Chapter 9
The trial was set for six months later.
In Dallas.
Edward Hale’s lawyers tried to get it moved to New York.
Anita fought them.
Hard.
We won.
Texas was our home turf.
Hale was an outsider.
A Yankee.
A rich one.
Texas juries hated that.
The months leading up to it were hell.
Depositions.
Motions.
More depositions.
Leaks to the press.
From both sides.
Hale’s team painted me as a gold-digging, violent, unstable aunt who’d murdered two people in cold blood and kidnapped a poor innocent child from his rightful family.
My team painted him as a ruthless, murderous billionaire who’d already tried to kill us once and would do it again to get his hands on money that was never his.
The press ate it up.
“Texas Aunt vs. New York Billionaire: The Battle for a Boy and a Fortune.”
It was on the news every night.
On the front page of every paper.
Noah’s school got extra security.
My work got extra security.
We couldn’t go to the grocery store without cameras following us.
It was hard on Noah.
Hard on both of us.
But we stuck together.
Every night, we’d sit on the couch and eat ice cream and watch stupid cartoons.
And for an hour or two, none of it existed.
Just us.
Megan wrote to me once a week.
From prison.
She was doing five years.
Minimum security.
She’d gotten a deal for testifying against Hale’s co-conspirators.
Her letters were sad.
Remorseful.
Full of questions about Noah.
About how he was doing.
What he was learning.
If he still liked dinosaurs.
I wrote back.
Every time.
I told her about school.
About the bike.
About the friends.
I didn’t tell her about the threats.
About the cars that followed us.
About the dead animals left on our porch.
About the bullets fired through our window one night while we were in the safe room.
She had enough to deal with in there.
The trial started on a hot Tuesday in September.
Dallas was a sauna.
The courthouse was packed.
Reporters.
Spectators.
Camera crews.
Hale showed up every day.
In a different tailored suit.
Perfect hair.
Perfect smile.
He’d sit at the defense table.
Nod politely at the judge.
Look sad and concerned when they talked about Noah.
He played the part of the grieving relative perfectly.
The man who only wanted what was best for his great-nephew.
I sat at the plaintiff’s table.
Noah wasn’t in the courtroom.
He was too young.
Too fragile.
He was at my apartment with Jack and Mike.
Safe.
The first week was Hale’s team.
They paraded out witnesses.
Former neighbors who said I was “wild.”
Former coworkers who said I was “unpredictable.”
A paid psychologist who’d never even met me who testified that I showed “all the classic signs of borderline personality disorder and violent tendencies.”
They showed photos of the garage.
Of David’s body.
Of Caroline’s.
Over and over.
Trying to shock the jury.
Trying to make me look like a monster.
Anita objected.
Over and over.
Sustained.
Overruled.
It was a war of attrition.
The second week was ours.
Anita started slow.
She put on the detective who’d worked the case.
He told the jury about the jammer.
The forged records.
The contracts.
The plan.
He told them about Megan’s confession.
About the fridge.
About the ropes in the basement.
Then she put on the forensic accountants.
They traced the money.
Every dollar.
From Hale’s accounts.
To Caroline’s.
To David’s.
To the paid witnesses.
To the forged medical records.
A clear line.
From Edward Hale.
To everything that had happened in that house.
Then she dropped the bombshell.
She called Megan to the stand.
Megan came in.
Handcuffed.
Prison uniform.
Hair pulled back.
No makeup.
She looked tired.
Older.
But her eyes were clear.
She told the jury everything.
From the beginning.
About David showing up.
About the threats.
About the pictures.
About Caroline.
About the plan.
About locking Noah in the fridge.
About the basement.
About the garage.
And then—about Edward Hale.
She told them about the meetings.
The phone calls.
The threats Hale had made directly to her.
How he’d told her if she didn’t cooperate, he’d make sure Noah was “taken care of” in a way that would make the fridge look like a vacation.
Hale’s lawyers objected.
Screamed.
Yelled about hearsay.
The judge overruled.
Megan kept talking.
When she was done, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Even some of the reporters were crying.
Then Anita called me.
I told my story.
From the moment I’d walked into that house.
To the moment I’d pulled Noah out of the fridge.
To the basement.
To the garage.
To the shots.
To Noah hitting Caroline with the axe.
I didn’t leave anything out.
I told them about my fear.
My confusion.
My love for my nephew.
I told them about the nightmares.
About Noah’s nightmares.
About how hard we’d worked to put our lives back together.
When I finished, the jury was staring at me.
Some with tears.
Some with anger.
At Hale.
Then Anita rested our case.
