Chapter 4 - The Depositions of DeceitThree months later, the physical therapy ward at the Sharp Rehabilitation Center smelled of disinfectant, athletic tape, and sweat.
I gripped the parallel bars with white-knuckled intensity, my teeth gritted against the sharp, burning resistance in my reconstructed knee. Dr. Morales had performed two subsequent micro-surgeries to remove scar tissue, but the joint still felt stiff, angry, and foreign.
"One more step, Monica," my physical therapist, Marcus, urged quietly. "Keep your hips level. Don't favor the left side. Force the right quadricep to fire."
I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and drove my right foot down onto the rubberized floor. The pain was immediate—a dull, thudding fire that traveled up my femur—but the bone held. The pins had done their job. I took another step, then another, until I reached the end of the bars, breathing hard, sweat dripping from my jawline.
"Good," Marcus said, handing me my forearm crutches. "You're ahead of schedule. At this rate, you'll be off the crutches and onto a single cane by the time the grand jury convenes."
"I have to be," I muttered, adjusting my grip on the ergonomic handles. "I’m not rolling into that courtroom in a wheelchair. I want Austin to see me walking on the leg he tried to destroy."
That afternoon, I was transported by unmarked police cruiser to the San Diego Central Courthouse for Eleanor Wellman’s preliminary deposition.
Because Eleanor had been indicted on secondary charges of conspiracy and evidence tampering, her defense attorney, a smooth-talking La Jolla litigator named Jonathan Croft, had petitioned for a closed-door settlement conference in hopes of negotiating a plea deal that would keep her out of Chowchilla Women’s Facility.
The conference room on the fifth floor was sterile and silent.
Eleanor sat at the far end of the long mahogany table. In just three months, the county jail had stripped away every trace of her patrician elegance. Her dyed blonde hair had grown out in jagged bands of dull gray; she was wearing an orange institutional jumpsuit with stenciled numbers on the back, and her hands were shackled to a leather belly chain that clinked softly every time she shifted.
When the deputy opened the door and I walked in, using only a single forearm crutch, Eleanor looked up. Her eyes went wide, flashing with a brief spark of relief that was instantly extinguished by her attorney’s cautionary gesture.
"Monica," Eleanor whispered, leaning forward as far as her chains allowed. "My baby. Look at you... you're walking. Thank God. I’ve been praying for you every single night in that terrible place."
I pulled out a heavy leather armchair opposite her, placed my crutch against the edge of the table, and sat down without assistance.
"Save it, Eleanor," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "You didn't pray for me. You prayed that the surgical team wouldn't find the metal cross-hatch fragments from the tire iron embedded in my joint."
Eleanor’s lips pulled into a tight, trembling line. "You don't understand what Austin was facing, Monica! You always had your books, your scholarships, your little accounting firm! Austin had the entire family name resting on his shoulders! If his firm went under, we would have lost everything—the house on Caminito Sonoma, our standing at the club, our dignity!"
"Your dignity?" Robert’s voice sliced through the room from the doorway. My father walked in, accompanied by Detective Lin and Assistant District Attorney Marcus Brody. He didn't look at Eleanor with anger; he looked at her with pure, unvarnished revulsion. "You sold your soul to keep an address in La Jolla, Eleanor. You locked a twenty-four-year-old girl in a cabin in the mountains for five years, and you cheered while your son crippled your own daughter."
"I didn't cheer!" Eleanor shrieked, rattling her chains against the mahogany. "I was in shock! I clapped because... because I was hysterical! Jonathan, tell them! Tell them it was a trauma response!"
Jonathan Croft looked down at his yellow legal pad, rubbing his temples with deep exhaustion. Even he couldn't stomach the defense he was being paid to present.
"Mrs. Wellman," ADA Brody said, stepping up to the table and dropping three thick, blue-backed binders in front of her. "We have obtained the forensic image of your personal iPhone 13, which was seized during the execution of the search warrant at your home. Would you like me to read aloud the text messages you sent to Austin while Monica was in surgery?"
Eleanor shrank back into her seat.
Brody flipped open the top binder and read with flat, clinical precision:
"10:42 PM: Make sure you throw the clothes in the incinerator at the development site. If the police come back, tell them she was screaming about Kathleen because she’s obsessed with breaking up your marriage. The Millicans can't hear about this. If Naomi pulls out, we are dead."
"11:15 PM: She survived the surgery. Clara Vance is the intake nurse. Get your passport. Get the bonds from the safe. Do not come back to the house."
The silence in the room was absolute.
"You knew Clara was Kathleen’s sister," I said, leaning across the table, my eyes locking onto Eleanor’s terrified face. "The moment you heard her name, you knew the five years of lies were over. And your first instinct wasn't to ask if I would ever walk again. Your first instinct was to tell Austin to run."
Eleanor looked down at her shackled wrists. A single, ugly sob broke from her chest, but there were no tears in her eyes—only the bitter, venomous self-pity of a narcissist whose stage had collapsed beneath her feet.
"You were always cold, Monica," Eleanor hissed, lifting her head, her face twisting into a sneer. "From the day you were born, you looked at me like you were auditing my soul. You never loved this family. You never protected us."
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"You weren't a family, Eleanor," I said, rising smoothly from the chair and taking hold of my crutch. "You were an organized crime syndicate operating out of a three-car garage. And your audit is officially complete."
I turned my back on her and walked toward the door. Behind me, Eleanor began to scream—a ragged, hysterical sound of a woman who finally realized that no one was coming to open the cell door.
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