Chapter 96 The Last Word
The prosecution wrapped up their case.
Three days packed with testimony. Twelve witnesses. Hundreds of documents—all pointing in the same direction.
Viviana wrecked people’s lives. Carefully. On purpose. No trace of regret.
Now Harold took over.
He stood, fastened his jacket. “The defense calls Dr. Richard Palmer.”
An older man stepped up—gray beard, sharp suit. Clearly an expert for hire.
“Dr. Palmer, what do you do?”
“I’m an organizational psychologist. I study how workplaces function. I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies for thirty years.”
“And you’ve looked over the evidence?”
“Yes, I have.”
“What’s your take?”
Dr. Palmer adjusted his glasses. “What the prosecution calls a ‘pattern’ is just normal corporate life. Companies investigate employee misconduct all the time. Firing people for theft or fraud—unpleasant, but routine. Viviana was doing her job. Protecting her company. None of this looks odd if you know the context.”
Jennifer scribbled in her notebook. Didn’t react.
Harold kept going. “In your expert opinion, do these four incidents over fourteen years show systematic fraud?”
“No. They look like four separate HR problems at three different companies. If anything, that’s a pretty low number. She was careful and thorough. Not reckless.”
“Thank you. Nothing further.”
Now Jennifer got up for her cross-exam. “Dr. Palmer, how much is the defense paying you for today?”
“I’m being compensated for my time and expertise.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen thousand dollars.”
“So, fifteen thousand to tell this jury these four near-identical cases are just bad luck?”
“Objection,” Harold snapped.
“Withdrawn.” Jennifer moved a little closer. “Dr. Palmer, in thirty years, how many times have you seen an exec investigate four different fraud cases, and—every time—the employee turns out to be physically somewhere else when the fraud happened?”
“I haven’t kept numbers on that—”
“So, zero? Once? Twice?”
“I’d have to check—”
“Doesn’t that sound pretty unlikely? Four different women. All under the same boss. All accused of fraud they literally couldn’t have committed?”
“Coincidences happen—”
“Four times? Same supervisor, exact same approach, and the same result?”
Dr. Palmer shifted in his seat. “When you put it like that—”
“That’s exactly how it is. They aren’t isolated. They’re a pattern. And you’re being paid fifteen thousand to overlook that.”
“Objection!”
“Sustained, Ms. Park.”
“Nothing further.”
Dr. Palmer climbed down, looking a good deal smaller than when he’d arrived.
Harold called up two more witnesses. Old coworkers, both saying Viviana was tough but fair. She set the bar high, but she wasn’t cruel.
Jennifer hit them with the same line: “Did you know about the four women she framed for fraud?”
No, none of them did.
“Then how can you vouch for her character if you didn’t even know?”
That was that. No solid answers.
By noon, Harold’s case had deflated. The character witnesses felt thin next to all the records.
The expert? Torn apart. Viviana herself just sat at the defense table. Silent. Motionless.
Judge Morrison announced lunch. Elena stood, feeling her knees creak.
Outside, Victoria ended a call as soon as she saw them. “That expert was a bust.”
“Fifteen grand, down the drain,” Alexander said.
“Harold’s got nothing left. ‘She was doing her job’ isn’t convincing anyone.”
They wandered to the same café as yesterday. Ordered sandwiches. Elena just ate, barely tasting.
“You’re quiet,” Alexander said.
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“If it matters. The verdict, I mean.”
Victoria stared. “Of course it matters.”
“Does it really? It matters for justice. For Patricia and Karen and Maria. But for me?” Elena put her sandwich down, hands trembling a little. “Viviana’s already lost everything. Her husband’s gone. Her own daughter’s testifying against her. She wears an ankle monitor. Everyone knows what she did. Convicted or not, she’s finished.”
“You don’t want her convicted?” Victoria’s voice was careful.
“I do. But I thought this would feel different. Watching her on trial, watching her lose—I expected to feel… vindicated. Or powerful. Instead…”
“What do you feel?”
“Tired. And free, honestly. Like I put something down I’d been dragging. She can’t touch me. She’s done. I’m… I’m past her.”
