The Call
The courtroom had emptied out hours ago, leaving only the echo of emptiness and the click of the soft drink vending machines in the hall outside the huge doors. Marshall sat at the defense desk, the file open in front of him, a cup of coffee gone cold beside it. He knew he should head back to his office, but he like the solitude the room offered him now.
State of North Carolina v. Kyle A. Whitaker
The name still looked wrong in print.
He’d read the report three times already, but he kept starting over. The photos were the worst, not only the violence itself, but the way they made Kyle’s name sit so close to it, as if the paper were trying to fuse two things that didn’t belong together. Kyle could not have done that to anyone.
The evidence was paper-thin. A witness sighting, a truck with half a license plate, and a motel that rented rooms for cash. But the tone of the report carried its own conviction: male suspect, quiet, detached, possibly dangerous. People had been hanged on less.
That phrase stuck under Marshall’s skin.
He leaned back, rubbed his eyes, and tried to remember the boy he used to know, the one who’d run the bases like it was his kingdom, who’d walked home with mud on his cleats and a grin that could disarm anyone. The boy who’d flinched at the sound of his own name after that night behind the bleachers.
Marshall had been the one who kissed him. He’d spent years regretting it, not the act, but the silence that followed. Kyle had left town before Marshall even knew what he’d done wrong. And now, fifteen years later, here he was again, older, heavier, his smile gone but his voice unchanged.
Marshall closed the file and stared at the ceiling. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let emotion interfere, that he’d treat this like any other case. But every time he thought of Kyle sitting in that interrogation room, quiet and alone, the air around him had seemed to tighten.
He flipped the file open again, this time focusing on the timeline.
Victim: Amanda R. Nolan.
Time of death: Between 10:30 and 11:45 p.m.
Witness sighting: 11:15 p.m., male subject leaving motel.
Kyle’s statement: Left room at 11:10.
Five minutes. That was all that separated him from freedom or ruin. Shit, thought Marshall. The witness saw Kyle. No one saw the murderer; no one noticed anyone else leaving the motel.
Marshall studied the crime scene photos again. Two rooms down from Kyle’s. The angle of the hallway camera showed only a sliver of the door, no faces, no sound. The report mentioned “voices,” but no audio. No corroborating guest statements. Nothing about the man Kyle had met that night, the client, except for a vague note: individual left premises prior to police arrival; identity unknown.
There it was. The gap.
Marshall picked up a pen, underlined the sentence, then wrote in the margin: FIND HIM.
He shut the folder, grabbed his coat, and stepped into the hallway. The night air outside was thick with rain, the streetlights haloed in mist. He stood there for a moment, breathing it in, trying to settle the noise in his head.
It wasn’t just the case. It was him.
He saw Kyle’s face every time he blinked, the guarded calm, the fatigue, the flicker of recognition that had passed between them like an old wound reopening. For years, Marshall had wondered what he’d say if they ever crossed paths again. ‘I’m sorry’ would’ve been a start. But the moment he’d seen Kyle in that chair, the words had vanished.
Now, standing in the rain, he whispered them anyway. “I’m sorry.”
The sound disappeared into the night.
The next morning, Marshall was back at the police station, sharper now, armor back on. He found Detective Harlan in his office, sipping coffee over a stack of reports.
“Counselor,” Harlan said. “Didn’t expect to see you this early.”
“I wanted to review the witness statement,” Marshall said evenly.
Harlan raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s a bad ID?”
“I think it’s a thin ID,” Marshall corrected. “Your witness saw a man in the dark, from across the lot. Six feet tall, brown hair, mustache. You could throw a rock and hit five of those in this town.”
The detective leaned back. “But only one of those five has admitted to being there. What you’re saying, Marshall, is that your client’s innocent, and I already know that’s what you think.”
“I’m saying your case is circumstantial, Detective. Sure, the witness could have seen Kyle, but it could have been someone else. It could have been the man that Kyle went there to see. Maybe it was the murderer. There were three people at the motel, and only one was seen.”
For a moment, they held each other’s gaze, two men on opposite sides of a line neither had drawn.
Harlan shrugged. “If he didn’t do it, he’s unlucky. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Yeah,” Marshall said quietly. “Seems to be a pattern with him.”
He turned to go, the sound of rain still faint against the windows. “Will you send me a copy of the statement, or do I need to wait for Discovery?”
Harlan smiled. “I’m not a prick, you know. I’ll send them. And Marshall," Harlan lowered his voice, ”the stain on the passenger seat that was shaped like a knife wasn't blood. The official report hasn't come down yet."
Marshal tried not to smile, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.
Harlan moved closer. "But," he whispered, "they did find blood, human blood. For your sake, and his, pray the DNA doesn't match the victim."
If it does, thought Marshall, someone planted it. "It won't," said Marshall. "Kyle did not kill that girl."
As Marshall stepped out into the corridor, his phone buzzed, an unknown number, blocked, untraceable. He hesitated, then answered.
A man’s voice, low and unsteady. “Are you Kyle’s lawyer?”
Marshall’s heart kicked once. “Who is this?”
A pause. “You don’t know me. But I was with him that night. He didn’t do it.”
