Breaking Hearts

Can tragedies have a happy ending in Storybook Lake?

Every town has one—a mean girl, hell-bent on taking down everything in her path—and Danielle Ranier played the role to a tee. She broke up Storybook Lake’s most beloved couple and to save herself from a lifetime of lectures on morality, she hopped on the first plane out of town. Six years, one child, and a big secret later, she’s back, fleeing from her abusive husband, who isn’t quite willing to set her free. Now on trial for a murder she didn’t commit, Simon Hunter, the only man she’s ever loved is offering her a lifetime of love and security. If she could only reveal the secrets long-held inside her, a family that never was might finally come together . . .

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Storybook Lake Series

Here He Comes Again

Falling Grace

Breaking Hearts

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

A Storybook Lake Romance

Melissa Shirley

LYRICAL PRESS

Kensington Publishing Corp.

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Copyright © 2016 by Melissa Shirley

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First Electronic Edition: August 2016

eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-613-7

eISBN-10: 1-
60183-613-9

First Print Edition: August 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-614-4

ISBN-10: 1-60183-614-7

Printed in the United States of America

For Gina and Diana.

Very special thank you to the best CP in the universe.

Opening Statements

“All rise!”

Being on trial for my life taught me two things. One, when the bailiff says “all rise,” everyone in the courtroom should immediately shut up and stand; two, the business end of being on trial and the tremors associated with it did not couple well with coffee drinking and silk blouses.

I blotted at my shirt while my lawyer leaned in close to advise me, yet again, of the possible outcomes of the case should I lose. Grace Wade turned to face me head-on and recommended I at least consider the prosecutions deal of life in prison with the possibility of parole in twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years?
I decided to gamble on a jury trial and a possible life sentence. Surely, at least one of the twelve people would realize I didn’t kill Sean, no matter how badly I wanted to, and no matter how much unwavering gratitude, trial talk taboo, I harbored for the person who’d actually done the job.

The jurors filed into the courtroom, seven women between the ages of thirty and late sixties and five men from early twenties to late forties. A school teacher, bus driver, street sweeper, an accountant, landscaper, college student, and three food service professionals--translation: waiters and waitresses--a dog trainer, boutique owner, and a hairdresser, all had been chosen as my peers. Somehow, being accused of murder changed how I evaluated my
peers
, especially since I had no choice but to put my life in their hands.

Calvin Coolidge Connor, the prosecutor and apparent love child of Beetlejuice and Mr. Frodo--dark black hair, a slender waist, and a suit swallowing him almost whole--looked over at me with slits for eyes and a grim smirk on his lips. As green as any other small town thirty five-year-old prosecutor eager to make a name for himself, he probably jumped at the chance to take this case. He’d been an opportunist in high school, too, but as friends back then, I’d overlooked it. In this moment, with a gallery full of TV cameras, former friends, and reporters with pens poised to capture every detail, I hated him for it.

My attorney, the only lawyer I’d ever met, had been my best friend growing up, and though ten years had passed since we did more than make small talk on the phone, she took my case, no questions asked. Even though Grace had been career dormant as of late, I sat next to her not at all worried. She’d always been wrapped in some karmically blessed aura of greatness. At least, that’s what I told myself in the morning before I dressed for trial.

She smoothed her skirt as we sat and waited for the prosecutor to begin his opening statement. At seventeen months older than me, Grace had movie star beauty. Along with her dramatic good looks, she capitalized on her porn star figure by wearing short, mostly respectable skirts, and blouses opened at the throat, thoroughly enhancing her pushed up C cups.

Without looking at me, checking her notes, or picking up a pen, she stared at the troll and waited. To anyone else, she appeared calm, poised for battle, but her fingers trembled as they sat idle against the table. A light sheen of sweat dotted her forehead and upper lip. We ignored the whirring of cameras, crinkling of papers, muffled coughs, hushed whispers in the court room, and most of our childhood friends on the witness list. For a former glory hound like Grace, ignoring it all said something.

As much as I’d come to love Storybook Lake over the last year, we weren’t holding the trial at home. Storybook Lake would never let something so tainted as murder touch its cobblestoned, gas-lit streets. The proceedings had been transferred to neighboring Bloomington and my friends and former neighbors, all with ready-formed opinions as to my innocence or guilt, elbowed for space in the tiny courtroom.

