248. Guilt

Warning: language

Bridgeport, present day...

Leigh knew they were in a fuck of a storm when she woke up the next morning. There were a couple of news vans and and a low flying helicopter  camped outside their yard.

For a while she stood transfixed in front of her bathroom window as she watched Natalie and the rest of the band's PR dodge questions from the reporters as best as they could.

Krisis, returning from an early morning errand, chose that moment to pull up. The moment the reporters saw him, it was free for all, they all ran to him and surrounded him, screaming for a quote, a comment, anything to add to their already scandalous pieces. Cameras flashed and microphones flew all over the place as they clawed at him.

Leigh had seen her husband through a lot. And she knew all his faces. She knew when he was enraged, when he was hurt, confused, bewildered and just sad. But she'd never seen the look she saw on his face now. It was a look of utter defeat, like there was no hope left in him and it broke her heart and she couldn’t stick around and watch him being chewed up and spit out.

She made her way to the living room and found everyone glued to the TV. It was on mute, but everyone was thoroughly captivated by the screen, watching the silent circus outside their house as a news reporter gave the whole world minute to minute updates of the highly charged atmosphere at the Frost-Summers camp.

"What's going on?" Leigh asked in a small voice, convinced she was seeing things as she stared at the news ticker crawling at the bottom of the screen. BREAKING NEWS: JD SUMMERS ON TRIAL…. O+ Records offices raided… Michaela Frost-… FOR CLARKES MURDE... raided amidst cover-up allegations... Summers raped...

The headlines were zooming by faster than Leigh could process the words.

"What's going?" She repeated, this time her shrill voice jolted everyone back to life and all at once the living room was alive as Cameron rushed to her side, explaining all the nonsense on the screen.

"I don't understand," Leigh looked baffled. 

Cameron tried to reach for her just as Krisis walked through the front door.

"Krisis, what's happening?" Leigh ran to her husband.

Krisis explained someone had leaked the court transcripts and exposed the whole trial.

"What do you mean? What does it all mean?" She asked, unable to understand a word Krisis had said.

Before Krisis could reply, Michaela spoke for the first time since Leigh walked into the room. “We have to get ready for court," she said in a lifeless voice.

As if the plug had been pulled from a life support machine, all life buzzing through the room just moments before died.

Wordlessly, one by one, they all dispersed to their rooms to get ready for what would undoubtedly be the longest day of their lives.

Leaving the house almost two hours later was a nightmare, Natalie had to call the cops to disperse the rabid crowd of reporters. Their convoy was mobbed as soon as they pulled up outside the courthouse and it took them close to an hour to get inside the courtroom.

In light of the media storm following the transcripts leak, Judge Rosenberg had no choice but to declare a mistrial and dismiss all charges against J.D, but not before he lambasted the police for their sloppy work. He especially criticized Richards’underhanded methods at collecting evidence, he informed him he'd made a recommendation to Internal Affairs to look into his past arrests, and his general conduct as an officer of the law.

Judge Rosenberg had no doubt in his mind the leak came from inside, and he suspected the defense, but he couldn't prove it. Despite his suspicions, he sincerely apologized to J.D. and his family for all the media abuse they’d surely endure in the coming days.

“Mr. Summers, you are free to go!”

Mr. and Mrs. Clarke wept openly in their seats. They were so close, so hopeful, so convinced that justice would finally be served for their children and at the last minute someone had robbed them of their only chance to get closure.

The Frost-Summers clan sat numbly in their aisles, unable to process the last few hours. They couldn’t believe it was over, months of stressing, crying, worrying, plotting and scheming had finally come down to this.

There was no joy, no happiness from their side of the courtroom. They had gotten away on a technicality. J.D. was guaranteed his freedom,  he would never be tried again for the same crime, his right to privacy had been so brutally violated by the media, and everyone and anyone had already made up their mind about his guilt, it would be impossible to give him a fair trial in any court. But looking at the media frenzy outside, and seeing how devastated the Clarkes were, J.D. and his family knew the cost was too high.

They all knew one didn’t have to throw a man behind bars to put him in prison, sometimes a person’s conscience made a better judge, and guilt the best retribution.

Eli’s death would always haunt them; it was a heavy price for anyone to pay for eternity.

Things took a nasty turn outside the courtroom. Mrs. Clarke approached the Frost-Summers entourage just as they were leaving.

“Murderers! You killed my children! You are all murderers!” She yelled, but her anger, her rage was directed mostly at Michaela.

Cameron tried to pull her along, but Michaela wouldn’t leave, not when Mrs. Clarke was in so much pain.

She stopped and turned back just in time to see Mrs. Clarke reach inside her bag. With all the chaos that morning, someone dropped the ball and forgot to do their job, and a fragile, broken woman had been allowed to get past security with a weapon.

“She’s got a gun!” Someone screamed and all hell broke loose. People ran up and down the hallways, ducking for cover, a hive of security guards ran from all corners towards Michaela, her parents, Joshua’s father and Mrs. Clarke, all engaged in standoff in the middle of the corridor, neither of them daring to breathe.

“Put the gun down honey,” Mr. Clarke was the first to break the silence.

“No! They need to know, they need to understand what they did. I want them to understand what they did to us, to our family!” Mrs. Clarke screamed, waving her gun around.

“And you,” She turned to her husband. “Where is your God now? Where was your God when my children were begging for their lives? Where was your God today when I needed him the most? These people, these monsters you are so quick forgive need to understand they broke us and then denied us the chance to fix ourselves. They broke me!” 

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry for everything you are going through. Eli was a beautiful girl—” Michaela, despite everyone’s warnings, approached Mrs. Clarke and that was the final straw, all the chips were down.

“You did this! This is your fault!” Mrs. Clarke whispered as tears streamed down her face before she raised her gun in a final fuck you.

“No!” Everyone screamed the exact same moment a single gunshot rang through the air…

AN: As always, thank you Ozzy for all your help with fixing up the shots and general proofing of the updates.