Chapter 72: The Missing Witness

The courtroom settled into an uneasy silence after Patricia returned to her seat.

The financial records remained displayed across the monitors. Columns of transfers. Company ledgers. Internal emails. Board minutes.

On their own, they painted a troubling picture. Whether they painted Harrison Hale as the man behind it was another question entirely, and every lawyer in the room knew it.

Victor Whitfield rose without hurry."Your Honor." The judge nodded. "The defense has introduced a significant number of financial records."

His voice stayed calm, almost conversational. "Interesting records, certainly."He turned toward the monitors.

"Unfortunately, bank transfers don’t testify." He let the sentence settle, giving it room to land. "Emails don’t testify. Accounting entries don’t testify." His eyes moved to Patricia. "People do."

A quiet murmur spread through the gallery. Whitfield continued before it could grow into anything the judge would need to address.

"The plaintiff asks this court to connect thousands of transactions to my client through assumption alone. Suspicion is not evidence. Speculation is not proof."

A pause, long enough to be deliberate. "And unless counsel intends to produce someone capable of explaining these documents within the proper corporate context, these records remain exactly what they are." His gaze drifted toward the empty witness chair, holding there a beat too long to be accidental. "Paper."

Silence. Patricia stood. "We disagree."I assumed you would.She walked toward the evidence screen without hurrying, matching his pace, refusing to let his calm rattle hers.

"The defense isn’t asking this court to convict anyone based solely on financial documents." She tapped one of the transfer records. "We’re establishing a pattern."

Another document appeared. A resignation letter. Then another. An internal complaint. Another. Salary adjustments. Performance reviews rewritten after complaints had been filed, the dates lining up close enough to look deliberate rather than coincidental.

"The financial evidence establishes irregularities." She closed the file. "The witness testimony establishes conduct."

Whitfield smiled faintly. "If the witness appears."Patricia didn’t answer. She returned to her table, unhurried, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

Across the room, Harrison leaned back for the first time that morning, some of the tightness leaving his shoulders.

"So she’s not coming," he murmured.Whitfield didn’t look at him. "We don’t know that."Harrison’s smile widened anyway. "I do."

Whitfield closed his folder, unhurried. "I’ve practiced law for thirty-two years." Finally, he looked sideways, something flat and unamused in his expression. "I’ve learned never to celebrate before the witness list is exhausted."

Harrison said nothing after that, though his smile didn’t fully leave either.

A few seats away, Devon checked his phone beneath the table. Nothing. He locked the screen, set it face-down against his knee, and waited. Thirty seconds later, it vibrated.

Still outside. Can’t tell which way she’s leaning.Devon read it twice. For the first time all morning, certainty abandoned him completely, and he didn’t like how unfamiliar that felt.

Rowena leaned closer to Liam. "We can request a short recess."He never took his eyes off the courtroom doors. "No."

If she’s outside"If Grace walks in," he said, "it has to be because she chose to."And if she doesn’t?

"Then we continue." There wasn’t disappointment in his voice, only acceptance, steady and unforced. He had never wanted her testimony because it made the case easier to win.

He wanted it because it would mean Harrison hadn’t managed to break everyone he’d ever touched. That part, only Grace could prove, and no amount of evidence on a screen could substitute for it.

Three blocks away, Grace still hadn’t moved

The courthouse loomed ahead, its glass doors opening and closing as lawyers and witnesses disappeared inside.

Behind her, traffic flowed through the intersection, horns sounding now and then as the morning carried on like any other.

She stood there, phone still against her ear, unable to make herself move in either direction.

The phone remained against her ear. Neither of them spoke for a long stretch. Finally, Damien broke the silence.

"If you walk in there," he said, steady now, none of the earlier crack left in his voice, "don’t expect everything between us to suddenly be okay afterward."

Grace closed her eyes. "I never expected that."No." You expected this to fix something."It won’t."

She lowered herself onto the cold stone planter bordering the sidewalk, the surface rough under her palm. "I know."

"I don’t think you do." A pause. I know you hate him."I do."

"I wasn’t talking about Harrison." Damien laughed once, short, without humor. "I was talking about what came after."

Grace’s fingers tightened around the phone. "I missed things."You missed a lot.

I know.His answer came without hesitation.

"You said it’d be over soon." He looked down at his at the busy street where he worked. He laughed once, without humor.

After a while, I stopped believing that.Grace had no answer. There wasn’t one to give. "I can’t change that."No. You can’t.

Traffic passed between them. Neither of them noticed it.

Across the street, Marcus stood beside a newspaper stand, coffee cooling in one hand, watching Grace, watching the courthouse, watching the distance between them that hadn’t closed in either direction in almost ten minutes.

He pulled out his phone. Still outside. He hesitated, thumb hovering, then added a second line. She’s thinking. He sent the message.

Marcus looked up from the screen, his eyes finding Grace almost immediately.

Across the street, Grace still hadn’t moved.

Marcus watched her for a few seconds, then checked the courthouse entrance again.He frowned, just slightly.This wasn’t how he’d expected the morning to go.

Back inside the courtroom, the judge adjusted the file in front of him. "Counsel."

Patricia stood. "Yes, Your Honor."You may call your next witness.

The courtroom seemed to grow quieter, the kind of quiet that settled over a room right before something in it changed. Patricia reached for the witness list. Then stopped. She looked toward the entrance.

Everyone followed her gaze. Whitfield. Harrison. Devon, Liam, Rowena. Even the reporters in the gallery turned in their seats, pens paused mid-sentence.

The doors swung open.

A pair of footsteps echoed across the silent courtroom.Harrison’s smile tightened.

Liam finally looked up.