Chapter 13
Laura’s case was harder.
The prosecutors could prove Vanessa interfered.
They could prove she sought medical information.
They could prove she paid Ellen.
But Laura had been dying.
That made everything crueler.
Vanessa’s lawyers argued she could not have caused what cancer had already begun.
Margaret nearly collapsed hearing that.
Thomas walked out.
I followed him into the hallway.
“She mattered before the last breath,” he said.
“I know.”
“They talk like she was already gone.”
“I know.”
His shoulders shook.
I hugged him for the first time since the funeral.
He let me.
Maybe grief had made us strangers.
Maybe truth made us family again.
Ellen testified under immunity.
She admitted advising Vanessa on combinations that could deepen sedation.
She admitted Vanessa asked how to make decline appear natural.
She admitted she suspected what Vanessa wanted.
“Why help?” the prosecutor asked.
Ellen cried.
“Money.”
One word.
Ugly enough to hold everything.
Vanessa watched with hatred.
When I testified, I described Laura’s final week.
How confused she became suddenly.
How she slept too deeply.
How Vanessa sent flowers to the house the day after Laura died, though I had never given her our address.
That detail finally made sense.
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She had known exactly where to find me.
She had been waiting.
