The words were barely above a whisper, but Chloe flinched as if he had shouted.
I stood too quickly.
Pain ripped through my side, and I gripped the table to keep from falling.
My sister reached Chloe first.
Daniel stepped between Nick and the aisle.
“Do not speak to the child,” he told him.
“She’s my daughter.”
“She is also a potential witness.
Sit down.”
Nick stared at him.
“You work for me.”
“At the moment,” Daniel replied, “I am trying to prevent you from making this worse.”
The second file was played after the recess.
This time, Nick and Chloe were in his home office.
I recognized the squeak of his desk chair and the heavy click of the drawer where he kept our financial records.
“Mom asked why the account was empty,” Chloe said on the recording.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.
She doesn’t need to know yet.”
“Are we poor?”
Nick laughed softly.
“No.
I moved the money where she can’t waste it on lawyers.
She’ll run out before the trial.
Then she’ll agree to whatever I offer.”
“Is that why you waited until after the hospital?”
There was a pause.
“I waited until the transplant because I needed the transplant.”
“Did you know you were going to leave her?”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Yes.”
My hand went numb around the edge of the table.
Nick’s voice continued.
“The divorce papers were ready before the surgery.
But you never tell your mother that.
She gets emotional, and emotional people make dangerous choices.”
The recording ended with the sound of a drawer closing.
Daniel did not object.
He sat completely still, one hand resting on his closed legal pad.
The confidence he had displayed all morning was gone.
Nick whispered, “That’s taken out of context.”
The judge heard him.
“Then you will have the opportunity to provide the context under oath.”
The pictures were next.
Chloe explained that Nick had sent her into his office to retrieve a folder containing her school records.
A blue folder was lying open on the desk.
She recognized my name on one page and photographed what she saw because Nick had warned her never to touch it.
The clerk projected the photographs only for the judge and attorneys.
From where I sat, I could make out dates and account totals but not every word.
My lawyer leaned toward me, stunned.
The first photograph showed a draft of the divorce petition.
The file date was nearly three weeks before my transplant surgery.
The second showed a handwritten list of our assets: house, vehicle, retirement accounts, savings, and my small inheritance from my mother.
Beside several items, Nick had written notes about how they might be placed beyond my immediate reach.
The third showed transfer confirmations from our joint account into a new account held only in Nick’s name.
