Bailed Out (The Anna Albertini Files #2) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,9

He tapped his long fingers on his khaki pants in a one, three, two, one rhythm that calmed him. Today he wore a plain white shirt, and when he only wore one color, he was in need of peace and quiet.

I stopped a couple of feet away from him. “What are you doing here?”

“Everyone is here,” he said, looking past me to the park.

I exhaled. Okay. That was to be expected. My entire family would need to see that Tessa was all right for themselves. “I need to go inside, P. Do you want to come with me?”

He shook his head. “There are too many people in there. I told my mother I would meet her in the college library across the park.”

Timber City Community College took up the third side of the park that wasn’t lakefront, and Pauley attended the school at his age since he was brilliant. He was also one of my favorite people in the world, and I knew he wouldn’t like to be inside the courtroom with so many people. He was autistic with savant qualities, and I loved him more than I could describe. “Can I come with you?” I joked.

His grin was quick and then gone. “The grandmothers are united.”

I gasped. My head spun. “United?”

“United,” he affirmed.

In union, in perfect accord, we both crossed ourselves. Holy Mary Mother of God. I couldn’t breathe. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Goodbye.” Pauley strolled gracefully down the steps and toward the trails that wound through the city park to the college.

I looked at the closed double doors of the courthouse and fought the very real urge to run back to my office. This was worse than I’d feared. “Okay,” I whispered to myself. “This is okay. I can handle this.” Sucking up courage, I barreled up the remaining steps and through the door, all but running down to the lower floor, where only the first appearances took place in misdemeanor court. After the first appearances, felony cases then took place in the district courtrooms upstairs.

My head swam, but I pushed open the double doors in the courtroom in which I normally worked. Today, one entire side was packed full of family members on the benches, as if they were attending a wedding and were on the bride’s side. Today it was the defendant’s side. The other side of the wide aisle just held a couple of people I didn’t know, including two Lorde’s members with long hair and the Lorde cut on their powerful shoulders.

Donna stood from the back row and grabbed my arm. “The grandmothers are united.”

“I heard,” I whispered, my voice trembling. Taking another deep breath, I angled my head to see our grandmothers standing in front of the first bench, shoulder to…head. Yep. Right next to each other, an invisible shield all but cascading out from them. “Holy Mother.”

Donna pulled me out of the aisle. “I know.” Her voice remained hushed, although many of our relatives were talking loudly to each other in front of us.

I didn’t know what to do. Instead, my eyes remained glued on the two. Nonna Albertini and Nana O’Shea couldn’t be more different if they had made a lifetime attempt at it. Nonna was tall with black hair, incredible brown eyes, lovely olive-toned skin, and a no-nonsense approach to life. There was not a doubt in my mind that she had a wooden spoon in her massive leather purse, and it’d be a miracle if she didn’t clap Nick on the ear with it during the hearing.

Nana was only five feet tall, had reddish-blonde hair, pale skin that turned red from a breeze, and soft green eyes. She believed in magic, fairies, and everything in between, and there was a fair chance she’d end up putting a spell on Nick if he didn’t do well today.

The grandmas were the same age and had been enemies from high school for a reason I’d never truly heard since neither one of them would talk about it. When my folks had gotten together, most of Silverville had picked a side and then gone to war…until Donna had been born and they’d shared blood. From that time, the grandmas had tolerated each other because they loved the same people, but usually that was as far as it went.

When they united, they were a force beyond this world. Kind of like two magnets that somehow figured out how to mesh together when it’s a physical impossibility.

Donna leaned in. “Do you think they’ll grab Tess and