Chapter 3 - FORTY-SEVEN SECONDS
His gaze moved to my bruised wrist.
Then he smiled.
“Ashlynn,” he said. “You appear unharmed.”
Maren stepped between us.
“Do not speak to my client.”
Marshall ignored her.
“Gregory has made mistakes. So have you.”
“I defended myself.”
“You escalated a private disagreement into a federal spectacle.”
“He swung a bat.”
Marshall’s expression did not change.
“Did he strike you?”
“That does not make the assault imaginary.”
“No. It makes interpretation important.”
He had built his life around that skill.
Never deny the event that could be proved.
Redefine it.
Adrian Pike handed Maren a preservation notice demanding that I retain all communications, company devices, medical records relevant to physical capacity, and documents concerning my military service.
“They want your training records to argue disproportionate force,” Maren said.
“I didn’t strike him.”
“They will argue you engineered the confrontation because you knew you could overpower him.”
Marshall finally looked toward the agents.
“Gregory will cooperate voluntarily.”
Special Agent Sloan approached.
“We would like Mr. Hartman to remain available.”
“He will.”
Gregory appeared through the terminal doors.
His wrist was wrapped.
He looked directly at me.
For one second, I saw the man who had cried during our wedding vows twelve hours earlier.
Then his face hardened.
“You planned this,” he said.
The agents prevented him from approaching.
“I planned our honeymoon,” I replied.
He laughed.
“No. You planned to take Sentinel Ridge away from my family.”
“My company was never yours.”
Gregory’s eyes moved toward Marshall.
His father gave the smallest nod.
Gregory turned back to me.
“My mother said the same thing.”
The words were not an accident.
He knew I would ask.
“What happened to her?”
Gregory smiled.
“You should ask your lawyer why my mother’s death certificate has your father’s signature on it.”
My father had been dead for seven years.
He had never told me he knew the Hartmans.
As Gregory was escorted away, Maren placed one hand on my arm.
“Do not follow that statement yet.”
But I was already remembering the scratched initials on the bat.
M.H.
May you like
I had assumed they belonged to Marshall HartmanThey could have belonged to someone else.
My father’s name had been Michael Reed.
