4. Amanda
— ? —
Amanda
The courtroom smells like furniture polish and fear.
My fear. No one else in this room is afraid. They’re entertained. They’re fascinated. They’re watching the show of the season - the billionaire’s wife who snapped, who killed an innocent man, who tried to blame her own pregnant sister.
I am the monster in their story.
And nothing I say will change that.
“State your name for the record.”
“Vivienne Marie Reyes.”
She’s wearing cream today. Soft, innocent cream with pearl earrings and minimal makeup. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun. Her hands rest on her barely visible bump - fourteen weeks now, and she touches it constantly, reminding the jury that she’s carrying precious cargo.
That she’s the victim here.
“Ms. Reyes, can you describe your relationship with the defendant?”
“She’s my sister.” Vivienne’s voice breaks on the word. Perfectly timed. “My older sister. I loved her. I thought she loved me too.”
I dig my nails into my palms under the table. My attorney puts a hand on my arm. A warning.
“Can you tell us what you witnessed on the night of November fifteenth?”
Vivienne dabs at her eyes with a tissue. The jury leans forward.
“Amanda had been drinking all night. I was worried about her - she gets mean when she drinks, she always has. Our mother used to say-” She stops. Collects herself. “I’m sorry. This is hard.”
“Take your time.”
“I saw her get her keys from the valet station. I tried to stop her. I said, ‘Mandy, please, let me call you a car.’ But she pushed me away.” Vivienne’s hand moves to her stomach. “She pushed me, and I almost fell, and she said-”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do. You’ve never been anything but a burden.’”
The jury looks at me. I see it in their eyes - confirmation. Of course the monster would say that. Of course she would.
I never said those words. I never touched her. I never got my keys. The valet knows it. My attorney will put him on the stand, and the jury will still believe her.
It doesn’t matter.
***
Julian’s lawyers are surgical.
They don’t just argue their case - they dismantle me. Piece by piece. Memory by memory. They turn my entire life into evidence of instability.
“Isn’t it true that you were fired from two jobs before Mr. Vance hired you?”
“I was laid off. Budget cuts-”
“Isn’t it true that you have a history of volatile relationships?”
“I don’t-”
“Isn’t it true that your college roommate filed a complaint against you for erratic behavior?”
“That was a misunderstanding-”
“Isn’t it true that you’ve been taking prescription anxiety medication for the past three years?”
I freeze.
I’ve never taken anxiety medication in my life. But I know what’s coming. I know there are bottles somewhere with my name on them. Prescriptions signed by doctors Julian owns. A paper trail that proves I’m exactly what they say I am.
“I’ve never-”
Julian’s lawyer holds up a pharmacy printout. “Your Honor, we’d like to submit exhibit forty-seven. Prescription records showing the defendant has been taking-”
“Objection!” My attorney is on his feet. Too late. Always too late.
The jury has already seen. The jury has already decided.
***
I find Roman in the back row during the lunch recess.
He’s been here every day. Same seat. Same dark clothes. Same intense focus that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the room.
The bailiff won’t let me talk to him. But I can look.
And right now, looking at him is the only thing keeping me from screaming.
His jaw is tight. His hands are clenched on his knees. He’s been watching his brother’s lawyers destroy me for three weeks, and I can see what it’s costing him - the barely contained rage, the helplessness, the guilt.
He mouths two words across the courtroom: I’m sorry.
I shake my head. Not his fault. None of this is his fault.
The backup footage Roman promised - the secret system Julian never knew existed - turned out to be a dead end.
The drive had failed years ago; there was nothing on it but static and dead air.
And the mansion’s main cameras, the ones Julian controlled?
His people wiped every server the night of the crash. Twelve years of footage, gone.
Roman tried.
It wasn’t enough.
***
“The prosecution calls Julian Vance.”
My husband takes the stand like he’s accepting an award. Gracious. Humble. The picture of a man who’s been through hell and is bravely holding it together.
