My father’s testimony was worse. Warren Moore sat tall, projecting the weary sorrow of a patriarch who had done his best. “Lauren has always had a vindictive, unstable streak,” he lied smoothly, his baritone voice echoing with false authority. “She saw Grant building a legacy, doing the very things she failed to do, and it broke her mind. I love my daughter, but I believe she’s concocted this entire federal investigation just to ruin him out of sheer spite.”
By the time court adjourned for the day, the jury looked confused, casting sympathetic glances at the tearful older couple. Grant shot me a smug, almost imperceptible smirk as he buttoned his suit jacket. We still own the truth, that smirk said.
I walked out into the echoing hallway, feeling the familiar, suffocating weight of being the family outcast. I was heading toward the elevator, desperate for the solitude of my hotel room, when a heavy hand caught the brass doorframe.
