Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN AFTER ME
Elise Carter testified under subpoena.
She was thirty-one.
An accountant.
Smart.
Embarrassed.
“I had an affair with Daniel,” she said.
The courtroom whispered.
I felt nothing.
That surprised me.
She continued.
“He said the marriage was a mistake.”
“When?” the prosecutor asked.
“Before the wedding.”
My hands stayed still.
“He told me he would be free soon.”
“How soon?”
“After the cruise.”
There it was.
Elise said Daniel asked for copies of her medical records.
He called it estate planning.
He had encouraged her to take a trip with him to Costa Rica later that year.
Grayson’s files contained a draft policy in her name.
Three million dollars.
Beneficiary structure hidden behind Mercer Maritime.
Elise began crying.
“I thought he loved me.”
Rebecca sat behind me.
I heard her whisper:
“So did we.”
That sentence carried more truth than anything Daniel ever said.
Elise turned toward me during a break.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew he was married.”
“Yes.”
“I still did it.”
I nodded.
“That part belongs to you.”
She cried harder.
I did not comfort her.
I did not attack her either.
People can be guilty of one thing and still almost become victims of another.
Both can be true.
The jury received the case two weeks later.
Daniel’s attorneys argued he was a liar, adulterer, and fraudster—but not a killer.
Grayson was the mastermind.
Fisk handled documents.
The women exaggerated accidents because they hated Daniel.
Then prosecutors replayed the bat recording.
The insurance.
The Colorado policy.
Marisol’s dock video.
Rebecca’s false passport.
Eleven women in Grayson’s files.
Preparation turned coincidence into pattern.
The jury deliberated fourteen hours.
Daniel was convicted on the major fraud and conspiracy counts and on charges tied to the attempted harm established by the evidence.
Grayson was convicted too.
Fisk received a reduced sentence for cooperation.
I expected to feel victorious.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Outside court, reporters shouted:
“Do you forgive him?”
I stopped.
“No.”
“Do you hate him?”
I thought about it.
“No.”
“What do you feel?”
I looked at the courthouse doors.
“Finished.”
May you like
Then Rebecca took my hand.
For the first time, finished felt possible.
