Chapter 5: The Lawyer and the Letter
David Marsh arrived at half past eight.
He was a compact man in his sixties with a gray suit and the kind of face that gave nothing away — the face of someone who had spent decades in rooms where showing surprise was a liability.
He shook my hand when Mark introduced me, which I had not expected.
"Elena," he said.
"I've read the petition.
I have questions for you."
"Ask them," I said.
We sat in Mark's office — Mark behind the desk, David in the chair across from him, me to the side.
David opened a leather folder and set a printed document on the desk.
"The witness statement," he said.
"Do you know who signed it?"
I leaned forward and read the name.
Patricia Holt.
I sat back.
"She's the housekeeper who worked here before me," I said.
"Victoria let her go eight months ago.
She told Mark it was a budget decision."
David looked at Mark.
"Did you authorize that termination?"
"Victoria handled household staffing," Mark said.
"I didn't question it."
"Patricia was here for six years," I said.
"She adored Thomas.
When Victoria let her go, she cried in the kitchen.
I helped her carry her things to the car." I paused.
"She would not have written that statement willingly."
"People do things under pressure," David said.
"Financial pressure, especially." He made a note.
"I'll need to speak with her directly.
Do you have contact information?"
"I have her number," I said.
David nodded and moved to the next page.
"The footage.
Walk me through what it shows."
Mark pulled up the hallway camera file.
David watched it once without speaking.
Then he asked Mark to play the segment from the moment Victoria grabbed Thomas's arm a second time, more slowly.
When it finished, David closed his folder.
"This is significant," he said.
"But I want to be careful about how we use it.
If we move too quickly, Victoria's attorney will argue the footage was selectively preserved or tampered with.
We need a chain of custody." He looked at Mark.
"The server.
Has anyone else accessed it today?"
"No one," Mark said.
"The access code was changed three months ago.
Victoria doesn't have it."
"Good.
I'm going to contact a digital forensics firm tonight.
They'll image the server before morning.
That protects the footage legally." David stood.
"In the meantime, do not confront Victoria.
Do not discuss the footage with her.
Do not let her know what you have."
"She already threatened Elena," Mark said.
"She told her she had camera footage."
"Let her believe that." David picked up his folder.
"If she thinks her strongest card is footage of Elena, she won't look for what she's missing." He paused at the door.
"One more thing.
The connection between Elena and Thomas's mother.
Tell me everything."
I told him.
All of it.
The town, the recognition, the application, the three years of silence about it.
David listened without interrupting.
"Does Victoria know?" he asked when I finished.
"We don't know," Mark said.
"Assume she does," David said.
"Prepare for it to come out in the worst possible way at the worst possible moment." He looked at me directly.
"Elena.
I want you to write down everything you remember about Claire.
Your connection to her, how well you knew her, why you came here.
Every detail.
Tonight, before you sleep.
Because if Victoria's attorney raises it in a hearing, I need to have already heard it from you first."
He left.
The house went quiet.
I sat at the kitchen table with a notepad and a pen and wrote for two hours.
I wrote about the town where Claire and I had grown up — a small place, the kind where everyone knew everyone's face but not necessarily their story.
I wrote about seeing Claire's name in the job listing and feeling something I couldn't name, a pull toward something unfinished.
I wrote about the first time I held Thomas — four months old, small enough to fit in one arm — and understood, without being able to explain it, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I was still writing when I heard the sound.
A drawer, opening.
In Victoria's study, directly above the kitchen.
Then the sound of paper.
Then her voice, low and deliberate, on the phone.
"It needs to happen before the hearing," she said.
"If she's still in this house when we walk into that courtroom, we lose the narrative entirely."
A pause.
"I don't care how you do it," Victoria said.
May you like
"Find something.
There has to be something in her past."
