Chapter 25 - ADRIAN TELLS THE STORY HE WANTED LUCIA TO BELIEVE
Adrian testified.
His choice.
His lawyers warned him.
He did it anyway.
First:
The shove.
“I pushed her.”
Lucia closed her eyes.
“Intentionally?”
“I wanted her away from me.”
“Did you intend her to fall down the stairs?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was at the top of stairs?”
“Yes.”
There.
Then medication.
He denied deliberate administration.
The prosecutor asked:
“Why research detection times?”
“Because Lucia accused me.”
“When?”
He named a date.
Search records predated that accusation by two days.
His face changed.
Then:
“Why write ‘If blood is drawn tonight this becomes impossible to explain’?”
He said:
“I panicked.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Then the recordings.
“I thought Lucia was having episodes.”
“Why ask questions about conversations she denied?”
“To document.”
“Why did your draft affidavit include a staircase incident before the staircase fall?”
Adrian stared.
“It was a template.”
“For what?”
“Possible physical instability.”
“Did you need an incident?”
“No.”
“Your note says ‘Need objective medical event before baby.’ What did that mean?”
He hesitated.
“Something doctors would take seriously.”
The prosecutor looked at the jury.
Then back.
“Did you want Lucia considered temporarily incapable of making certain decisions?”
“I wanted her evaluated.”
“Did you want her voting proxy?”
“I wanted stability.”
“That is not the question.”
“Yes.”
There.
Then:
“Did you want leverage in a potential custody dispute?”
“I wanted my child safe.”
“From whom?”
“Lucia.”
The room changed.
Lucia did not.
She stared at him.
Then Adrian said the thing he had spent months implying.
“She was unpredictable.”
Lucia whispered:
“Because of you.”
The judge told her not to speak.
She apologized.
Then prosecutor:
“Did you ever tell your wife you were concerned enough to stop her driving?”
“No.”
“Ask her obstetrician for urgent neurological evaluation?”
“No.”
“Call emergency services during an episode?”
“No.”
“Instead you filmed her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So she couldn’t deny it.”
There.
The recordings had never primarily been about treatment.
They were about narrative.
Then the final question:
“Did you knock the blood tray from Dr. Keane’s hands because you were afraid the laboratory would find the same medication you had been using to make Lucia look impaired?”
Adrian’s lawyer objected.
Argumentative.
Sustained.
The prosecutor rephrased.
“Why did you prevent the blood draw?”
Adrian looked at Lucia.
Then at Victor.
Then down.
“I didn’t want another piece of evidence I couldn’t control.”
Silence.
Not a full confession.
Enough to reveal the worldview.
Control the wife.
Control the recording.
Control the medical story.
May you like
Control the evidence.
Until his own phone stopped obeying him.
