Chapter 21 - Where’s the Tank

Maggie sighed with irritation as Marcus lectured her once more on her nasty habit of spitting out a jumbled mess of sounds whenever she got too flustered or upset. It had been two very long days of him firing off possible questions at her like a drill sergeant and when she would inevitably get overwhelmed she’d just stutter like crazy or simply spat out random syllables. Which in turned caused him to lecture her on her self-control and how important it is that she doesn't stutter or blurt out a verbal mess while she was on the stand.

Maggie knew that Chase’s lawyer was going to try to make her look like an anti-social loon, but even she had to admit when she was flustered like that maybe he’d be right. She honestly was trying to keep herself cool under the intense interrogation, but she could only take so much. Honestly, she wished Tank was there. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, being with him made her feel as if she could face almost anything.

Hell, she fought Chase back when Tank showed up. When Tank wasn’t around, she felt incapable of doing anything like that. She wondered what Tank was doing that he’d been gone so long. He left shortly after they arrived at Marcus’s home, saying something about reporting in with the department. Since then she hadn’t seen him or heard anything from him or about him. Maggie tried not to let it bother her, but part of her was tempted to be depressed.

Was he gone for good now that she no longer appeared to need a bodyguard? Did he really recover from his temporary insanity that quickly that he couldn’t even, at least, say “goodbye, it’s been fun?” Maggie was glad this whole situation was nearly over but sincerely she didn’t want the part that had Tank her life to be over.

“Maggie, are you listening to me at all,” Marcus asked, rapping his knuckles on his desk and broke her out of her dark thoughts.

She sighed again, all good things have to come to an end, she thought bitterly. “I’ve heard what you’re saying a million times by now,” Maggie told him with a flat tone. “A few more t-times and I’ll have it memorized,” she told him with a small hint of a smile, but Marcus didn’t appear to be amused as he glowered at her.

“This is hardly a situation for humor,” the grumpy D.A. told her.

“You know Maggie, Chase didn’t just kill your neighbor. He’s been in over a dozen murder investigations! If you throw in the deaths that it’s believed that he simply ordered the hit the number soars up to nearly a hundred,” he told her with a chilling tone.

She felt a little guilty and angry at the fact he was trying to make her feel guilty. “I’m doing the best that I can,” she snapped at him and he gave her a skeptical look. “I may be a freak and a loser but my eyes see perfectly and I saw Chase kill Hannah! I can try to appear to be like everyone else but the truth is I’m not! If that’s not enough for the jury then I can’t do any more,” she told him heatedly and he had the audacity to look pleased.

“Well at least, this time, you didn’t blurt out a phonetic mess,” he told her with a small smile and for the first time Maggie wanted to punch someone, she wanted to knock Marcus’s stupid teeth right out of his mouth. “Anyway I think it’s time we take a break,” he said, probably noticing that she was getting angry. She nodded and got up from her seat, walking out of the elegant room they were in and towards the small guest bedroom where she was staying.

Maggie laid down on the small day bed, trying to dispel some of her nervousness. She felt nervous because of Tank’s absence and nervous about the trial. If the trial went badly, Maggie knew things would go badly for her. Chase was probably pretty pissed at her by now and if he wanted her dead before then, he’d probably want to make her die very slowly and painfully. Not to mention doing a jig on her grave afterward.

Maggie sighed; this train of thought wasn’t helping her relax…at all! What she needed to do was some goblin hunting. Pwning those little green buggers always made her feel better. She sighed once more in frustration and despair. Her computer was still in that house, so very far, far away. Her poor computer, who knows what Chase and his men, might have done to it. The thought of the morbid possibilities brought her nearly to tears.

She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. She had noticed earlier that it was stocked with all kinds of posh creams, shampoos, and what not. Maggie would be a fool if she didn’t take advantage of such an opportunity and such posh products could surely help her get some of the unwanted stress and nerves.

Two hours later Maggie emerged from the humid bathroom feeling like a new woman and more importantly with much less stress though the good feeling didn’t last long as she hadn’t taken three steps from the bathroom until she saw Marcus waiting for her.

“Time to get back to work,” he told her with a pointed tone and Maggie rolled her eyes. She was seriously getting tired of going over and over the same stuff; this was quickly becoming her hell on earth.

The next day Maggie sat outside the courtroom, near the point of a nervous breakdown. She wore a peach dress suit that Marcus’s wife had borrowed her. Maggie hated it, the color made her look awful and it itched horribly, but she was forced to wear it anyways. According to Rachel, Marcus’s wife, Maggie looked almost normal while wearing it. Then she muttered, “Which is a miracle,” but she suspected that Rachel didn’t mean for her to hear that part.

