“It was her birthday.”
“It was her birthday,” Reno repeated. He let the words hang there and walked back to the witness table to pick up the second folder.
“People’s Exhibit B, Your Honor.” Reno laid copies of a letter from the Steele family’s trust lawyer in front of Lorraine’s Lawyer, the judge, and Lorraine.
“This letter arrived at your home on February 20th about thirty minutes before you texted your daughter, did it not, Ms. Stanley?”
“I don’t remem?—”
Reno cut her off. “You had to sign for it. I have a copy of the time-stamped and signed receipt if you need me to jog your memory.” He picked up a sheet of paper from inside the folder and held it out to her.
Lorraine scowled.
“Tell the court what was in that letter to your daughter, Ms. Stanley.”
“I’m sure I don’t know?—”
“In the thirty minutes between signing for the letter and texting your daughter out of the blue, did you open this letter and read it, Ms. Stanley? Will you tell the court its contents, or shall I?”
Felton jumped up and blustered an objection at the judge. The judge told Reno to rephrase his question.
“I withdraw the question, your Honor.”
Reno, unflapped, picked up the third and final folder and passed out its contents. “These are transcripts of texts between you and your daughter from the afternoon of February 20th through May 28th of this year. To save your lawyer the effort of jumping to his feet to object, they were also obtained on the warrant I gave Judge Ramos. There are over a hundred texts from you to your daughter, and six from your daughter to you, all of which are identical. They all read, Please stop texting me.”
Reno walked the judge through the texts. They started out with Lorraine texting that she missed her baby, loved her, and wanted her to come home. By February 22nd the texts started to turn angry. By the 24rd, the texts were getting ugly. By the 25th, they’d become threatening . . . and only got worse from there.
As Reno quoted a few of the worst attacks on Madison, Lorraine interrupted, exclaiming, “I would never say such things to my sweet daughter! You’re making up this trash to make me look bad!”
“Are you claiming you didn’t write these texts?” Reno asked her.
“That’s right. Well, I wrote the nice ones the first two days. The later ones are obviously from a different person?—”
“You wrote every last one of those!” Madison burst out from beside Hank. “The only difference among them is the ones you wrote sober were spelled better than the ones you wrote drunk—or high or stoned on whatever you were on that day. But they were all from you.”
Silence echoed loudly through the courtroom as every gaze turned to Madi. She sat there beside him, her back ramrod straight, her chin held up defiantly. But Hank saw her hands trembling in her lap.
Reno said kindly to Madison, “You’re not allowed to interrupt someone else’s testimony, Madi, but I’ll give you a chance to say that exact same thing to the judge in a minute, okay?”
She managed a tiny nod to her uncle. Hank saw her fighting to hold back the tears that filled her eyes, and he was so proud of how strong she was being that he could cry himself. Silently, he passed her his handkerchief as Reno turned back to Lorraine.
“It seems Madi disagrees with your assertion that you didn’t write any of the cruel and hateful texts, Ms. Stanley.”
Reno’s voice changed register and became icy. “Shall we call in your parents to verify that Madison handed them her phone before bed every night, since your texts came in at all hours and disturbed her sleep? Shall we ask them to point out which texts they recall Madi’s phone receiving from you in the middle of the night?”
Lorraine’s jaw sagged as she realized Reno had just caught her lying. Under oath. In front of a judge.
Lorraine exploded at Reno, “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, parading around in that fancy lawyer suit. You’re nothing but a two-bit rodeo clown these days. Where’s the high-and-mighty litigator now, huh? Living in some hick town in the middle of this godforsaken state, coming into this court in some pathetic attempt regain your glory days?”
Reno fired back, “Madison ran away from home to get away from your drinking, drug use, neglect, emotional abuse, and the steady stream of men passing through your bedroom, didn’t she?”
“How dare you!” Lorraine’s voice took on an edge of manic fury that Hank knew all too well. He couldn’t help but wince at the sound of her coming unhinged.
Reno’s voice took on a razor sharp edge. “You didn’t even bother to text or call your daughter when she disappeared and didn’t come home for almost four days. You never bothered to call the police and report her missing. You wouldn’t have known where she was or if she was even alive if your parents hadn’t called you.”
Reno’s voice went colder than Hank had ever heard it before.
“You didn’t bother to have any contact with your daughter at all until you opened that letter and found out your child stands to inherit a substantial amount of cash when she turns eighteen. Then all of sudden, you put on a full-court press to get her to come home to her abruptly loving, concerned mama.”
