Chapter 15 - The Defense’s Desperation
The overall defense strategy was exactly as vile and disgusting as the initial crime itself. Marcus’s high-paid attorney aggressively tried to paint Mom as a highly manipulative, hysterical woman suffering from severe early-onset dementia, and me as a greedy, absentee, fame-hungry daughter swooping in at the last minute to steal the family estate.
“Where exactly was Clara Hayes for the last nine years?” the defense attorney bellowed theatrically, pointing a dramatic finger at me. “She completely abandoned her struggling family for her own selfish career, leaving my honorable client to shoulder the massive burden of caring for a deeply disturbed, violent, and unpredictable elderly parent!”
I didn’t object once. I calmly let him spin his desperate web of absolute lies, knowing full well that the tighter he wound it, the more spectacular and devastating his eventual crash would be. I knew exactly what irrefutable evidence was coming next.
