“Your honor, the defense calls Mrs.Evelyn Reddick.”
A ripple passed through the gallery.Heads turned.Pens poised.Even the jurors shifted forward as a single, attentive organism.
Nicole leaped to her feet.“Objection, Your Honor.Mrs.Reddick was not included on the defense's witness list.”
The defense attorney rose.“Your Honor, new evidence came to light late yesterday, and the prosecution was provided a copy as soon as we received it.”
The judge raised a brow.“Is that true, Miss Reyes?”
Nicole hesitated.“Yes, Your Honor.We did receive the evidence last night, but we haven’t had adequate time to review it.”
The judge considered for a moment, then spoke firmly.“I'll allow the witness, for now.But I’ll be watching closely.If this turns into a fishing expedition, I won’t hesitate to strike the testimony.Proceed.”
Derrick’s mother rose with the unhurried grace of a woman who’d always been obeyed.Cream suit, pearls, hair sculpted to perfection, Evelyn looked like she’d been poured into power and polished until she gleamed.She walked the aisle as if approaching a stage, not a witness box.
She looked like Mrs.America, her crown gleaming as much a weapon as it was armor.
Nicole felt the room’s temperature drop a degree.Everything about Evelyn was beautiful and brittle, like something expensive that could cut you if you touched it wrong.
The oath was administered; Evelyn’s manicured hand rested on the Bible as if it were an accessory rather than a sacrament.She sat, back straight, mouth serene.
Tripp approached with a soft smile and an even softer voice, silk laid over steel.“Mrs.Reddick, you are the defendant’s mother?”
“Yes.”The confidence of generations rode on that single syllable.
“And his father?”
“His father died when he was twelve,” she responded.
He let the quiet bloom, gave the jury time to map Evelyn’s composure onto their own expectations: a mother defending her son, a matriarch anchoring her family.Nicole recognized the move.She’d used it herself.But she also recognized the slight tightness around Evelyn’s mouth.
“How did you feel,” Tripp asked, “when you learned your son’s girlfriend, Bianca Laurent, was pregnant?”
Nicole’s gaze drilled into the woman, desperate for even the faintest crack in her polished armor.How could she have been so blind?She should have suspected her from the very beginning.Instead, she’d let the evidence lull her, let her own scars from dealing with women like Evelyn Reddick twist her judgment.And now the truth mocked her, she’d failed to see what had been staring her in the face all along.
Evelyn blinked once, lashes like tiny fans.“Surprised.Concerned.”
“Concerned for whom?”
“My son.His future.Derrick has ambitions.”
Ambitions.The word had been a blade in Nicole’s life once, wielded in a dim parlor by a different mother with the same smile.He has a future, dear.The memory skittered under her skin like a moth against glass.
How could she have forgotten?That day Mrs.Masterson summoned her to the house, her voice like ice as she delivered the ultimatum:Leave my son alone, or you’ll regret the day you met him.The threat had seared itself into her bones.And yet somehow, Nicole had buried it, shoved it so deep, she’d almost convinced herself it hadn’t happened.How could she have pushed that memory out of her mind?
The check she’d slid across the table, payment to disappear, dressed up as help for her college expenses.Nicole remembered staring at it, her hands shaking, her pride warring with her rage.She’d pushed it back across the polished wood, refusing to be bought like some cheap transaction.The humiliation burned hotter than fire as she stormed out of that ice palace, sick with disgust and betrayal.
“And did you share those concerns with him?”Tripp’s tone stayed gentle.
“Of course.I told him he had worked too hard to be derailed.”
“By Bianca?”
“By circumstance,” Evelyn said, correcting him with a velvet edge.
Nicole’s pen dug into her palm.Circumstance.That was the word women like Evelyn used to measure other people’s worth.You were either born into money and pedigree, or you were one of the faceless masses.
Tripp continued.“Mrs.Reddick, did you ever speak to your son about Bianca’s suitability as a wife?”
