Chapter 8 - The Hearing
We reached the courthouse with twenty-three minutes to spare.
My dress from the garden party was gone. I wore borrowed black pants, a white blouse, and a bandage across my palm.
Daniel arrived in a navy suit.
He looked rested.
That made me hate him more.
His attorney told the judge I was suffering from delusions brought on by grief and stress.
He showed the photographs from the cage.
He described the warehouse trip as "reckless behavior."
Renee stood.
"Your Honor, Mr. Cross locked his wife inside that cage."
Daniel's lawyer smiled.
"Where is the video?"
There wasn't one.
Then Renee produced the forged medical declaration dated in the future.
The judge's expression changed.
Daniel claimed clerical error.
Renee produced my therapist's sworn denial.
Then she produced Beth Nolan's eighty-five-thousand-dollar payment from R&M Strategic.
Daniel looked toward the door.
He had stopped smiling.
The judge denied the guardianship request and referred the signatures for investigation.
But she did not call Daniel a criminal.
Not yet.
Outside the courtroom, he caught up to me.
"You think you won?"
"I think I can access my own bank account. It's a good morning."
His face hardened.
"Marcus will bury all of us."
"You brought him into this."
"No. Elliot did. Years before I met you."
Dad moved between us.
Daniel laughed softly.
"Still protecting her? Tell her about the letter, Elliot. Tell her what Rose knew."
Dad grabbed Daniel's lapel.
I pulled him back.
"Enough."
Daniel straightened his jacket.
"Check the Cicero archive. Drawer twenty-two. Adrian was smart enough to leave you a path."
He walked away.
Tessa stepped from the courthouse entrance.
"We have another problem."
She handed me her phone.
A security alert from the Cicero records center had triggered six minutes earlier.
Fire alarm.
May you like
Building seventeen.
Someone had reached the archive before us.
