Chapter 17 - THE PLEA
Six weeks after the dinner, Patricia asked for a deal.
She had spent her life believing control was the same thing as safety.
Jail taught her otherwise.
Her attorney offered testimony against Michael in exchange for reduced charges on the financial counts.
The prosecutor asked for my opinion.
“I want the truth on record,” I said.
Patricia’s proffer lasted seven hours.
She admitted receiving stolen marital funds, helping forge documents, hiring Leonard, and creating the strategy to make me look unstable.
She denied ordering anyone to kill me.
Leonard’s testimony contradicted her.
So did the brake evidence.
Then she admitted the affair had been useful.
“When Emma discovered Claire,” Patricia said, “Michael believed she would become emotional.”
Emotional.
A neat word for humiliation, betrayal, and fear.
Michael rejected a plea deal.
He insisted on trial.
His attorney argued Patricia was the mastermind and Michael was a weak son controlled by an abusive mother.
I almost laughed when Rachel told me.
The man who threw a glass at my head now wanted the jury to see him as helpless.
The divorce moved separately.
Because of the asset freeze, he could not drain anything else.
The court restored the stolen inheritance funds with liens on Patricia’s properties and Michael’s company interests.
Then came the house.
Michael demanded half.
Rachel smiled when she read the filing.
“What?” I asked.
“He forgot how you bought it.”
The down payment had come from my father before the marriage.
Title records and a prenuptial clause made most of the equity mine.
For once, Patricia’s obsession with paperwork worked against her son.
But the biggest surprise came from Robert.
He agreed to testify.
May you like
Against both of them.
And he brought a recording no one knew existed.
