Love at First Flight (35 page)

“Your closing was really good, Mr.
Maguire,” Tanner said, surprising Michael.

The young officer hadn't had much to say
since the rock went through Michael's window on his watch. “Thank you.”

When they arrived, Michael went into his
office and closed the door. He hated waiting for juries. Usually, it was the
most stressful part of any trial. Not this one, though. The whole thing had
been stressful. He picked up the phone to call Juliana.

“Hey,” he said. “What're you up to?”

“Having lunch between appointments.
How'd it go in court?”

“Good, I think.”

“Did you use my line?”

“Sure did. I ended with it, just like we
practiced.”

“I wish I could've been there to watch
you.” He wished he'd thought to bring her. “Me, too. Next time, maybe? If there
is a next time...”

“I'd love that.”

As he was thinking about how much he
loved her, there was a knock on his door.

“Hang on a sec, hon.” With his hand over
the phone, he said, “Come in.”

“They're back,” George said.

“Already? It hasn't even been an hour.”

George shrugged. “We've got thirty
minutes to get there.”

“Tell Tom.” Into the phone, Michael
said, “I've got to go. The jury's back.”

Juliana gasped. “Are you worried it was
too fast?”

“That's often good news for us, but you
never know.”

“Good luck, Michael. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Turn on the news in
about forty-five minutes.”

“I will.”

***

The jury filed into the courtroom half
an hour later. Michael was encouraged when several of them glanced over at him
as they were seated. In his experience, it was when they didn't look at you
that you needed to worry.

After they were settled, Judge Stein
asked, “Have you arrived at unanimous verdicts?”

“Yes, your honor,” said the foreman, a
tall, burly man who worked on the docks in the port of Baltimore. He handed the
verdict paper to the bailiff who walked it over to the judge.

Judge Stein read the verdicts, passed
the paper back to the bailiff, and asked the defendants to rise. “In the matter
of the People versus Marco and Steven Benedetti, murder of Jose Borges in the
first degree, what say you?”

Michael held his breath.

“Guilty,” the foreman said.

The gallery erupted.

Judge Stein wrapped his gavel. “Order!”
he bellowed. “There will be order in this courtroom!”

When the only sound was the quiet
weeping of the victims' families, Judge Stein continued. “In the matter of the
People versus Marco and Steven Benedetti, murder of Timothy Sargant in the
first degree, what say you?”

“Guilty,” the foreman said to more whimpering
from the gallery.

“In the matter of the People versus
Marco and Steven Benedetti, murder of Mark Domingos in the first degree, what
say you?”

“Guilty,” the foreman said.

Michael rested his head on his hands and
fought the urge to weep. Guilty.

Thank
you, God.

Pandemonium broke out all around him as
the families of the victims rejoiced and the people sitting behind the
Benedettis sobbed.

It took Judge Stein several minutes to
restore order. He thanked the jury for their sacrifice and hard work. “Sentencing
is set for one month from today. We are adjourned.”

Michael stood up to accept the
congratulations of George Samuels, Tom Houlihan, the paralegals who worked with
them, and the overjoyed families of the victims.

He was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Borges when
out of the corner of his eye he saw Marco Benedetti lunge for the gun belonging
to the sheriff deputy who was attempting to cuff him.

Michael screamed and everything shifted
into slow motion.

Before the other deputies could reach
him, Marco waved the gun erratically and fired a wild shot.

The people still in the courtroom dove
for cover under chairs and tables. Michael, on the other hand, couldn't seem to
make his legs move. He watched, transfixed, as Marco grabbed one of the other
deputies, held the gun to her head, and screamed for his brother to help him.

Michael glanced over to find Steven
locked in an epic struggle with another deputy. Steven prevailed, wrestled the
gun from the deputy, and rushed to his brother's side.

Marco flashed a victorious grin at the
people who remained in the courtroom before he shoved aside the woman he'd held
hostage and zeroed in on Michael. “Fuck you, Maguire.” He aimed the gun at
Michael.

Too surprised to even move, Michael
locked eyes with Marco, and for a brief, sickening moment he found out what
goes through the mind of someone who's about to die.

Marco fired, and another shot rang out
from behind Michael, who was suddenly flying through the air. He landed on the
floor under John Tanner as one of the other deputies put a bullet between the
eyes of Steven Benedetti.

With that final shot, the case of the
People vs. Marco and Steven Benedetti came to a bloody and deadly end.

***

Juliana forced herself to stay busy at
home while she waited for the local news to break into programming to announce
the verdicts. When she couldn't sit still any longer, she paced back and forth,
praying they would be found guilty. While she wanted justice for the families
of the three boys, she had her own reasons for wanting to keep the Benedettis
in jail. She opened the front door to ask the cops if they'd heard anything.

“Not yet. We'll let you know as soon as
we do.”

“Thanks.”

She went back inside and paced for
another ten minutes before the local anchors came on with the news that verdicts
had been reached in the Benedetti trial. They went live to their reporter on
the scene.

Juliana sat down on the sofa and clasped
her hands together in prayer as anxiety and adrenaline coursed through her.

“Just a minute ago, we received word
that Marco and Steven Benedetti have been found guilty on all three counts of
murder in the first degree. To repeat, the Benedettis are guilty.”

Juliana screamed with joy and relief as
she bolted to the front door in search of someone to celebrate with. She ran
down the stairs and jumped into the arms of one of the two cops guarding her
that day. Imagining how Michael must feel at this moment, tears slid down her
cheeks. He had done it. He'd gotten them—for the fami-lies of the three boys,
for Rachelle, and for everyone touched by their reign of terror.

