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CHAPTER 70
publish date:
2026-04-17 22:40:57
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HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 73
July was hot and the firm was busy and the adoption process moved through its initial stages with the bureaucratic patience of something that operated entirely on its own timeline.We had a home study scheduled for August. A social worker would come to the apartment, review our life, interview us separately and together, and produce a report that would be the foundation of our approval or rejection.Alex treated the home study the way he treated depositions. He prepared.This meant he read everything the agency had provided. He read accounts of home studies written by other prospective parents. He made a list of likely questions. He made a list of things to have ready in the apartment. He bought two new plants for the living room."We don't need plants," I said."We have no plants.""We've never had plants.""The apartment should look like people live in it.""We live in it. It looks like we live in it.""It looks like two professionals live in it." He looked at the living room with a
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 72
The six weeks between the verdict and sentencing were quiet in a way that felt different from the quiet before. Not the quiet of waiting for the next crisis. The quiet of a chapter genuinely ending.Morrison was sentenced to twenty-two months and ordered to pay significant restitution. She served the first phase at a facility two states over. Her assets in the civil recovery were unfrozen as a condition of the sentence, which meant the clients' remaining recovery was accelerated. The Ashbourne operation was dissolved and Reeves's permanent disbarment was confirmed. Nolan received a reduced sentence in his own case in exchange for cooperation.Alex came home from the sentencing and sat at the kitchen table and that was all. Just sat. Not processing. Not working. Just still.I sat across from him. Neither of us said anything for a while."Neil cried," Alex said eventually."At the sentencing.""After. When we were outside. He turned away and I could see his shoulders." He paused. "He ha
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 71
Cole Marsh filed an application to introduce new evidence at 8:52am on Thursday. The trial was scheduled to resume at 10am.Alex called me from the courthouse at 9:05."There's a document," he said. "Marsh says it's a communication between me and Harold Fenn. The Lindfield client. Dated eight years ago. He's claiming it shows I actively advised Fenn on how to suppress the information he was withholding, not just that I was aware and withdrew."I sat down. "Do you know what document it is.""Marsh won't show it until the judge rules on admissibility. He filed the application under seal." Alex's voice was completely controlled. "It doesn't exist, Luke. I never advised Fenn to suppress anything. I withdrew and I documented the disagreement. If there is a document with my name on it, it is either fabricated or it is something that has been taken so far out of context as to be unrecognizable.""Who would have fabricated it.""Morrison has had Nolan's access to the firm's historical files.
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 70
Marsh filed the motion about the contact window on a Thursday. It was exactly what Alex had predicted. Thin documentation, improper pre-deposition contact, violation of witness handling protocols.Soren called immediately. He was still controlled but the quality of the control had changed. It was the control of someone managing something that was worse than expected."Tell me the scope," Alex said.We were both on the call. Alex had put it on speaker without being asked."The motion is technically sound," Soren said. "The contact occurred. It was by the book procedurally but the documentation does not fully support that. A judge will look at thin documentation and give the defense the benefit of the doubt.""So Nolan's testimony is in question.""His testimony itself is intact. The question is its admissibility given the contact window. The judge may limit what he can testify to. In the worst case, his testimony on the Morrison-specific arrangement could be excluded.""And the payment
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 69
February brought the Morrison trial's first major motion hearing and a development nobody had expected.Peter Holt, Morrison's lead defense attorney, withdrew from the case.No explanation in the public filing. Withdrawal of counsel, effective immediately, with a request for continuance to allow Morrison to retain new representation.Soren called Alex the morning the filing hit."This is significant," Soren said. "Holt does not withdraw from cases. He has been practicing for thirty years. He finishes what he starts.""Which means," Alex said."Which means either Morrison instructed him to do something he wasn't willing to do, or his own ethics review of the case made him unwilling to continue." Soren paused. "My read is the first. Morrison pushed for a strategy that Holt wouldn't execute.""What strategy.""I don't know yet. But if she pushed her own attorney to withdrawal, she's more desperate than she's been letting on." A pause. "Or she's planning something that requires a differen
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 68
November became December and the Morrison case moved through its procedural stages with the particular patience that serious criminal cases required. Soren updated us every two weeks. Alex reported to his clients. The firm ran. Life ran alongside it.We went to Jonah's for Christmas.The drive was two hours through countryside that was cold and grey and bare in the way of a December that had not decided to be beautiful. Alex drove and I had the window down slightly because I liked cold air and he had stopped commenting on it six months ago. Progress.Jonah and Mara's house was a semi-detached on a quiet street with a garden that had a bird table and a very small snowman someone had built and abandoned. Ada met us at the door in a dinosaur costume that she refused to remove for the entire visit.She pointed at Alex immediately. "Ax," she said.He crouched down to her level, which was something I had watched him learn to do naturally over the visits of the last year. He did not perform
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 33
Chapter 31The Monday after we got back from the lake, Alex walked into my office.Not my apartment. My office. At 10am. Without calling first.I looked up from my desk and he was standing in the doorway in a dark coat, holding two coffees, and every person in the open-plan space behind him had gon
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 38
My father's stroke changed things I had not expected to change.Owen called twice the following week. Actual calls. Not texts. The second one lasted forty minutes and at the end of it he said, "I should have called you that first night," and I said "yes" and he said "I know," and that was the close
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 37
The inquiry closed in nineteen days.Insufficient basis for further action. Standard language. Clean outcome.Alex texted me two words: It's done.I was at lunch with a colleague when the text came through. I read it twice. Put my phone in my pocket. Finished my lunch. Kept my face completely neutr
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 34
His name was Danny Reid. He was thirty-four, a former colleague of Alex's from early in his career, and he arrived back in the city on a Wednesday like a stone thrown into still water.I did not know about Danny Reid until he showed up at a dinner.We were at a restaurant — not a date dinner, a wor
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