Chapter 14
The trial became national news.
People loved the headline.
Dead mother returns from shadows.
Billionaire matriarch fakes death.
Pregnant wife drugged.
Hidden father found alive.
Murdered daughter under rose garden.
I hated all of it.
These were not headlines.
They were people.
Claire had loved horses.
Arthur loved classical music.
Marcus loved a mother who never existed.
And I had spent months wondering whether my own mind was betraying me while someone was poisoning my tea.
The prosecutor began with my dining room hallucination.
The intact glass table.
The empty dress.
The vitamins.
The fake psychiatric report dated for the next day.
Then came the hidden room.
The guardianship petition.
Arthur’s medical imprisonment.
Claire’s diary.
The chapel video.
Victoria sat in court wearing dark blue and pearls.
She looked elegant.
That made me angrier.
Monsters should look like monsters.
They rarely do.
I testified at eight months pregnant.
The defense asked if I had hallucinated.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then how can the jury trust what you believe happened?”
I looked at Victoria.
“Because she worked very hard to make me hallucinate. The lab reports prove that. The recordings prove that. Her own words prove that.”
The prosecutor played the chapel recording.
You became loved, so I turned you into a threat.
The courtroom went silent.
Victoria looked away.
First time.
May you like
Tiny.
But I saw it.
