24
Chapter 24: Miller
The courthouse steps were crowded with reporters. Miller spotted them from half a block away: a cluster of cameras and microphones gathered near the entrance, waiting for someone worth photographing. With a high-profile divorce, billionaire CEO, and months of leaked documents and whispered accusations, of course the press was here.
She'd just hoped to slip in unnoticed.
She adjusted the strap of her bag and kept walking, keeping her head down, just another attorney in a dark suit on a Monday morning. The August heat was already building, the air thick and still, summer grinding toward its end without any sign of letting go. By the time she reached the steps, sweat had gathered at the base of her spine.
The reporters didn’t give her a second glance. They were waiting for Astoria.
Miller climbed the steps and pushed through the heavy doors into the courthouse lobby, where the air conditioning hit her like a wall. She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjustto the fluorescent lighting and feeling the familiar institutional smell settle around her: old paper, cleaning solution, and the particular staleness of buildings where people came to have their lives sorted into winners and losers.
The subpoena had arrived two weeks ago from Gerald Brack’s office, requesting her testimony regarding a July 25th meeting at Hartwell & Associates. Rachel's pre-trial disclosures had included the strategy session where Valerie pushed for fabricated claims—of course they had, Rachel was too ethical to hide something like that—and now Miller was being called to testify about what she'd witnessed.
She’d known it was coming, in a way. The moment she'd spoken up in that conference room, the moment she'd told Valerie the claims were unsubstantiated and ethically untenable, she'd set something in motion. She just hadn't expected to end up on the witness stand, under oath, testifying against her own firm's client.
Miller made her way through security, submitted her bag for inspection, and collected it on the other side. The hallway stretched ahead of her, fluorescent lights humming overhead, footsteps echoing off marble floors. Lawyers in dark suits passed in both directions, some alone, some with clients trailing behind them. A woman in a floral dress sat on a bench outside one of the courtrooms, crying quietly into a tissue.
Courtroom 4B was at the end of the hall. Miller slowed as she approached, giving herself a moment to breathe. Through the small window in the door, she could see the room was already filling—clerks, observers, a few people she didn't recognize in the gallery. Rachel was at the respondent's table, organizing files with the focused efficiency Miller knew so well. Valerie sat beside her, her spine straight and face composed, every inch the wronged wife.
Miller pushed open the door and slipped inside.
She took a seat in the gallery, two rows behind Rachel—close enough to see the proceedings clearly, far enough to stay out of the way until she was called. Rachel glanced back when the door opened, caught Miller's eye, and gave an almost imperceptible nod.I see you. I understand.
There was no anger or betrayal in Rachel’s expression. After all, she disclosed the meeting herself. It was simply the cost of doing things the right way.
Miller pulled a legal pad from her bag and balanced it on her knee, a prop more than anything. Something to do with her hands while she waited.
The courtroom continued to fill. A court reporter settled into position near the bench, her fingers poised over her stenotype. The bailiff conferred quietly with a clerk, her back against the wall to have a clear line of sight. Someone's phone buzzed, but was quickly silenced. The particular tension of a trial hung in the air; this was the end of something, one way or another.
The door opened again, and Miller’s hands went still on the pad.
Astoria entered first, Gerald a half-step behind her. She wore an impeccably tailored navy suit, her hair pulled back in a twist that exposed the line of her jaw. She moved with the controlled grace Miller remembered: the ice queen, perfectly composed, giving nothing away.
But Miller knew her now. She knew her in ways that made maintaining professional distance a cruel joke.
She could see what others might miss: the faint shadows beneath Astoria’s eyes that makeup couldn’t quite hide, the slight tension in her shoulders held a fraction too high, the way her gaze swept the courtroom with practiced neutrality—and then caught on Miller and held.
Astoria’s expression didn't change. But something flickered behind her eyes before she looked away and followed Gerald tothe petitioner's table. Miller stared at her legal pad. The date she'd written swam slightly, the numbers refusing to hold still.
Focus.
She was here to testify and tell the truth about what she'd witnessed in that conference room, to put Valerie's manipulation on the record. It was the right thing to do—she believed that—but it didn't make it easier to sit here, waiting for her name to be called.
At the respondent's table, Valerie leaned over to whisper something to Rachel. Her expression was pleasant and concerned, the performance of a woman bravely facing her powerful ex-wife in court. Miller watched her and felt the familiar twist of something between anger and exhaustion.
She had believed Valerie once. She had believed the tearful stories, the recounting of emotional neglect, the portrait of a cold wife who’d frozen out a devoted partner. She’d prepared arguments based on Valerie’s version of events.
And then she’d met Astoria herself.
That’s when she saw the exhaustion beneath the exterior, the vulnerability Valerie had spent years exploiting, and the way Astoria flinched at raised voices.
Miller looked at Astoria now, sitting straight-backed at the petitioner’s table, and felt the weight of everything she couldn’t say pressing against her ribs.
I’m sorry I ever believed her. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to stay. I’m sorry?—
“All rise.”
