Chapter 4: Thirty-Eight Exhibits
Margaret Hale's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building on Michigan Avenue, with a view of the lake that she clearly never looked at.
Her desk faced the door.
Her eyes were already on me when her assistant showed me in.
She was fifty, maybe fifty-five.
Silver hair pulled back.
A yellow legal pad already open in front of her.
No pleasantries.
"Sit down," she said.
"Tell me everything.
Start from the beginning, not last night."
I sat.
I told her.
I told her about the first time Diane grabbed Lily's arm hard enough to leave finger marks, when Lily was fourteen months old.
I told her about the vase Jason smashed six inches from my head during an argument about Christmas plans.
I told her about Brooke's messages — the ones calling me a gold-digger, the ones telling me I had trapped Jason, the ones sent from a private account she thought I couldn't trace back to her.
I told her about the industrial cleaner.
Margaret's pen moved the entire time.
She did not interrupt.
When I finished, she looked up.
"You said Exhibit Thirty-Eight last night at the clinic.
What are Exhibits One through Thirty-Seven?"
I opened my bag and set a manila envelope on her desk.
She pulled it open.
Photographs, printed.
Screenshots, printed.
The clinic report from the night before, still warm from my sister's printer.
A USB drive labeled in my handwriting: *Brooke messages — full archive.*
She went through each item without speaking.
When she reached the clinic report, she read it twice.
"Blunt-force injury," she said.
"Consistent with open-handed str\*ke.
Dr.
Howard filed the mandatory report this morning?"
"He said he would file before 8 a.m."
She set the report down.
"That means DCFS has already opened a case.
Which means the clock is running." She looked at me directly.
"Do you want sole custody, or do you want supervised visitation for the father?"
The question landed harder than I expected.
"Jason never h\*t her," I said.
"No.
He watched someone else do it and stayed in his chair." Margaret's voice didn't change.
"In my experience, that is its own category of harm.
But it's your decision."
I thought about Jason's face when I walked out.
The fork still raised.
The steak on the tines.
"Supervised," I said.
"For now.
He needs to understand what he chose before I decide anything permanent."
Margaret nodded and wrote something down.
"The livestream recording," she said.
"Tell me about that."
I told her about Carol.
The forty-seven minutes.
The statement already written and witnessed.
Margaret's pen stopped.
She looked at me over the top of her legal pad.
"Diane Bennett spoke on a live broadcast about her intention to physically discipline your daughter before the incident occurred."
"That's what Carol heard."
"And Carol has this in writing."
"Four pages.
Signed.
Witnessed."
Margaret set her pen down.
It was the first time she had set it down since I walked in.
"Mrs.
Bennett," she said, "I want you to understand something.
Most clients come to me with a feeling.
A suspicion.
A bad memory and a bruise they didn't photograph." She looked at the envelope on her desk.
"You came to me with a case."
I didn't say anything.
"I'm going to file for an emergency protective order this afternoon," she said.
"Diane Bennett will be served before dinner.
Jason Bennett will receive divorce papers by end of business Friday.
And I'm going to request that the livestream recording be formally preserved as evidence before Brooke has any opportunity to delete it."
She picked up her pen again.
"Do you have somewhere safe to stay with your daughter?"
"My sister's."
"Good.
Don't go back to the marital home without notifying me first." She stood.
"I'll need the USB drive today.
Carol Reyes's contact information.
And one more thing."
She held out her hand across the desk.
"The password to that photo album."
I looked at her for a moment.
Then I wrote it on the corner of her legal pad, tore the corner off, and placed it in her hand.
She folded it without looking at it.
"Go home to your daughter," she said.
"I'll call you when Diane has been served."
---
I was back at my sister's by noon.
Lily was in the kitchen eating crackers, her rabbit propped against the fruit bowl.
The swelling on her cheek had gone down slightly.
The outline of Diane's fingers had not.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Brooke.
*You need to drop this right now.
Mom is a wreck.
If you push this I will make sure everyone knows what kind of wife you really were.*
I screenshotted it.
Forwarded it to Margaret.
May you like
Her reply came back in four minutes: *Perfect.
Thank you.*