Alexander took her hand quietly under the table.
Lunch ended mostly in silence. When they returned to the courthouse, everything felt lighter somehow.
At one-thirty, Judge Morrison called everyone back.
Harold stood up. “Your Honor, the defense rests.”
A low buzz swept the gallery. He wasn’t calling Viviana. No big final stand, just the expert and a couple of coworkers.
Probably smart. Viviana on the stand would crumble under Jennifer’s questions. They’d throw her own emails at her. Her words, turned into knives.
Better to keep quiet.
Judge Morrison glanced at the lawyers. “Closing arguments tomorrow. Nine sharp.”
She slammed the gavel.
Everyone stood, shuffled out. The day was done, the trial nearly there.
One more day, then it was up to the jury.
As Elena walked out, she felt a change. She wasn’t dreading tomorrow, wasn’t desperate for Guilty. She was just ready to finish and move on.
Later, they picked Leo up from Mrs. Chen. He was smeared with paint, holding a big poster with a whale and a very lopsided “octopus.”
“Look! I made a whale! And an octopus! Well, it’s only got six legs but Mrs. Chen said that’s alright cause art’s about feelings.”
“Yeah she's right,” Elena said.
At dinner, Leo went on about whales and octopuses and asked if dolphins were fish or mammals.
The ordinary chatter of a three-year-old—blissfully clueless about the courtroom battles his mom was facing.
After he was asleep, Elena found Alexander outside, sipping a rare beer. He looked out at the city.
“Big day tomorrow,” he said.
She joined him. “Yeah.”
“Nervous?”
“Not really. Curious, more. I want to hear how both sides spin it—when it’s all boiled down.”
“Jennifer’s closing is going to hit hard. She’s good with words.”
“Harold will try to sell doubt. Pretend none of this lines up.”
“Is it working, the doubt?”
Elena thought it over. “No. The evidence is too much. Too clear. If the jury’s honest, they’ll convict.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I’ll survive either way.”
He looked at her for a second. “You’ve changed.”
“How?”
“A month ago, you’d have said you needed this. Needed her punished. Now you sound…”
“Free?”
“Yeah.”
“I am. Just seeing her there, day after day, knowing everyone finally sees her as she is… That’s enough. The verdict is the last little stamp on it.”
They stood together, watching city lights. The world hummed along, mostly oblivious to the drama above street level.
“I’m proud of you,” Alexander said quietly.
“For what?”
“For getting here. Not letting her beat you. Even when she tried to.”
“I had help.”
“You did the hard part.”
Elena leaned forward on the rail. “I keep thinking about my mom. Wondering if she ever felt this—relief. Or if she died still trapped.”
Alexander hesitated. “I think she tried to get free. That’s why she left. Not out of weakness, but to protect you. To keep you from ending up stuck too.”
“Maybe.”
“I really think so.”
They went inside and got ready for bed. But before she turned off the light, Elena reached for her phone. There was the photo—her and her mom, both grinning with ice cream cones.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to tell the jury about her,” she said. “Jennifer asked if I’d do a victim impact statement, if there’s a conviction.”
“What will you say?”
“That Rebecca Moreno was bright and loud, made pancakes every Sunday, loved show tunes and chocolate chip ice cream and making up stories about clouds. That she was a person. Not just a victim. Not just evidence. She mattered.”
“She’d like that.”
“Yeah. She would.”
Elena put down her phone. Switched off the lamp.
Tomorrow would bring closing arguments. Deliberation. Maybe a verdict.
But tonight she could sleep. Really sleep. Because whatever happened in court, Viviana didn’t control her story anymore.
That power was gone.
And Elena—finally, really—was free.
The feeling settled over her, soft and warm.
She’d started all this craving revenge. Needing to see Viviana ruined.
But what she actually needed was to remember her mother.
To hear other women’s stories. To know the pattern wasn’t her fault, or her mother’s, or any of theirs. It was Viviana’s.
That understanding—that freedom—meant more than any verdict. Though a guilty verdict would be nice.
She smiled in the dark, let herself have that.
Tomorrow: justice. Tonight: peace.
Both mattered. Both belonged to her.
At last.