Chapter 18 - What the Court Heard
Three months later, the courthouse steps were crowded with cameras.
Graham avoided them.
He held Maisie's hand and used a side entrance.
The preliminary hearings were not dramatic in the way television made courtrooms dramatic.
They were worse.
Everything was slow enough to hear clearly.
The forged signatures.
The sedative in Maisie's blood.
The chain.
The residential billing projections.
The champagne glass.
Julia's surveillance file.
Sloane sat at the defense table and did not look at Graham until the prosecutor displayed the photograph of Maisie's packed suitcase.
Then she lowered her eyes.
Victor showed no reaction at all.
Charges against him expanded to include conspiracy, fraud, witness intimidation, and offenses connected to Julia's death as the reopened investigation developed.
Crane lost his medical license pending trial and faced multiple felony counts.
Nolan pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and agreed to testify.
Sloane faced child endangerment, unlawful restraint, forgery, conspiracy, and related charges.
Outside the courtroom, Maisie asked Graham one question.
"Is she going to say sorry?"
He crouched beside her.
"Maybe."
"Would that make it okay?"
"No."
Maisie considered that carefully.
"Then I don't need it."
Graham almost cried.
That evening, he canceled the sale of Julia's old family home, something he had planned before meeting Sloane.
He decided to restore it instead.
As he and Maisie walked through the dusty kitchen, she looked up at him.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah?"
May you like
"Are you ever going to get married again?"
Graham stopped in the doorway.