Maggie stared at her hands trying to remember everything Marcus had told her while every so often she could hear Marcus and another man making speeches or arguing over something. The other man whom she assumed was Chase’s lawyer sounded so harsh and cold from the few words she caught. It made Maggie doubt if she really could go through with all of this and not look like a blundering idiot of course.

Maggie was starting to feel sick to her stomach when someone sat down beside her. She figured it was one of the police officers that had become her new shadow since she left Marcus’s home.

“What are you wearing Maggie? You look like an over ripe peach,” the teasing voice of Tank broke through her nervous thoughts. She looked up and saw it was indeed Tank sitting next to her.

His arm was in a real sling now and he didn’t look as pale as when she last saw him. “Marcus made me wear it. Apparently it makes me look normal,” she told him feeling slightly embarrassed Tank had a skeptical look on his face. “If they say so…” he replied slowly.

“What are you doing here Ta-Brian?” Maggie asked. She was relieved to see him, though she wouldn’t admit it openly, but she didn’t expect to see him here. He looked more than a little surprised that she used his name. “Marcus told me to stop calling you Tank because I could accidently say it in there,” she explained moving her head towards the closed courtroom. “He says that would be very bad.”

“I guess it would be but it’s strange to hear you call me by my name, though,” he said with a small half smile. “I’m here because I couldn’t let you go through this all alone. It wouldn’t make me a very good tank now would it,” he told her and the half-smile grew as he placed his hand on her knee, her nervousness instantly started to wane.

Maggie returned his smile weakly. “Thanks,” she replied quietly then turned her attention back to her hands.

“Look, Maggie, I’m sorry I’ve been M.I.A. for the last couple of days. I wanted to come right back after meeting up with my new boss, but he had other plans. He had me running ever and there like some mad dog. Not even my injured state seemed to sway the man. I swear he’s like Bravura on speed,” Tank told her with a sly smile Maggie laughed, despite her rattled nerves.

Tank looked like he wanted to say more, but the bailiff came to take Maggie into the courtroom. “Don’t worry Maggie, just tell the truth and keep calm. Everything else will work itself out,” Tank told her and she gave him another weak smile.

She stood up and followed the bailiff into the large room. She squirmed in her skin as she could literally feel all their eyes fall on her, especially Chase’s. However, his bruised and swollen nose where she had hit him with her elbow actually helped her relax some. When she sat down next to the judge and noticed Tank had sat down in the back of the room helped her even more.

“Now Ms. Kent,” Marcus started in a loud, clear voice. “Please tell us what happened the night of June fourteenth at three in the morning?”

Maggie took a slow deep breath and started to relate the events of the night that Hannah was murdered. She was surprised when her voice came out strong and steady, she hardly even stuttered. Once she was finished Marcus started questioning her and she easily responded, they had gone through the questions, at least, a hundred times when she was going through his grueling practice trail.

“Thank you, Ms. Kent,” he stated with he had finished the questions with a look of approval on his face then indicated to the judge that he was done.

Now Chase’s lawyer stood up with an absolute nasty look on his face and Maggie could easily tell he was looking for blood, her blood. “Well, well Ms. Kent you seemed to be holding up really well considering that the man you say murdered your best friend and tried to kill you twice is sitting just a mere fifteen feet from you. How can you be so calm Ms. Kent if my client did everything you say he did,” he asked with a condescending sneer.

Maggie swallowed nervously and glanced at Tank for a moment. It was weird but the simple fact of knowing that he was there made her feel more confident and relaxed. She looked back at the lawyer with a lift of her chin. “Because he tried to kill me twice and I’m still alive,” she told him with a pointed tone and heard a few people in the room snicker.

The lawyer’s expression turned to pure hatred as he glared at her. This was going to be fun, she thought with sarcasm. Maggie never thought she’d be glad for Marcus’s prep trials, but she was glad, very glad. Chase’s lawyer had practically shouted his accusing questions in such a quick sequence that by the time she finished answering one, he was already asking another. Every time Maggie felt like she was starting to stutter too much or was in danger of starting to blurt a mess of sound, she’d glance at Tank and would feel better almost instantly.

When Chase’s lawyer ran out of questions and attempts to make her look like a delusional hermit, Maggie felt completely exhausted. As she stepped down from the stand, she took a quick glance at the jury. She hoped they see what kind of man Chase was and see the fact that he needed to be punished for everything he’d done.