Chapter 13
I testified after Claire.
The defense wanted my missing memories.
They wanted confusion.
They wanted doubt.
They asked if I remembered marrying Claire.
“No.”
They asked if I remembered Lily’s birth.
“No.”
They asked if I remembered Caroline caring for me.
“Yes.”
Caroline’s eyes lifted.
Her lawyer smiled.
“So Mrs. Coleman was there when you needed someone?”
“Yes,” I said.
He spread his hands.
“And now you accuse that same woman of cruelty?”
I looked at Caroline.
“She was kind to me so I would never question her cruelty to others.”
The smile vanished.
He asked if I loved Caroline.
The courtroom held its breath.
“I loved the person she invented.”
Caroline flinched.
He asked if I loved Claire.
That question was cruel.
Claire looked down.
I answered honestly.
“I am learning the woman my heart remembered before my mind could.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Claire’s eyes filled.
The judge ordered silence.
Then the prosecutor played the hidden room footage from police body cameras.
Mia crawling from the wall.
Noah crying.
Claire shielding them.
Caroline in the doorway, whispering, “They weren’t supposed to still be here.”
There are sounds a courtroom never forgets.
A child crying from inside a wall is one of them.
Peter testified for three days.
He named Caroline.
Voss.
The clinic.
The false birth.
The financial transfers.
Caroline stared at him like she could kill him with her eyes.
Then Voss was caught alive in Canada.
He fought extradition.
He lost.
His files arrived first.
And in those files was one final name.
My father.
Thomas Coleman.
May you like
Dead for six years.
Except his signature appeared on the original trust transfer.