She was still talking to the police
officers when their radios began to crackle with the news of shots fired at the
courthouse. “What's going on?” she asked in a tiny voice.

The cops listened intently to the back and
forth, much of it in code that Juliana didn't understand.

“Please,” she begged. “Tell me what
happened.”

“It sounds like one of the Benedettis
grabbed a gun and shot up the courtroom,” the younger of the two cops said.

“Michael,”
Juliana
moaned, sinking to the cement stairs. “Oh, Michael.”

As the younger cop went to the patrol
car to find out more, the other one sat down next to her and took her hand. “We're
going to find out what happened just as fast as we can, okay?”

She squeezed his hand and nodded,
knowing all the cops who had guarded them in the last few weeks had become fond
of her and Michael. They knew exactly what she needed to hear just then.

Her heart raced as she absorbed the very
real possibility that Michael could be dead. Promising anything God wished to
ask for in return, she asked Him to protect Michael and bring him home to her.

The waiting became unbearable, and she
began to cry. The movie of her brief time with him ran through her mind over
and over again. Resting her head on her arms, she was overcome with love and
fear unlike anything she'd ever experienced, even when Escalada held a knife to
her throat. Her worries for Michael's safety were far greater than any she had
ever felt for her own.

Just when Juliana thought she would go
mad if she didn't hear something soon, a police car pulled onto the street. The
back door opened, and Michael ran for her. Later, she wouldn't recall the exact
moment when it registered with her that it was him, and he was safe. All she
remembered was running and crying and screaming his name.

Right in the middle of Chester Street,
he scooped her off her feet and into his arms.

She rained kisses over his face before
she found his lips.

“It's over, baby,” he whispered. “It's
really over.”

***

“So then John fired from behind me and
hit Marco right in the heart,” Michael recounted to Juliana. They were curled
up together on the sofa after saying a tearful good-bye to the police officers
who'd provided protection over the last two months.

“Thank God he was there.” Juliana
couldn't seem to stop touching Michael—his face, his hair, his chest—as if to
confirm he was really safe.

“Yeah, he was unbelievable. He fired
while he was in midair tackling me, and the shot was dead-on accurate. I don't
know how Marco missed us both. When I tried to thank John, he said, T owed you
one, Mr. Maguire.'“

“It must've been so scary.”

“It all happened so fast there was no
time to be scared, but I'll tell you what, in that one second when Marco
fixated on me and I thought I was going to die, a lot of shit ran through my
head.”

She caressed his face. “Like what?”

“I had just enough time to be really sad
that I wouldn't get to spend my life with you. And I thought about my poor
parents who've already lost one son. That's why I called them on the way home,
before they heard it on the news. My mother was hysterical.”

Juliana closed her eyes tight against
the burn of tears. “I was so sure you were dead.”

He pressed his lips to hers. “All I
could think about was getting home to you. I left Tom to deal with the media
and got the hell out of there.” He checked his watch. “They're having a press
conference in a few minutes.”

She released him so he could turn on the
TV.

They listened to Police Chief Noonan
recount the events that occurred in the courtroom. He announced for the first
time that the Benedettis had been linked to the attempted murder-for-hire of
the eyewitness and the police officers guarding her in the Annapolis hotel
room. The chief answered a flurry of questions about the connection between the
Benedettis and Escalada without naming Juliana.

“Thank God it's over,” she whispered.

“Thank God they're dead, and they can't
hurt you or anyone else.”

Tom appeared next. “I want to thank
everyone on my staff who worked so hard over the last year to secure the
convictions of Marco and Steven Benedetti. In particular, the entire city of
Baltimore owes a debt of gratitude to lead prosecutor Michael Maguire. Despite
repeated threats to his safety and that of his loved ones, Mr. Maguire never
wavered in his commitment to see justice served on behalf of the Borges,
Domingos, and Sargant families. I think it's safe to say the Benedettis are now
facing a higher form of justice than anything we could've meted out here on
earth.”

“Isn't that the truth?” Michael said. “I
hope they rot in hell.”

They listened to interviews with several
jurors who expressed shock over the events in the courtroom, as well as what
they finally learned about the arsenic attack.

“I wondered why she didn't testify in
person,” the foreman said. “We had our suspicions that something happened to
her, but we never could've imagined all of this.”

“This means Rachelle's family can go
home again, right?” Juliana asked.

“They're on their way as we speak, and I
heard today that Scott Brown is on the mend.”

“That's great news,” she said, overcome
with relief to know that Rachelle would get back at least some of what she'd
lost on that fateful night and that Officer Brown would recover from his
injuries. “I don't ever want to hear the name Benedetti again. Can we never,
ever talk about them again?”

“Fine by me.” Michael flipped off the
television and turned to her. “I have a big idea.”

“What's that?”

“Tom told me not to show my face in the
office until next Monday, and you don't have to be anywhere until Saturday.
What do you say we get out of here for a few days?”

“I'd love to.”

CHAPTER 30

MICHAEL AND JULIANA SPENT THREE BLISSFUL
NIGHTS at a resort in the Bahamas. The sunshine and relaxed atmosphere did
wonders to restore their battered nerves, but they were subdued as they flew
home late on Friday afternoon. Juliana was due to meet Jeremy in the morning,
and Michael had decided to go to Jacksonville to finally deal with Paige and
her alleged pregnancy.