Hale’s team looked shaken.
But they weren’t done.
They had one more witness.
Edward Hale himself.
He took the stand.
Swore to tell the truth.
And he lied.
Beautifully.
He denied everything.
Said he’d never met Caroline.
Never met David.
Never spoken to Megan.
Said the money transfers were forgeries.
Said Megan was a convicted felon and a liar.
Said I was a violent, unstable woman who’d killed two people and brainwashed his great-nephew.
Said he only wanted to give Noah a good home.
A good life.
All the opportunities money could buy.
He was good.
Really good.
I could see some of the jury wavering.
He was rich.
Respectable.
Charitable.
Who were you going to believe?
A billionaire philanthropist?
Or a convict and a graphic designer who’d shot two people?
Then it was Anita’s turn for cross-examination.
She stood up.
Adjusted her cowboy boots.
And smiled.
“Mr. Hale,” she said. “You say you’ve never met Caroline Voss. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“Never spoke to her on the phone?”
“Never.”
“Never emailed her?”
“Never.”
“Never sent her any money?”
“Of course not.”
Anita nodded.
She turned to the screen at the front of the courtroom.
“Then perhaps you can explain this.”
She hit a button.
A photo appeared.
Hale and Caroline.
At a restaurant in New York.
Two years before.
Sitting at a table.
Drinking wine.
Laughing.
Hale’s face didn’t change.
“Photoshopped,” he said. “Fake.”
Anita nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “And this?”
Another photo.
Hale and Caroline.
At a charity gala.
Arms linked.
Smiling for the camera.
“Also fake,” Hale said.
“Uh-huh,” Anita said. “And these emails? Between your personal account and Ms. Voss’s. Dated three months before the incident. Detailing exactly how you were going to kill my client and her sister and take the boy. With your signature at the bottom. Those are fake too?”
“Every word,” Hale said. He didn’t even blink. “My account was hacked. Happens all the time to people like me.”
Anita smiled.
“Of course,” she said. “And the voice recordings? The ones where you’re telling Ms. Voss to ‘eliminate the aunt and the sister’ and ‘make it look like an accident’? Those are fake too?”
Hale hesitated.
Just a fraction of a second.
“Deepfakes,” he said. “Everyone knows you can do anything with computers these days.”
Anita nodded.
She walked toward the stand.
Slow.
“Mr. Hale,” she said. “You’ve testified that you are a generous man. A charitable man. That you’ve given away hundreds of millions of dollars to worthy causes. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Very impressive,” Anita said. “Then perhaps you can explain why, over the last twenty years, your company has dumped more than three million gallons of toxic waste into the water supply of the small town of Millfield, Texas. Causing a cancer rate four times the national average. And why you paid the mayor and the city council two million dollars to look the other way. And why you had the local reporter who was going to break the story run off the road and killed. All while you were writing checks to children’s hospitals and posing for photo ops.”
The courtroom went dead silent.
Hale’s face went white.
“Objection!” his lawyer screamed. “Relevance! Prejudicial!”
Anita turned to the judge.
“Your Honor,” she said. “It goes to character. To pattern. To the kind of man Mr. Hale is. The kind of man who would poison children for profit and then smile for the cameras while he gives away other people’s money. The kind of man who would have a seven-year-old boy locked in a refrigerator for four hundred million dollars. It is absolutely relevant.”
The judge considered.
“Overruled,” he said. “Answer the question, Mr. Hale.”
Hale stared at Anita.
For a long second.
And then the mask slipped.
Just a little.
“I don’t have to answer this,” he said. His voice was cold. Hard. No longer the warm philanthropist. “This is ridiculous. I am Edward Hale. I own half this state. You can’t do this to me.”
Anita smiled.
“Actually, Mr. Hale,” she said. “We can. And we are. Because in this country? Even billionaires have to answer for what they’ve done. Especially when what they’ve done is kill people. Hurt children. And try to steal things that don’t belong to them.”
She turned back to the jury.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “You’ve heard the evidence. You’ve seen the photos. The emails. The recordings. You’ve heard from Megan Miller. From Sarah Miller. From the detectives. From the accountants. You know who Edward Hale really is. He’s not a philanthropist. He’s not a family man. He’s a thief. A liar. And a murderer. And he would have killed a seven-year-old boy to get what he wanted. Don’t let him get away with it. Not this time. Not on your watch.”
She sat down.
The judge called for a recess.
As Hale was led out of the courtroom by his lawyers, he looked right at me.
And mouthed two words.
You lose.
I didn’t flinch.
May you like
I just stared back.
We’d see.
