Chapter 10
The next morning, Elena met me outside the county courthouse with two paper cups of coffee and a folder tucked beneath her arm.
She wore the same navy blazer she had worn at the foundation benefit, but the cuffs were damp from the rain. She handed me the coffee without asking whether I wanted it.
“You have a hearing in forty minutes,” she said. “Not a criminal hearing. An emergency petition for access to your medical and employment records.”
I stared at her.
“Who filed it?”
“The Bellini Foundation’s attorneys.”
Rain clicked against the courthouse awning. Cars moved through the wet parking lot, their headlights pale in the gray morning.
“They want my records to prove I’m unstable?”
“They want a judge to restrict your public statements while they investigate an alleged security breach.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it. “They called me unreliable, and now they want a court to make sure I can’t answer them.”
“That’s the shape of it.”
Inside, the courthouse smelled like wet coats, floor wax, and old paper. Elena walked quickly, one hand resting on the folder as if she could keep the contents from being taken by force.
Adrian was waiting near the elevators.
He had dressed less formally than usual, though the charcoal suit was still sharp. His silver-flecked hair was damp at the temples. When he saw me, his eyes moved over my face, my shoulder, and the hand holding the coffee.
“I told them I wouldn’t support this,” he said.
“And they filed anyway.”
“My uncle authorized it through the board.”
“Then your family has made its position clear.”
His jaw tightened. “This isn't my position.”
“I know. That’s what makes it worse.”
The elevator doors opened. We stepped inside with Elena between us. No one spoke until the doors closed.
The judge did not grant the foundation immediate access to my medical records. Elena argued that a public disagreement did not establish incompetence, and that I had already provided relevant material to law enforcement. The foundation’s attorney described my statements as “emotionally charged and potentially damaging to an active charitable institution.”
I sat at the end of the table and listened to a stranger turn my fear into a procedural concern.
When the judge asked whether I intended to continue speaking publicly, I stood.
“Yes,” I said. “But only about what I witnessed and what I can support with evidence.”
The attorney looked pleased, as if I had just confirmed something.
I kept my hands flat on the table.
“I won't release investigative details. I won't identify anyone who hasn't been verified. But I won't agree that being shot makes me incapable of telling the truth.”
The judge denied the emergency restriction and scheduled a fuller review. It wasn't a victory. The foundation still had the resources to keep filing motions, and I understood that now.
Outside, Adrian caught up with me on the courthouse steps.
“You should let me pay for counsel,” he said.
“I have counsel.”
“Elena is representing you in the evidence matter. She isn't handling every civil motion.”
“Then I’ll find someone.”
“Claire.”
I turned toward him. Rain had darkened the shoulders of his coat.
“I’m not asking you to belong to me,” he said. “I’m asking you not to stand in the rain while people with unlimited money grind you down.”
“That sounds almost reasonable.”
“It is reasonable.”
“It also sounds like the beginning of dependence.”
His expression changed. Not anger. Something closer to recognition.
“Then make the arrangement temporary,” he said. “Put it in writing. Set a limit. Choose the attorney yourself.”
I studied him. He had offered a solution without reaching for my arm, without telling me where to go.
“Bring me three names,” I said. “I’ll choose one.”
He nodded. “I will.”
At Elena’s office, we reviewed the evidence we had turned over. The blue-striped staff tag. The crescent mark from the benefit credential. The token from my mother’s belongings. The photographs of the woman near Bellini’s Cafe and inside the foundation building.
Elena paused over the image of the woman’s face.
“The detective wants you to make a formal identification,” she said.
My stomach tightened. “You said they had enough to investigate.”
“They do. But the woman’s face is partially obscured in the cafe image. Your testimony could establish that she was present before the shooting and that the credential linked her to the service entrance.”
“Could I be wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Would you tell me not to do it if you thought I was?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the photograph again. The woman’s chin was angled toward the camera. I remembered her stillness in the cafe, the blue stripe at her shoulder, the way she had watched the room instead of the food.
“I can testify to what I saw,” I said. “Not to who she is.”
“That distinction matters.”
By late afternoon, a detective named Harris met us in a small interview room at the sheriff’s office. The room had a metal table, two chairs, and a vent that rattled every few seconds.
Harris placed the photographs in front of me one at a time.
I described the woman’s location, her access tag, and the timing I remembered. I said what I knew and stopped when I reached the edge of it.
“She wasn't just near Sofia,” I said. “She was watching the entrances.”
Harris wrote that down.
“And you believe the attack was aimed at you?”
I looked at the silver star beneath my sweater.
“I believe someone knew I would be there. I believe someone knew Sofia would be there. I don't know which fact mattered more.”
When I signed the statement, my hand shook from exhaustion.
Outside, Adrian waited beside his car. He had not entered the building.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“I testified.”
He opened the passenger door, then stopped before touching it.
“Do you want a ride?”
I thought about the courthouse, the petition, the photograph, and the way everyone kept offering to carry some part of my life.
“Yes,” I said. “But only to my apartment.”
“Only to your apartment.”
As we drove through the rain, my phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR MOTHER DID TO SURVIVE.
I read it twice.
Adrian noticed my face but didn't ask for the phone.
I turned it toward him.
His eyes hardened as he read the words.
For the first time since I had met him, he reached for my hand.
May you like
He stopped before touching it.
I closed the distance myself.
