My sister stole my grandmother’s silver bracelet, attacked me when I demanded it back, then smiled outside the courthouse and whispered, “Enjoy prison, Laurel”...

Outside the deposition suite, the marble hallway was empty save for the echoing hum of the air handlers.

Karen Cross stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The anger coming off her was palpable. Prosecutors hate losing, but they hate being made fools of by their own complaining witnesses even more.

"Where did you get that audio?" Cross demanded.

"From the cloud server Eleanor’s own contractor set up," Isaac replied smoothly. "Subpoenaed lawfully, authenticated lawfully. You have the chain of custody in your inbox right now."

Cross closed her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose where her glasses had left red indents. "That recording blows the state's case out of the water. Belle lied. Eleanor lied."

"They didn't just lie, Karen," Isaac said. "They committed felony perjury, tampering with physical evidence, and false reporting. And Belle committed attempted murder with a deadly weapon."

"I need twenty-four hours," Cross said. "I have to take this to the District Attorney."

"You don't need twenty-four hours to dismiss the charges against Laurel," Isaac countered, stepping into Cross’s space. "My client has a fractured mastoid, partial sensorineural hearing loss, and seventy-five thousand dollars of debt hung around her neck by a bail bondsman. You dismiss the information today, or I file a motion for immediate sanctions and hold a press conference on the courthouse steps with the local news."

Cross hesitated. She looked down the hallway toward the door where Eleanor Holloway was still sitting in the basement room, trapped by her own recorded words.

"The charges against Laurel will be dismissed with prejudice by five o'clock," Cross said quietly. "On one condition."

"No conditions," Isaac said.

"Hear me out, Isaac," Cross said, lowering her voice. "The District Attorney’s Special Crimes Unit has been running a parallel investigation into the estate of Beatrice Holloway for three weeks. An anonymous tip came in from an employee at First National Bank regarding a series of unauthorized transfers out of the Holloway Family Trust."

I stepped forward from behind Isaac. "What transfers?"

Cross looked at me, her expression softening with genuine regret. "Laurel... your mother didn't just forge the will. Over the last fourteen months, Eleanor and Belle have liquidated eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars of your grandmother’s investment portfolio. They wired the funds to an offshore corporate account in Belize under the name 'Siren Holdings.'"

"Siren Holdings," I repeated. "Belle’s modeling pseudonym. When she tried to work in New York three years ago, that was the name of her LLC."

"Belle was planning to leave the country," Cross said. "She had a one-way ticket to Lisbon booked for next Friday. The plan was for Laurel to be convicted, the felony forfeiture clause to trigger, the real estate to be sold to an institutional buyer, and Belle to vanish to Europe with the entire balance of the estate before the civil courts caught up with them."

"And Mom?" I asked, my voice cracking despite myself. "What was Mom going to do?"

Cross gave a sad, cynical shake of her head. "According to the financial records, your mother was left with nothing. Belle had already transferred the funds out of the joint account into an account accessible only by her. Your mother committed perjury to protect Belle, and Belle was about to abandon her in a mortgaged-out house with a mountain of criminal liability."

The monstrous absurdity of it struck me like a physical blow.

Eleanor had destroyed me to save Belle.