutory rape and coercion thing very seriously.”

“She was eighteen!” I shouted, just as Chalmers walked by with Masterson and their entourage.

Masterson smirked at me, and Chalmers’s smile was just as smarmy. “Good to see you, Caleb. I heard you’ve been having a rough time of it.”

“Keep walking. These are protected witnesses, and I will have you arrested for witness tampering, Mr. Masterson,” the Attorney General snapped.

“No you won’t. You don’t want another continuance. All that time to tack on more charges, have my attorneys refute them…” Masterson said.

Margie glowered at him then herded us away. “I can’t stand that man.”

“All the more reason to put him in jail,” I said.

“Hear, hear,” Officer Alexander agreed.

“Anyway,” she continued, “as I was saying, the judge wants to see you both in chambers. Which means I’ll be there, and so will Chalmers. And it doesn’t exactly make me look good when I have to tell the judge I can’t produce my own witnesses when he calls them.”

“You do remember I wheeled that one’s ass out of the hospital after all your staff, and the hospital staff, chose money over protecting his life, right?” Officer Alexander said. “He wasn’t safe in a hospital.”

“Or jail,” Jacey added. “Let’s not forget jail, you know, where the place is supposed to be crawling with guards?”

She turned bright red. “Yes, well… yes. Let’s just go, shall we? Judge Powell is waiting.”

With a shrug, I followed her, and Jacey trotted up beside me to hold my hand. Officer Alexander stood beside her so we were flanking her on both sides, and the rest of our retinue fanned out behind.

“I’ll be right out here,” Officer Alexander said once we arrived at an office door that read ‘Judge George Powell.’ “Nobody’s getting past me.”

“Except me,” Chalmers chuckled, pushing through the FBI agents to join us. “This is going to be fun.” He rubbed his hands together.

I wondered what was making him so confident until the door swung open and there sat Hank and my mother, holding our half-brother.

“Jacey! Caleb! Thank God you’re all right!” my mother fretted, crossing the room to give us both a hug.

Hank, much to my surprise, stood shakily from his wheelchair. Leaning heavily on a cane, he started over to Jacey.

I gently set my mother aside and put myself between him and my girl. “I don’t think so, Hank.”

“Look, I’m not gonna hit her. I just want to see that she’s okay,” he said, exasperated.

“You’re not going to hit her this time. As I’m sure Judge Powell is aware, a basic canvass did yield nine people willing to swear under oath that you attacked your daughter on the street,” the Attorney General inserted coldly. She turned to Judge Powell, an older, yet distinguished-looking, gentleman sitting behind his desk. “In fact, Your Honor, I don’t even know what we’re doing here, given if there was any coercion going on, it was clearly Mr. Collins and not Mr. Killeen. Mr. Collins is the only one who has threatened violence of any kind in this room.”

“He locked me in my room and wouldn’t let me out,” Jacey told the judge quietly. “I was eighteen.”

“You still are for another week, I believe,” the judge said. He looked at my mother. “And I thought you said your husband did not trap your stepdaughter in your home. That she, in fact, assaulted you, under your son’s influence.”

“What?!” I yelled. I glared at my mother, who at least had the decency to look at the floor. “I was kicked out of the house when she ‘assaulted’ you, and the way Jacey tells it, she pushed you out of the way because you were blocking the door!”

My mother hugged our brother against her like a shield. “Well, I was pregnant. She could have really hurt me.”

“That’s not what we discussed, darling,” Hank said quickly. “Remember? I remember she slammed you into a wall.”

“Are you going to swear to that under oath, Mrs. Collins?” the judge asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

My mother paled.

“Jeanie, just tell the man the truth,” Hank pressed.

She burst into tears. “It’s the way Caleb said. I didn’t want to lie, Your Honor. I just don’t want to be stuck with Masterson forever, and he said…”

“Your Honor, I think I need a moment to talk with my witnesses,” Chalmers interrupted.

“And I think you need to sit down, Mr. Chalmers,” the judge said evenly.

It was Chalmers’s turn to go white. It made a dark place in me very happy to see his hand shake as he squirmed into a seat.

“Mr. Killeen. Ms. Collins. Please also be seated. Ms. Jepsen, I’m now even more interested to know why we couldn’t have cleared this problem up weeks ago,” Judge Powell grumped.

“Your Honor, I apologize…” the Attorney General began.

“Masterson tried to kill me, sir, in jail and in the hospital. Only, in the hospital, he tried to do it himself,” I said. “So our good friend Officer Alexander of the state police has been keeping us safe in an undisclosed location. Nowhere was safe, sir. Our FBI handlers have been killed more than once. Others have been corrupted into trying to kill us. I count ourselves lucky to have had someone like Office Alexander on our side, fielding requests. I know it might not sound like a good reason to you, Your Honor, but I’m just about damn near done wandering with a target on my back. And on Jacey’s back. So we’re coming out just this one last time. That’s it.”

“Slander!” Chalmers shouted. “That is all slander!”

“Shut up, Chalmers.” The judge grunted. He frowned at me. “So, you’re giving me an ultimatum? After both of your deposition disasters, if I want to hear testimony, you’re only willing to give it today?”

I swallowed hard then nodded firmly. “We’re not doing this again, sir.”

Judge Powell sat back in his chair. “Then I suppose we have no choice.” He glared at Chalmers. “You can take your coercion and statutory rape charges against the protected witness and shove them up your ass, Chalmers. You’ll be very, very lucky if, by the end of the day, you and your client aren’t facing witness tampering charges. Do you understand?”

Chalmers puffed up, then deflated when the judge was unmoved by his swagger. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“As for the trial, well, we’d better get to it. Seems there’s a time limit on how long I have these witnesses,” the judge said. “And I would like the FBI to now take custody of Hank and Jeanie Collins and put them… well, jail doesn’t seem safe these days, nor does Witness Protection. Keep them out in the hall until this is over, and we’ll all figure something out.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the Attorney General replied. She opened the office door and gave instructions to the FBI.

“One of these days, Caleb, you’re going to pay for what you’ve done to my little girl.” Hank growled as he collapsed back into his chair and was wheeled past me.

“I promise you, Hank, I feel exactly the same way,” I shot back.

“Children, please. Try to keep it out of court. What I want from you today is your testimony about William Masterson Sr.,” Judge Powell scolded us. “Well, Mr. Killeen’s. Not yours. You should thank your lucky stars you didn’t lie under oath today, Mr. Collins.”

Hank bristled, but before he could say anything else, the Attorney General nodded to the FBI agent who was wheeling him, and Hank was taken out into the hall.

“The Attorney General will show you where to sit until you’re called,” Judge Powell said to Jacey and me. “I’m afraid you won’t be allowed into the courtroom until that time.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I responded.

The Attorney General shooed us out.