“Mr. Vance, can you describe your wife’s state of mind in the weeks leading up to the incident?”
“I was worried about her.” Julian’s voice is heavy with concern.
With love. “Amanda had been struggling. The pressure of our social obligations, the fertility treatments that weren’t working-” He pauses.
Swallows. “She started drinking more. Disappearing for hours. I suggested therapy, but she refused.”
“Did she ever express violent thoughts?”
“Objection-”
“I’ll rephrase. Did you ever fear for your safety around the defendant?”
Julian looks at me. And for just a second - so fast the jury won’t catch it - I see him smile.
“I loved my wife,” he says. “But yes. Toward the end, I was afraid of what she might do.”
***
They bring in the photographer.
The one who caught me on the front steps. The one whose flash burned into my retinas as I stumbled into the dark.
“Can you describe the defendant’s demeanor when you photographed her?”
“She was a mess. Crying, stumbling. Her dress was disheveled. She looked-” He shrugs. “She looked like someone who’d done something terrible and was running from it.”
“Objection! Speculation-”
“Sustained. The jury will disregard.”
But they won’t. They can’t. The image is already in their heads - Amanda Vance, wild-eyed and guilty, fleeing the scene of her crime at 10:47 PM.
They show the photographs. Blown up on a screen for everyone to see. My mascara-streaked face. My ruined gown. My ankle-strap heels, the ones that took ten minutes to buckle, the ones I was still wearing when I should have been driving.
No one asks about the heels.
No one asks how I could have walked a mile in stilettos I could barely stand in, then gotten back in my car to commit murder.
The story is already written. The ending is already decided.
***
Closing arguments.
The prosecutor stands in front of the jury and paints a picture of a woman scorned. A woman who discovered her husband’s affair and snapped. A woman who got behind the wheel drunk and angry and killed an innocent father of two who was just walking home from his evening shift.
Thomas Mercer. Forty-three years old. Two daughters. A wife who sobs in the front row every day.
I want to tell her I’m sorry. I want to tell her I didn’t do this. I want to tell her that her husband deserves justice and the real killer is sitting in the witness gallery with her hand on her pregnant belly.
I can’t tell her anything.
I can only sit here and listen as they bury me alive.
***
“Has the jury reached a verdict?”
“We have, Your Honor.”
The foreman stands. I can’t breathe. The room tilts and sways, and I grip the edge of the table so hard my knuckles go white.
Roman is in the back row. His eyes are locked on mine. I’m here, they say. Whatever happens, I’m here.
“On the count of vehicular manslaughter, we the jury find the defendant-”
The word falls like a guillotine.
“-guilty.”
The courtroom erupts.
Voices, movement, the crack of the judge’s gavel calling for order. I can’t hear any of it. There’s a roaring in my ears, a white noise that drowns out everything except the word.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
I turn.
I don’t know why. Instinct, maybe. The desperate need to find something real in this nightmare.
And I see her.
My mother.
She’s in the third row. I didn’t know she was here - she’s been so sick, the cancer eating her alive, and I begged her to stay home, to rest, to not watch this.
She came anyway.
She’s gaunt. Skeletal. The woman who raised me, who worked three jobs to keep us fed, who told me I could be anything if I just worked hard enough - she’s disappearing right in front of me.
And she’s weeping.
Not for me. Not with me.
She’s weeping because she believes it.
She believes her daughter is a killer.
“Mom-” The word rips out of me. “Mom, I didn’t - I swear to God, I didn’t-”
She shakes her head. Turns away. Can’t even look at me.
And that - that’s the moment I break.
Not the verdict. Not the sentence that’s coming. Not the years I’ll lose in a concrete box for a crime I didn’t commit.
My mother’s face.
My mother believing the lie.
My mother turning away from me like I’m already dead.
The bailiff’s hands close around my arms. They’re taking me away, and I’m screaming - I think I’m screaming - and the last thing I see before the door closes is my mother’s bent head, her shaking shoulders, and Vivienne’s hand reaching out to comfort her.