Page 20 of Kingston (Savage Dragons #2)

The courtroom was packed, and there were hundreds of people still trying to get in from the outside. He’d not expected the crowds, as he didn’t think that the Connors were well known around here, as they had been in another state altogether.

After the judge gave a lecture about how everyone was to conduct themselves during his trial, the couple was brought in.

To say that they aged poorly would have been grossly overstated.

They looked all of their years and then some.

Even if you were to discount the fact that they were each wearing the drab orange of the jail system, they looked washed out, and she was heavier than he remembered her to be.

Jack Connor looked like someone’s grandpa who had had a bad day.

His hair was longer than his usual buzz cut, and it looked like he’d gone to bed with it wet and hadn’t bothered to comb it out when he got up.

The jumper that he had on looked stained, though it couldn’t be told if it was fresh or not, but it was his hands that had startled Kings the most.

They were shaky and curled up in a claw-like look. His nails were long and dirty, like he’d been working in a garden and hadn’t had time to wash up. He also had the smokers fingers were nicotine had stained his fingers because he’d been smoking for so long.

June didn’t look much better, but instead of losing weight like her husband seemed to have done, she put on quite a few pounds.

The outfit was ill-fitting and out of character for the older woman, as she seemed to be impeccably dressed the times that he’d seen her.

Her hair was drawn back from her head tightly so that it looked, in certain lights, like she was bald.

The silver of her hair was fighting vainly with the darkness of her roots, and it looked like the roots were winning.

They had put on the appearance of being a much younger couple so that no one would question the fact that they had a ten-year-old son, Trevor.

They had changed his name from Trevor to Matthew Connors.

And since he’d been no more than a baby at the time of the murder of his parents and kidnapping, he thought they were his parents for a long time.

Then he’d run away and met up with Skye, who protected him as much as she could.

That’s where Jason Waggoner had come into the picture.

He’d been trying to find Skye to make her marry him.

All he really wanted from her was her home and her paycheck, but she had left him, and the man had been chasing her since then.

When Waggoner saw the young boy and remembered the pictures that he’d seen of him, he contacted the Connors, and they offered him a million dollars to bring the boy back to them, and he could do whatever he wanted with the girl.

His plan then changed to killing her to get her out of the way so that he could get to the younger man.

But Kings discovered that she was his mate after helping her out of a situation at a diner where she was working, and she’d become someone that he would protect with his life. And that of Trevor, too. If he could, he’d adopt Trevor and make him his own son when he married Skye.

“Your honor, this travesty has gone on long enough. I’ve just spent the last five months in jail with my lovely wife.

So whatever anyone thinks that we’ve done wrong, I think that we’ve more than paid for it.

” The honorable James Holden asked Jack if he thought that six months was long enough for a double murder.

“I do, your honor. We should get some credit for not killing off the little boy, too. We raised him as our own. Our only sin is that we murdered his parents to have such a little boy. We love him.”

“They would lock me into the basement and my room without food or water when I didn’t perform for them correctly.” The judge hit his gavel on the dais and asked for there to be quiet in his courtroom. “So you’re all right with their lies? I’m not. They beat me, too.”

“See here. We only beat you when you acted out. That’s what any parent would do to their children.

And we had reason for us to beat you and take away your privileges.

You wouldn’t do what we told you to do when there were others around.

” Jack looked at the judge. “He could tell what the stock market would be, and he wouldn’t tell anyone that we had over what they would get if they invested in things.

Plus, he kept telling people that he didn’t belong to us.

I don’t know how he figured that out, but it surely made it embarrassing when he spouted off that stuff to near strangers. ”

“Both of you sit down in your seats. Believe it or not, I know how to run a courtroom and my word is rule. Now sit down and be quiet until someone speaks to you.” Holden looked at Jack before continuing.

“No, we don’t beat our kids and take away their food and water when they act out.

Nor do we lock them in the basement either.

Now you keep your mouth closed until such time as someone asks you a question. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, but I don’t like it.” He told him how to address him.

“All right, your honor, but as I said, I don’t like this one bit.

If this keeps up, not going our way, then I’m thinking that you’re going to put us in some kind of bigger jail when we have already paid the price of killing off his parents.

They weren’t that good anyway. Always taking him away from me when I only wanted a few investments from him.

What kind of person doesn’t cash in on that when they have the golden egg right there in front of them?

I’ll tell you who. It was his parents, that’s who. ”

“Are you finished? I’m asking you that so that I figure that once you talk yourself out, you’ll finally do as I tell you and sit down and shut up.

” Jack said he was done for now. “The next time you have the feeling to take over my courtroom, I’m going to fine you five hundred dollars and ten days more in jail on top of jail time if there is any. ”

“Are you saying that we might not have any?” Holden told him that what he was saying was to shut up. “I will, but I don’t have to like it. We’ve not been with our son Matthew now for too—”

“Who’s Matthew?” The bailiff told the judge that was the name they’d given Trevor when they kidnapped him after murdering his parents. “His name is Trevor now, correct?”

“Yes, your honor.” Finally, Jack sat down, but he wasn’t quiet.

He kept muttering under his breath about everything that was being said around him.

Kings could hear him, and that made him think that if they ever got Trevor back, they’d kill him.

Just from the few things that he had in his head, he knew it wouldn’t bode well for the youngster if they were to get their hands on him again.

Witnesses were brought before the courtroom. Some of the people had some very damaging things to say about the Connor couple, and most weren’t surprised by the fact that they’d killed Trevor’s parents. Some were surprised that they were the only people that they had killed.

They were a black mark to their community and never did anything around their own property to make it look like the rest of the homes on their street.

Going so far as to not mow their lawn all summer and leaving cars in the yard for things to live in it.

There had been one family that complained of rats living on the land.

“Got nobody to mow it, now do I?” Jack was told to sit down again. “What does this have to do with us taking Matthew when we wanted him? Nothing I tell you. Not one thing. These people should be watching out. Something might befall them, too.”

He was fined five hundred dollars and ten days added onto his sentence.

Of course, that was something else he complained about.

Not having a job nor anyone to help him with the investments meant that he couldn’t pay anybody to mow his lawn and make the ‘stupid people’ of the town ‘keep their traps shut’ about his property.

At noon, the court recessed for lunch. The Connors were taken back to jail; they’d worn out their welcome at the courthouse, and everyone else had an hour to come back.

None of them moved as they knew that their seats were prime and they’d not have them when they returned.

Sending out someone to get food for them was the next thing on their list. If they couldn’t eat it in the courtroom, they’d go out two at a time to eat it before coming back for two more.

They all wanted to be front and center in what was going on in the place today.

It was only a pre-hearing of the trial that might be months to years away.

But they needed to know what was going to happen with Trevor.

He was well-loved by the family, and all of them thought of him as a part of the family now.

They only needed to make sure that they could adopt him before anyone tried to take him away.

“Jason is trying to wiggle his way out of his confession.” He asked Brenin how he was doing that.

“He’s saying that he was told to say that so he’d not have to go to prison.

I don’t know all the details, but a buddy of mine at the station house said that he’s making all kinds of noise about Skye saying that she’d marry him, then backed out when things didn’t go her way.

Again, I don’t know the details of that either, but I’m just letting you know what he’s up to. ”