Cal, whose grades in high school mirrored his initials, stood and walked to the center of the room, facing the jury, his back to me. While I understood he had a job to do, it irked me he’d been able to start without as much as a glance at the pile of notes on his table. Executing a perfect military turn in his too-shiny clown shoes, he took three paces toward the judge parallel to the jury, pulled in tight, turned a hard left and stalked to his original spot. He stopped abruptly, facing the twelve people instructed to hang on his every word.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Calvin Connor and I represent you, the good people of the State of Illinois.”

I nudged Grace and mouthed the words, “suck up.” She shot me a glare and then went back to ignoring me.

“Storybook Lake, Illinois is an innocent little tourist town with a quiet character based on works of literary greatness. Its existence celebrates the lives of those who let us borrow their words to transport ourselves through whatever carefully woven life they have created in their pages. On June fourth, this woman”--he pointed at me without turning his head or body--“shattered the calm normally floating over the quiet little city. She lured her husband away from his home in California with the promise he would get to see the son she kidnapped.”

I scanned the room for the Academy Award presenters and shrugged when no little gold statue or red carpet actress appeared.

Grace leaped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Mrs. Turner had, and continues to have, sole custody of the child. There was no kidnapping involved and absolutely no evidence she lured her husband here. In fact, all evidence points otherwise.” Grace turned to me, eyes wide and the hint of a smile on her lips.

The judge turned her attention to Cal. “Mr. Cooper?”

He simply lifted one shoulder, cocked his head toward it with an off-handed smile, offering no explanation.

“Sustained.”

The judge shot him a dirty look.

He refocused on the jury and continued. “This woman, the defendant, is a cold, calculating killer who involved herself in a relationship with another man while still married to Sean Turner. She knew in order to be with the love of her life”--
Air quotes?
--“and raise her son with him, she needed to get rid of her husband. She had to make sure he didn’t have the ability to interfere. So, what did she do? She took a knife and stabbed Sean Turner, not once, not twice, but seven times. And, in a matter of seconds, her burden of marriage disappeared.”

He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “But then, Sean turner refused to die, to let her take his son away and live with another man. He refused to give up his hold on his wife and on life. She couldn’t let him live, especially not now. Attempted murder? She would have lost her son, anyway. So, she ran to her purse, took out the gun she stole from her boyfriend, a former chief of police, and shot Mr. Turner in the face.” He made a pistol with his fingers, flicked his arm out in aim. and
shot
me. “She lied to investigators, not once, but three times. She lied to her friends, her family, and to her son.”

Grace rocket-launched out of her chair again. “Objection, Your Honor. May we approach?” Without waiting for an answer, she stomped to the front of the courtroom and stood, hands on hips, feet apart. Grace Wade, princess warrior, ready for battle.

After an animated discussion--her hands flailing, his head bobbing and the judge jerking her head back and forth ping pong style--she returned to her seat next to mine and picked up her pen. She scribbled,
No worries. I got this.

I aspired to worried.

The judge glanced at Cal, then the jury. “The objection is sustained. Ladies and gentleman, there is no evidence the gun used to shoot Mr. Turner was, in fact, the gun belonging to Simon Hunter.” Cal received his second stink-eye from the judge in a matter of minutes. “Proceed, Mr. Connor.”

“The point isn’t who this defendant lied to or whose gun she used, or why Sean Turner turned up in Illinois. The point is she lied and she lied a lot. She left Mr. Turner in his hotel room bleeding to death.”

Nope. By the time I arrived, he’d been stabbed and shot and died alone. The way I always knew he would.

“The relationship between the defendant and Mr. Turner was born in the back of a limousine where the defendant conceived the couple’s child. After trying unsuccessfully to dupe Keaton Shaw into believing the child belonged to him, a DNA test proved her a liar. Another lie in her long list. With no other choice after being chased out of Storybook Lake in shame, she sought out Sean Turner and married him, then quit her job.”

I hadn’t quit my job. My job didn’t require a desk or an office, just a pen and piece of paper. I designed kids’ clothes for a living.

“Then she moved to California to be with her husband. After a few thousand arguments over money, she left the marital home, taking the child with her. When she returned over the Christmas holiday, she visited Storybook Lake with her husband, and while they were there, together, as a couple, she flaunted her desire to be with Mr. Hunter in Sean Turner’s face.”