Chapter 13 - A Room Full of Witnesses
The assistant’s name was Beth Morgan.
She had worked for Richard for eight years.
On the witness stand, she kept her eyes on the attorney asking the questions.
Richard had handed her a sealed envelope, she said, and told her to include it with the flowers.
He had dictated the delivery address.
His attorney asked whether she had seen him write the message.
“No.”
Whether she had opened the envelope.
“No.”
Whether someone else could have prepared it.
“I can only tell you what he gave me.”
Clara felt a strange rush of gratitude.
Beth was not exaggerating to help.
She was telling the part she knew.
The order records and messages concerning the delivery were presented alongside her account.
When Clara was called, Richard leaned back in his chair.
She recognized the performance.
Boredom meant she was ridiculous.
A smile meant he knew something she did not.
For years, she had allowed those gestures to rewrite a room.
Now she looked at the questioner.
“Why did that enclosure frighten you?”
“Because he took the notebook where I recorded what he did to me. The delivery showed me he could still reach my home.”
Richard’s attorney asked why she had stayed married if she had been so afraid.
Clara’s throat tightened.
She had rehearsed answers in the shower, in bed, on walks when she checked every car behind her.
Finally, she gave the plain one.
“Because he made leaving feel more dangerous than staying.”
The room remained quiet.
“And because sometimes he was kind afterward. I kept hoping that version of him was the real one.”
She glanced at Richard once.
“The kind days didn’t cancel the other days.”
By the end of the hearing, the judge had ordered him held pending further proceedings on the violation and tightened the protective conditions.
Clara did not feel victorious.
She felt exhausted enough to sleep standing up.
Outside, Thomas offered his arm.
She took it.
“You were brave,” he said.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
That night, Dana called with news from the financial investigation.
Investigators had recovered a draft of the guarantee from Richard’s files, along with messages instructing Graham to use Clara’s old signature.
One message explained why.
She won’t contradict me in front of her father.
Clara read it twice.
May you like
Then she forwarded it to Dana with five words.
He was wrong about that.