The line went dead.
Marshall stood still, the phone pressed to his ear, rainwater dripping from his sleeve. For the first time since he’d taken the case, the balance shifted, just slightly, in Kyle's favor.
Kyle wasn’t the ghost from his past who was chasing him for a past mistake. He had become the center of everything Marshall stood for and needed. And there was someone out there who could make the pieces fall into place.
The rain hadn’t let up by morning.
It drummed against the windshield in uneven rhythms, like a heartbeat trying to find its pace. Thin streams slid down the glass, catching the pale orange reflection of the dashboard lights before vanishing into the dark. The wipers moved with weary insistence, squeak, pause, squeak, as though even they were tired of trying.
Marshall sat in his parked car across from the courthouse, staring through the rain-blurred glass at the dull outline of his office building. The city looked waterlogged, heavy with its own exhaustion. Streetlights hummed in the mist, painting everything in washed-out amber. Even the courthouse steps looked bruised under the weight of the weather.
He hadn’t slept. Every time he closed his eyes, the voice replayed, low, uncertain, threaded with something that felt like guilt. I was with him that night.
Those five words had looped through his head for hours, gaining weight each time they returned.
He rubbed at his eyes, jaw tight.
Kyle hadn’t kissed him back that night years ago. He’d run off. Disappeared. Enlisted. And now here he was, accused of murder, and apparently sleeping with someone else in a cheap motel before it happened.
Marshall gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. “Dammit.” The sound filled the small space, sharp and raw. He flipped down the visor, met his own reflection in the mirror. His eyes looked wrecked, ringed in sleepless gray.
You’re still in love with him, he told himself, and the thought hit like a punch. If he ends up in prison, he’d never see that look soften, never feel the weight of Kyle’s quiet gaze again. He slammed the visor shut. “You fucking idiot,” he muttered.
The voice from the phone crept back in, haunted, hesitant. He could still hear the cadence, the way the caller’s breath hitched before speaking. Mid-thirties, maybe. Educated. Not a cop. Not a liar, either. Just… scared.
By the time he made it upstairs, his head throbbed with fatigue. The overhead lights blinked to life, reflecting off rain-streaked windows. His office felt colder than usual, the air faintly metallic from the old radiator that refused to work properly.
The desk was still a mess from last night: open folders, legal pads filled with half-formed arguments, and a cup of coffee that had gone sour hours ago. He brushed aside the clutter until he found Kyle’s file, worn, smudged, and soft around the edges from being handled too often. The top page was covered in notes and cross-outs, but one line stood out, underlined twice in red:
UNKNOWN MALE COMPANION
That was the gap. The missing piece.
He traced the letters absently with his thumb. The paper smelled faintly of toner and rain.
At exactly eight-oh-two, his phone buzzed against the desk.
Unknown number.
Marshall froze. Then his pulse jumped, traitorous. He snatched the phone up before the second ring. “Marshall Greene.”
A pause. The same voice. Quieter, steadier. “You’re the lawyer, right? For Kyle Whitaker.”
“Yes,” Marshall said, forcing his tone to stay calm. “You called me last night.”
“Yeah. I shouldn’t have hung up.” A breath. “I didn’t know if I could trust you. I want to trust you.”
“You can trust me,” Marshall said quickly. His pulse was still hammering. “If you were with him that night, you could help an innocent man.”
For a long moment, the only sound was rain, steady, relentless, filling the silence between them.
Then: “He is innocent.” The man’s voice cracked just slightly.
Marshall’s pen hovered over a blank page. “Did you do it?"
"No." The answer was filled with anger.
"OK. I had to ask. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you saw.”
“I watched him leave,” the man said. “He didn’t go near that woman’s room. He just walked out, calm. He even looked back and waved when he got in his truck. I couldn’t believe it. He’s… hard to read, you know? It’s like he feels things and hides them all at once.”
Marshall wrote fast, the scratch of ink against paper loud in the quiet room.
The caller’s voice dropped, raw and unsteady. “He wasn’t into me. I knew that. But when he touched me, when he looked at me, it felt like he was somewhere else. Like he wanted to care but didn’t know how. It wasn’t just sex. It was like he was trying to remember what it meant to be human.”
Marshall’s chest tightened. He pressed the pen harder. “What’s your name?”
“I, I can’t say. Not yet.” Panic bled into the voice. “I’d lose everything.”
“Then meet me,” Marshall said, leaning forward over the desk. “Somewhere neutral. No police. Just talk to me. Please. I’ll do what I can to protect you.”
There was another long pause. He could hear breathing, uneven through the static.
Finally: “There’s a coffee place off Main. Second Street Café. Noon.”
Then the line went dead.
Marshall sat there, phone still in hand, the rain whispering against the windows like static. Outside, a truck splashed through a puddle, sending dirty water across the sidewalk. He didn’t move, not for a long time.
When he finally set the phone down, something in him felt different. There was a crack in the wall of helplessness. A lead. A pulse of possibility.
He exhaled, slow and unsteady, and looked again at Kyle’s name on the folder. Maybe, just maybe, this was the start of turning everything around.
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