“Is the baby hurt?” Carol asked, her voice laced with a grotesque hope. “We need the baby to be hurt.” They rushed toward the door. “Remember,” Mark said, “we thank him first, then sue later.”
The courtroom exploded. People were shouting, gasping. The parents were screaming, “That’s fake! She edited it!”
But Ashley pulled out a thick folder. “I have more.”
She walked forward and dropped the folder on the judge’s desk. The sound echoed through the silent courtroom like a gunshot. The judge opened it and began flipping through the pages. Her face, already a mask of fury, grew darker with each document she read. The parents’ frantic denials were cut short by the judge slamming her gavel down three times, the sound so loud it made me jump.
“Silence!” she roared. “Or I will hold you in contempt!”
She called the lawyers to the bench. I watched Mr. Ramsay’s face as the judge showed him something from the folder. His eyes went wide, his mouth falling open. He looked back at me with an expression I’d never seen before—like he finally believed me. The prosecutor, Mr. Davies, looked pale, shaking his head as he read.
