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Maureen O’Mara. He shook his head. “Next time you cross the line, I’m slapping you with a fine. It will get much more serious after that.”
    “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” O’Mara said. “I’ll be more careful.”
    But Maureen was delighted. She’d said what she needed to, and Kramer wouldn’t be able to unring that bell. Surely the jury got the message.
    Municipal Hospital is a dangerous place, obscenely dangerous.
    “I’m here for my clients,” O’Mara said, standing rock-still in front of the jury box, hands clasped together in front of her, “the deceased and their families; all were victims of malpractice as a result of Municipal Hospital’s greed and negligence.” Then Maureen O’Mara turned to face the courtroom. “Please,” she said, “please raise your hand if you have lost someone at Municipal Hospital.”
    Dozens of hands went up around the courtroom. Others in the courtroom gasped.
    “We need your help to make sure that these deadly so-called accidents never happen again.”

    Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
     

     
    Chapter 20
    AS ORDER WAS RESTORED by Judge Bevins, Yuki slowly dragged her eyes away from Maureen O’Mara. She looked across the aisle to Dr. Garza’s face. She was hoping to see anger, rage that his hospital had been falsely accused. But she couldn’t find it. Rather, something like a smirk played over Garza’s lips, and his entire expression was as cold as a winter landscape.
    Fear constricted Yuki’s chest, and for a long moment she couldn’t move.
    She’d made a horrible mistake!
    Please, don’t let it be too late.
    Yuki stood up from her seat, pushed open the swinging courtroom door, and turned on her cell phone as soon as her feet hit the hallway. She pressed the phone’s small keys, connecting her to the hospital’s recorded telephonic menu.
    She listened to the options, her anxiety rising as she stabbed at the number keys.
    Was Keiko in room 421 or 431? She couldn’t remember! She was blanking on the room number.
    Yuki pressed the zero key, and a watery rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema” plinked in her ear as she waited for a live operator.
    She had to speak with her mom.
    She had to hear Keiko’s voice right now.
    “Let me speak with Keiko Castellano,” she said to the operator finally. “She’s a patient. Please ring her room. It’s 421 or 431.”
    The ringing tone stopped abruptly as Keiko answered, her cheery voice crackling over the wireless transmission.
    Yuki clapped her hand over one ear, pressed her cell phone to the other. The corridor was filling now as the court recessed. Yuki and Keiko continued to talk, to argue, actually. Then the two of them made up, as they always did.
    “I’m doing fine, Yuki. Don’t worry so much all the time,” Keiko finally said.
    “Okay, Mommy, okay. I’ll call you later.”
    As she pressed End, she heard someone calling out her name.
    Yuki looked around until she saw Cindy’s excited face, the crowd parting as her reporter friend elbowed her way through.
    “Yuki,” Cindy said breathlessly. “Were you in there? Did you hear O’Mara’s opening? What’s your professional opinion?”
    “Well,” Yuki told her, blood still pounding in her ears, “lawyers like to say that you win or lose your case in your opening statement.”
    “Hang on,” Cindy said, scribbling in her notebook. “That’s pretty good. The first line in my story. Go on . . .”
    “Maureen O’Mara’s opening was killer, actually,” Yuki said. “She dropped a bomb on the hospital, and the jury isn’t going to forget it. Uh-uh. Neither will I.
    “Municipal hires cheap labor, and patients die because of it. They’re sloppy. They give out the wrong meds. Christ. O’Mara freaked me so far out, I called my mother and told her I wanted to move her to Saint Francis.”
    “Are you doing that?”
    “I tried, but she shot me down! Got really pissed at me,” Yuki said incredulously. “‘Yuki-eh. You want to give me