Blood Defense | страница 5
Barry jumped in. “Come on, Samantha. They can’t sell self-defense. She went and got the gun and then hunted him down-”
“So what? A jury who hears about those beatings is a jury who’ll say screw the law and screw him. She walks. A jury who hears a lot of BS about trigger pulls and safety malfunctions says, ‘Screw her.’”
Sheri leaned in. “Then, Samantha, you’re banking on an emotional verdict, aren’t you?”
“Sheri, since when aren’t we?”
Sheri threw it to Barry. “You agree with that?”
Barry smiled. “There’s no disagreeing with that. It’s just a matter of how you go about it. But Samantha’s right: the more the jury hears about those beatings, the better for her.”
Which now, thanks to us, they just had.
When my last segment wrapped, I went to the makeup room to find Barry. We’d agreed to join the producers for drinks after the show. The television was playing clips from Chloe’s most recent talk-show appearances. A voiceover was talking about the rough times Chloe had been through before she got the gig on Dark Corners.
She’d been a child star, but in the years after her show went off the air, she’d hit a downward spiral that ended at the tip of a needle. Before she scored the role in Dark Corners, the only time she appeared on television was when she landed in court for one drug bust or another. It made her murder an even bigger heartbreaker. I nodded at the screen. “She was really in the shits for a while, wasn’t she?”
Barry nodded as he wiped off his makeup. “One of her lawyers is a poker buddy. Said she was heading down the OD track for sure when Paige took her in. He said Paige and that role saved her life.” Barry looked up at the television, his expression sad. “Kind of a tragic irony, isn’t it?”
More than tragic, it was depressing. “Life is one unfair bitch.”
Barry’s cell rang. He frowned at the screen. “I’ve gotta take this. You go on ahead. Save me a seat, okay?”
“You got it.” I headed out, thinking about the icy tequila with lime in my near future.
It was already dark by then, and the studio was on the east side of Hollywood. Not the best neighborhood for a nighttime stroll, but I’d found a shortcut after doing A.M. Hot Spot last Monday morning. But the minute I turned onto the smaller street just south of Sunset, I realized that what’d looked fine in daylight looked a lot different at night. I told myself to stop being such a wuss, but my stomach tightened with every step. I scanned the street as I moved, noticing for the first time the abandoned house with broken windows on the corner, the empty lot on the right where used condoms and discarded syringes glowed in the moonlight, and dark alleys on either side of me. I felt like the idiot in those scary movies who makes you want to yell at the screen when she gets into the car with a-