“I heard what she said about you. I heard the nursing home comment. I heard her laughing with her friends. I heard her say you’d served your purpose.”
Emily began to cry.
“It was frustration. I didn’t mean—”
Daniel’s voice rose.
“There is a recording where you say, ‘As soon as the old woman gets sick, we’ll send her somewhere cheap and keep the house.’ Did you not mean that either?”
Megan calmly lifted her laptop.
“If necessary, we can play the recordings here.”
“No,” Emily said immediately. “Please.”
Megan kept going.
“My client also has witness statements, financial records, written messages, and evidence of prolonged exploitation.”
Emily looked like she might faint.
Hector leaned forward and spoke with quiet disgust.
“Mrs. Ruiz, I have known Beatrice for thirty years. She is a woman of honor. You treated her like dirt.”
Emily covered her face and cried harder.
Then, when I asked her whether she was sorry for hurting me or sorry for getting caught, she surprised me.
“I’m sorry for both,” she said. “I was cruel. I treated you like a servant. And being exposed like this forced me to see what I became.”
The room went very still.
She wiped at her cheeks and kept talking.