Chapter 13 - David Takes the Stand
David admitted the affair.
Called the offshore transfers temporary liquidity.
Blamed Charles for structure.
Blamed sloppy controls for my signature.
Then the prosecutor asked the question everyone had already heard.
“Did you read the hospital voicemail?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“That Lily was in ICU.”
“Did you call?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought Maya was escalating a routine illness.”
“You knew the unit.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she had called fifty times.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed on the yacht.”
David’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
The prosecutor did not linger.
Smart.
She moved back to documents.
The health reserve.
The forged resignation.
The benefit amendment.
Charles’s recording.
The security consultant.
David denied planning to frame me.
Then his own laptop metadata tied him to the draft documents.
At the end, he looked at me.
A tiny part of me remembered him teaching Lily to ride a bike.
Holding the seat too long because he was scared to let go.
People are not one thing.
That is what makes betrayal hard.
Three days later, the jury returned.
When David stepped down from the witness stand, he almost looked toward me for approval.
Old habit.
For years I had been the person who told him when a presentation landed badly, when a joke was mean, when he needed to call his mother back.
He had outsourced parts of his conscience and then resented me for the reminder.
Now there was nothing left for me to grade.
Guilty on most major counts.
Not all.
Accuracy mattered.
May you like
Then David asked the judge for permission to speak directly to me at sentencing.
