Chapter 6
The trial lasted nine days.
Nine days of listening to people describe my life as evidence.
The grave.
The gun.
The forged signature.
The stolen company money.
The insurance policy.
The microphone hidden in the apple tree.
The body camera footage of Victor saying, “Because alive, you can fight.”
The prosecutor played that sentence three times.
Each time, Victor stared at the table.
Elise testified against him first.
Not from remorse.
From survival.
She wore a gray suit too modest for her, with no jewelry except small pearl earrings her attorney probably chose.
She cried before the first question.
The jury did not look impressed.
She claimed Victor had promised marriage, money, and a vineyard estate in Italy after my “accident.”
She claimed she never wanted me dead.
Then the prosecutor played the orchard audio.
Elise’s voice filled the courtroom.
“You said she’d be dead by midnight!”
Her crying stopped.
The prosecutor asked, “Did you say that?”
Elise whispered, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what he told me.”
Victor’s attorney tried to paint her as the mastermind.
Elise’s attorney tried to paint Victor as the monster.
For once, both sides were partly right.
Then Lena testified.
She was calm, precise, devastating.
She explained how Victor siphoned money from Vale Orchard Holdings through false vendor payments.
How he used Elise’s interior design company as a pass-through.
How he forged my approval on a debt restructuring agreement.
How he planned to declare me mentally unstable if I challenged the records.
“How much did Mr. Vale attempt to steal?” the prosecutor asked.
Lena looked at the jury.
“Directly traceable? Four point two million. Strategically positioned? Closer to twelve.”
A juror actually blinked.
Victor shifted in his seat.
Money had always been his language.
Now it was testifying against him.
Daniel came next.
He described finding Victor near the north orchard at midnight two weeks before the arrest.
He described the disturbed soil.
The shovel marks.
The hidden tarp.
The false camera outage Victor had requested.
He described coming to me with the truth and watching my face change.
Victor’s attorney asked, “Were you in love with Mrs. Vale?”
The courtroom went still.
Daniel looked at me once.
Then back at the attorney.
“I respected her enough to keep her alive.”
The judge told the attorney to move on.
Then I testified.
I thought I would shake.
I did not.
The prosecutor asked me about my father, the orchard, my marriage, Elise, the emeralds, the forged papers, the grave.
When she asked what I felt kneeling beside that pit, I looked at Victor.
He was finally looking at me.
“I felt sorry for the woman I used to be,” I said.
The prosecutor paused.
“Why?”
“Because she kept trying to understand cruelty when she should have been documenting it.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Good.
His attorney stood for cross-examination.
He asked if I had staged the orchard.
“Yes.”
He asked if I had pretended to be afraid.
“Yes.”
He asked if I had wanted Victor arrested.
“Yes.”
He smiled as if he had trapped me.
“So you manipulated my client into speaking.”
I looked at the jury.
“No. I survived long enough for him to tell the truth.”
The room went quiet.
After closing arguments, the jury deliberated for less than two hours.
Attempted murder.
Conspiracy.
Fraud.
Forgery.
Financial abuse.
Insurance fraud.
Illegal possession of a weapon.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Victor received thirty-two years.
Elise received eighteen and cried so hard during sentencing that her mascara ran like black rain.
The emerald earrings were returned to me in a velvet evidence bag.
When I held them again, I did not think of Elise wearing them.
I thought of my mother clasping them before church, smiling at herself in the hallway mirror.
May you like
Some things can be stolen.
Not everything can be claimed.
