Chapter 12 - WHAT THEY CALLED LOVE
The civil attorneys scheduled depositions in separate rooms at the Hamilton County courthouse.
Because of the protection order, Marcus could not approach me outside the formal proceeding. A deputy remained near the door.
I saw him for the first time since the basement through a camera connected to another room.
He wore a dark suit and spoke softly.
His attorney asked whether he loved me.
“Yes,” Marcus said. “I still do.”
Naomi leaned toward the microphone.
“Did love include welding a cage six months before the dinner?”
Marcus looked toward his attorney.
“I built secure storage.”
“Did love include preparing her luggage?”
“My mother handled that.”
“Did love include threatening Claire’s dead sister?”
His face changed.
That threat had not appeared in any police report because I was too ashamed to explain why it had frightened me. Marcus knew my sister was dead. He had used her name to remind me that nobody in Indianapolis would notice I never arrived.
“I was angry,” he said.
Naomi’s next question was quiet.
“What were you trying to protect?”
Marcus stopped pretending not to understand.
“The company was my father’s.”
“You used company money for your own property.”
“I was trying to grow it.”
“You imprisoned your wife.”
“She was going to destroy everything over numbers that could’ve been corrected.”
In another room, Elaine testified after him.
She admitted creating Queen City Materials but insisted every dollar eventually benefited the family.
Naomi asked why she placed funds in an account under my name.
“To protect the business if Claire became vindictive.”
“Before or after she discovered the duplex?”
Elaine did not answer.
“What were you protecting?” Naomi asked.
“My sons.”
“From Claire?”
“From losing what their father built.”
David, present through his attorney, interrupted.
“Dad built houses. He didn’t build this.”
Elaine turned toward the camera carrying his image.
“You would have let the company fail.”
“I would’ve let it become smaller.”
“You don’t understand what shame does to a family.”
“No,” David said. “I understand what hiding it did.”
Elaine removed her glasses.
For the first time, she looked tired rather than controlled.
“Your father died believing I saved that company.”
“You stole from it.”
“I saved it first.”
There it was.
Not greed alone.
Not loyalty alone.
Elaine had spent fifteen years building her worth around being the person who kept the Bennett family from collapse. Each secret loan made her more necessary. Every crisis gave her another opportunity to prove the family could not survive without her.
My discovery threatened more than money.
It threatened the role she believed entitled her to decide who could be sacrificed.
Naomi asked whether she regretted helping Marcus imprison me.
Elaine looked directly into the camera.
“I regret that Marcus lost control.”
Not that I had been harmed.
Not that she had carried the key.
She regretted the failure of the plan.
The deposition ended.
On the courthouse steps, David asked me what accountability would look like.
“Not them losing everything,” I said. “They already destroyed most of it.”
“Then what?”
“They have to stop calling what they did protection.”
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The truth was established.
The remaining fight was over its meaning.
