He clicked to the final slide.
"That was the past," Jamie said. "Now let's look at Monday morning."
The monitor flickered. The security footage from The Grind appeared. It was grainy, security footage usually is, but the timestamp in the corner was clear. 10:15 AM.
Rachel saw herself on the screen, small and pixelated in the corner of the coffee shop, working on her laptop. But the room didn't look at her. They looked at the figure in the foreground.
"That's Rachel Morrison," Jamie said. "Sitting alone. Working."
He pointed to the figure near the potted plants.
"And that," Jamie said, "isDr.Matthews."
On screen, Derek was holding his phone up, angling it between two potted plants. Watching, and hunting. Taking photos of a woman who didn't know he was there.
"You told Ryan MacKenzie you met with her," Jamie said to Derek. "You told him you had a conversation. But the camera says you were hiding in the bushes like a predator."
He paused, letting the word hang in the stifling heat of the room.
"That's called stalking, Dr. Matthews. And in Vermont? It's illegal."
The room exploded. People were on their feet, shouting. The anger was physical now, a wave of heat directed at the man in the front row.
Derek looked around. "She met with me. The footage is missing context—"
"We have barista testimony that Rachel was alone the entire time," Mac said, his voice booming from his seat as he stood up.
Derek faltered. He looked at Mac, then at the screen.
Rachel felt everyone's eyes turn to her. She looked at the screen, at the proof that she wasn't crazy, wasn't a liar, wasn't "too much."
This was her moment.
She stood up beside Mac, her hands shaking but her voice ready.
"I'd like to speak now," Rachel said clearly. "About what Derek did to me."
Rachel walked to the podium on legs that felt like water.
The entire town stared at her. Hundreds of faces. And Derek.
Rachel walked up the stairs to the stage and gripped the podium.
"My name is Rachel Morrison. A year ago I was engaged to Brad Reese, a semi-professional hockey player with the Burlington Blizzards. Brad had suffered a groin injury that kept recurring, and his team brought in Derek Matthews as a consultant to work with their medical staff. Derek was treating several players on Brad's team, including Brad."
She paused, steadying herself.
"Derek befriended us. Came to dinners. Seemed invested in our relationship, in Brad's recovery, in his career."
Rachel's throat tightened. This was the part she'd never said out loud. The part she'd buried so deep she'd almost convinced herself it hadn't happened.
"But Derek wasn't our friend. He was making subtle comments to Brad. 'Does she call too much during training?' 'Athletes need space.' 'Isn't she a bit boring for you?' Month after month, planting seeds of doubt."
The crowd wasn’t making a sound.
"Six months before our engagement ended, at a team event, Derek cornered me near the bathroom. His hands were on me, on my waist, sliding higher." Rachel's voice wavered. "I pushed him away and ran. I told myself it was a mistake. That maybe I'd misunderstood. That maybe he'd had too much to drink."
She could feel Mac's eyes on her, could sense his tension even from across the room.
