Chapter 18 - My TestimonyI testified on the ninth day.
The courtroom seemed too bright.
Too polished.
Too full of breathing people.
I had spent months waiting for that witness stand, imagining what I would say, how I would sound, whether my voice would fail, whether Cordelia’s attorney would find some way to turn pain into performance.
But when the clerk swore me in, everything narrowed to one simple fact.
I was alive.
That was not an argument.
That was evidence.
Albright began gently, but not sentimentally. I was grateful.
“Please state your name.”
“Lillian Mae Greer.”
“What is your profession?”
“Forensic auditor.”
“Can you explain to the jury what that means?”
“I follow money when people hope no one will.”
A few jurors leaned forward.
Good.
We started with my background. Ohio. My mother’s diner. Scholarships. Federal investigations. The discipline of records. The way false numbers reveal human choices.
Then Adrian.
The marriage.
The estate.
Cordelia’s contempt.
I did not exaggerate. I did not need to. Rich cruelty is most recognizable when described plainly.
“She called me practical,” I said. “She meant disposable.”
Albright took me to the week before the fall.
The transfers.
The forged policy.
The missing foundation funds.
The decision to wait for one more file.
Then the balcony.
My voice roughened there.
My hand tightened around the cane resting beside the witness chair.
Albright slowed.
“We can take a break.”
Cordelia’s attorney watched me with hungry patience.
Waiting for weakness.
I looked at the jury.
“No.”
So we continued.
I described Cordelia asking me outside. Adrian following. The railing moving behind me. His words.
Lily, don’t make this harder.
One juror closed her eyes.
Then the fall.
I did not remember impact cleanly. Trauma breaks memory into flashes. Oak leaves. Stone. Air leaving my body. Cordelia’s voice far above. Adrian not coming down.
Albright moved to the hospital.
“What did you understand people believed about your condition?”
“They believed I could not hear.”
“Could you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you hear?”
I looked at Cordelia.
Her face was calm, but I could see the tension beneath the skin.
“I heard them plan around my silence.”
Albright played portions of the ICU recording.
Not all.
Enough.
Cordelia’s voice filled the courtroom.
“You had the audacity to survive the first time.”
Someone in the gallery gasped.
The judge warned the room.
The recording continued through Adrian’s arrival, their discussion, his decision to stand by the door, Cordelia’s explanation of respiratory failure.
Then the pillow.
The courtroom heard the alarms.
My breathing.
Adrian’s panic.
Jonah’s message.
Cordelia’s sudden performance.
When the audio stopped, silence remained behind like smoke.
Albright asked, “Ms. Greer, who was pressing the pillow over your face?”
“Cordelia Voss.”
“Who stood by the door?”
“Adrian Voss.”
“Did you consent to any recording device being placed in your cast?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew they might come back.”
Albright paused.
“Why didn’t you tell hospital staff directly?”
I lifted my right hand slightly. The movement was limited, still stiff.
“I could not speak. I could barely move. But I could listen.”
Then came cross-examination.
Everett Shaw rose slowly, smoothing his jacket.
He began with sympathy.
“Ms. Greer, no one disputes you suffered terribly.”
I said nothing.
He walked closer.
“You are an expert in constructing financial narratives, correct?”
“I analyze evidence.”
“And sometimes evidence can be interpreted in more than one way?”
“Bad evidence can.”
A few people shifted.
Shaw smiled thinly. “You’re confident.”
“Yes.”
“Some might say arrogant.”
“Some might need better evidence.”
Albright looked down.
Jonah later told me she was hiding a smile.
Shaw tried the concussion. The medication. The anger. The marital conflict. He suggested Jonah had influenced me. He suggested my mother had reinforced my hostility. He suggested my career trained me to see crime where there might be chaos.
Finally, he said, “Isn’t it true, Ms. Greer, that you hated Cordelia Voss long before the accident?”
I looked at Cordelia.
Then back at him.
“No.”
“No?”
“I underestimated her.”
He paused.
“And now?”
“Now I understand her.”
Shaw moved closer. “You understand her enough to hate her?”
I breathed in.
My ribs ached.
My leg throbbed.
My voice held.
“I understand that she thought money could make truth kneel.”
The courtroom went completely still.
I turned slightly toward the jury.
“She was wrong.”
Shaw ended fifteen minutes later.
He had drawn no blood.
Cordelia did not look at me as I stepped down.
But as I passed her table, she whispered something only I could hear.
“You will always be common.”
I stopped.
The bailiff moved slightly.
May you like
I looked at her hand, still faintly stained from the pen ink.
Then I whispered back, “And you will always be caught.”
