"Mr. Holloway, you have a documented history of violent behavior. Multiple altercations at circuit events. Confrontations with other competitors. A public confrontation with Mr. Merrick himself at the Tucson event that required physical restraint by stock contractors and a bullfighter. Is that accurate?"
"I've been in fights. Most riders have. The difference is I don't start them."
"But you finish them. With enough force that multiple people had to restrain you."
"When someone puts their hands on a person who can't defend themselves, I respond. I'd do it again."
Whitfield makes a note. She does it slowly, the pen moving across the legal pad with deliberate precision, a performance designed to make me feel like every word is being filed for later use.
I've been on the back of bulls that weigh more than this woman's entire legal team combined. The intimidation lands somewhere south of effective.
"Mr. Holloway, isn't it true that your grief over Grant Corbin's death has made you emotionally unstable and unreliable as a witness?"
"My grief made me the only person on this circuit willing to ask why my best friend was killed. Whether that makes me unstable is a question for someone with a different degree than yours."
Torres, seated at the end of the table, does something with her mouth that might be a suppressed smile.
Whitfield shifts tactics. "You entered stock pen areas in Albuquerque to surveil employees of Thornton Livestock. You traveled to Creede, Colorado, to locate a witness the FBI hadn't yet contacted. You went to a storage yard to meet Dale Thornton, a meeting that ended in Mr. Thornton's death." She lets each item land before continuing. "Would you characterize these as the actions of a stable, measured individual cooperating with law enforcement?"
"Thornton contacted me. I didn't arrange anything. And I'd characterize the rest as the actions of a man whose best friendwas murdered while the system designed to protect him looked the other way."
"The system being the Southwest Circuit."
"The system being every person with authority who knew something was wrong and chose not to look."
One of the junior attorneys shifts in his seat. Whitfield doesn't blink.
"You've had a romantic relationship with Kenna Corbin throughout this investigation. A woman who entered the circuit under false pretenses, using a fabricated identity, and whose personal vendetta compromises every piece of evidence she's touched."
"Her identity wasn't fabricated. She used her mother's maiden name. And her personal stake in the case is the reason we're sitting in this room instead of waiting for the next rider to die."
"So you're acknowledging that both of you approached this investigation with personal bias."
"I'm acknowledging that we cared enough to do the work your client spent a lot of time and money trying to bury."
Whitfield leans back and studies me. I've watched enough bulls size up the chute to recognize when an opponent is deciding whether to charge or circle.
"Do you regret any of the methods you employed during this investigation?"
I look at the camera recording my deposition. The red light is steady, unblinking, recording every word for a transcript that Merrick's legal team will comb through for anything they can use. I think about Grant in this room, about what he would say if he were sitting in this chair with Whitfield's questions aimed at him.
He would tell the truth. Grant always told the truth, even when the truth was the thing most likely to get him killed.
"No. My only regret is that Grant isn't here to see the man who ordered his murder face justice."
The room goes quiet. Whitfield's pen doesn't move. The junior attorney has stopped shifting. Even the court reporter's fingers pause over the keys for a beat before resuming.
"No further questions at this time."
Kenna is called next, and her deposition runs longer.
I wait in the hallway. The bench is hard. The coffee from the vending machine tastes like it was brewed during a previous administration. Through the door, I can hear the muffled cadence of Whitfield's questions and Kenna's responses, steady and precise.
Then Whitfield's voice rises enough for a phrase to cut through. "Manipulated by Mr. Holloway."
My hands close into fists on my thighs. The knuckles whiten, the tendons pull taut across the backs of my hands, and I have to consciously flatten my fingers against the denim before the U.S. Marshal at the end of the hallway notices.
The word'manipulated'sits in my teeth like a piece of broken glass, and every instinct I have is telling me to walk back into that conference room and explain to Whitfield in very specific terms what manipulation looks like when it comes from a man who orders riders killed and hides the bodies in accident reports.
