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“No.”
“You missed out on your senior year?”
“The last part of it, yes.”
“So no friends. No socializing. No senior ditch day. No prom. No graduation.”
“No, I didn’t do any of those things.”
“And college? You had applied to and been accepted to several universities, is that correct?”
“Yes. Before everything happened, I was trying to decide where to go. I was working with my parents on that.”
“First semester of what should have been your freshman year of college is currently under way, but you’re not enrolled at any university, is that correct?”
Alexandra nodded. “That’s correct. I didn’t think it would be possible to go to college with all the media and press and attention and stuff.”
“Because reporters would have followed you to whichever campus you chose. Is that what you were afraid of?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, the press found out which universities accepted you, made that information public, and then protests took place at those schools. From Virginia Tech, to Clemson, to Georgia. Is that correct?”
Alexandra nodded. “Yeah. Um, certain organizations at each of those schools made it known that I wasn’t welcome on their campus.”
Garrett looked back to the jury. “A teenaged girl loses her entire family, and because of our society’s insatiable appetite for the morbid details of other people’s suffering, and our constant desire for scapegoating and scandal—all of which was stoked by Alexandra being wrongly accused and publicly prosecuted—that girl wasn’t allowed to properly finish high school.”
He looked back to Alexandra. “So college became impossible, and your entire future will be marred by a police department’s incompetence and a society’s obsession with sensationalism of true crime. Do I have that right?”
“Objection,” Bill Bradley said from the defense table. “Your Honor, by her own admission, Miss Quinlan completed high school. It was her personal decision not to attend college. And Mr. Lancaster is not able to predict the future. We don’t know what Miss Quinlan will be doing next year, or for the rest of her life.”
“Sustained,” the judge said. “Mr. Lancaster, stick with present day, please.”
“Of course, Your Honor. But, instead of present day,” Garrett said, turning to look directly at Bill Bradley, “maybe we should go back to the night of January fifteenth instead.”
Garrett turned back to Alexandra, his voice softer now.
“Alexandra, do you feel comfortable telling the court what happened the night your parents and brother were killed?”
“Objection,” Bill Bradley said again, standing from the defense table and a bit more animated this time.
Garrett understood the man’s aggression. At all costs, the state of Virginia did not want this court to hear the details Alexandra was about to provide.
“Miss Quinlan is not on trial for murder,” Bradley said. “I think it would be an injustice to make her relive that night.”
“An injustice?” Garrett said with more force to his words than Bill Bradley had put behind his own. “Now, suddenly, the state of Virginia is concerned about injustice? With all due respect, Bill, that’s the biggest pile of crap that’s ever been dumped in a court-room.”
“Gentlemen!” the judge said, slamming his gavel to bring the courtroom to order. “Arguments come to me, not to each other. Do you understand?”
“My apologies, Your Honor,” Garrett said. “I understand.”
“Your objection is overruled, Mr. Bradley. Hearing Miss Quinlan’s testimony about the night her family was killed is paramount to this case, and the court will allow it.”
Bradley sat and Garrett made eye contact with Alexandra.
“You sure you can do this?” he asked as if he were talking just to her, but made sure the jury could hear him.
Alexandra nodded. “I am.”
