Chapter 17
Cole
The following morning, Jasper and I were standing outside the courtroom.
There was still a fire in my stomach—a burning anger I couldn’t extinguish. I couldn’t stop thinking about everything Oakley described in her testimony. It played in my mind on repeat, my own personal horror film.
All of that had happened to her… and we’d had no idea. She must’ve felt so alone and powerless.
“This is a bad idea,” Jasper said, gritting his teeth.
Yeah, probably.
Thinking about Max made me want to go postal, so fuck knows what I was going to be like hearing him lie on the stand.
“Do you think she’s really okay with us being here?” I asked.
“I think so. She would’ve said if she wasn’t,” he replied.
Oakley wouldn’t have, though, because she’d never tell anyone what to do, especially not Jasper when it came to their dad, but I didn’t want to tell him that.
This was something he had to do. I was here because Jasper couldn’t come alone. And because when I told him I’d go with him, Oakley smiled.
She was worried about her brother, and so was I.
He’d only decided late last night that we were going to attend. Oakley had slept for a solid four hours once we got home. Then she woke up, ate dinner, and spent the evening laughing with us.
She was the strongest person I knew. I was in total awe of her.
Being here today was spur-of-the-moment decision. It felt like a stupid one, too. How the hell would I be able to keep calm when he tried to make out that Oakley and the other women were liars?
The door to the courtroom opened, and people started filtering in. No one seemed to care about our presence. Or we just hadn’t been spotted. We stood out of the way, out of sight of the press.
“Well, we should go in, I suppose,” I said, looking at the doors like they were the entrance to Hell.
“Yeah.” He nodded, but neither of us moved.
“We can go home, if you want.”
“No. This might not make sense, but I need to be here.”
He hadn’t come to the first part of the trial, when the other women were giving their testimony and Max had to answer to things in his teen and young adult years, but now he was being questioned about Oakley.
She was due to get back on the stand so Max’s wanker lawyer could have his turn, but Linda petitioned for her to have a break between. The judge granted it, given how she’d reacted the first time she tried.
I slapped Jasper’s back and took a step towards the door. “Come on, mate. We’re in this together.”
Jasper followed, tension radiating from him. He was about to hear what bullshit his dad was going to spout, and he was raging about it.
There were too many charges against him, some already proven, but his lawyer seemed determined to knock the ones relating to Oakley off the list. So, who knew what was about to come out of his disgusting mouth?
Max was a true narcissist. He believed that he could win anyone over.
The line moved quickly. Jasper and I found a couple of seats together. We were at the end the other times we’d been in here, but this time we far away from the stand, neither of us wanting to be close to Max.
We sat side by side, and I wondered if I could leave. I didn’t want to be here, but I wanted to support Jasper… and be able to prepare Oakley if Max’s version of events changed anything—if the jury seemed like they were believing him.
His parents hadn’t turned up, no one was there for him. He didn’t deserve anyone.
I turned my head and fresh anger burned in my gut.
Max looked like he’d aged by a decade rather than four years, but he still appeared every bit the respectable man.
He wore a smart, expensive-looking black suit, crisp white shirt, and pale blue tie.
His hair was neatly combed, and he was clean-shaven.
He sat confidently, back straight and chin up.
I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until his heart stopped.
Jasper’s fists were clenched on his knees, and he glared at his dad as if he was thinking the same as me.
Linda stepped up and gave Max a look that I wanted to applaud. She wasn’t intimidated by him, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him take control. She was in charge, and she was ready to rip him apart.
Max spoke fluently and calmly, the way he’d done when he was running the town committee to raise money for the new park and the church roof. I remembered watching him when I was young, hero-worshiping him because he was the reason our village was getting a skate ramp.
I hated myself for that. While that was happening, Oakley was being abused.
“Bastard,” Jasper growled under his breath.
“Mr Farrell, how did you feel when you first heard the claims your daughter Miss Farrell had made against you?” Linda asked.
She carried herself as if she’d already won the case. I wasn’t sure if that confidence would bite us in the arse or if it was good and would show the jury that she was certain Max was guilty.
“Devastated. Shocked. Confused. One minute, we’re setting up for a weekend camping trip, and the next, she’s taken off. I was beside myself, trying to find her, assuming she’d gone home, then I was being arrested. It still feels like a nightmare.”
Fuck off.
“Why did you take only Miss Farrell camping? You have two children. It seems rather strange that you’d only take your daughter.”
Max nodded and swiftly replied, “I would have taken both, but Jasper, my son, didn’t want to come in the end.”
“Don’t say my fucking name,” Jasper growled.
I patted his hand, warning him to keep his cool.
“What do you mean ‘in the end’?”
“To begin with, Oakley didn’t want him to come. She wanted me to herself, the same way she only wanted Sarah, her mother, to take her to gymnastics. Camping became my time with Oakley, and my son’s time was football on a Sunday morning.”
“He’s fucking lying,” Jasper muttered.
Of course, he was. The football part was true; the rest was Max’s fantasy.
“You allowed your five-year-old daughter to dictate who was going on these trips?”
Max smiled his award-winning smile. I itched to put my fist through it. “She needed one-on-one time, and so did Jasper. Every child does. We had plenty of times together as a family, too, but they each needed occasions where they had my undivided attention.”
I ground my teeth.
“Mr Farrell, why didn’t you tell your wife that an old friend, Mr Frank Glosser, would join you on your most recent trip?”
Sarah and Jasper had written statements so they would prove that Max was lying about either of them knowing Frank was alone with Oakley.
“It was a last-minute thing. Frank called me to say he’d just arrived in town and was about to check into a hotel. Frank always stayed in a separate tent or caravan.”
“You took a spare tent?”
“He hired one from the campsite. They have a record of the booking.”
Linda smiled briefly. She had known that already. “Of course. And why did Mr Glosser continue to join you on these trips after Oakley had stopped talking? Did it not seem odd to you that she’d stopped soon after you’d been camping?”
“Frank is an old friend, and he’d been joining us for a while. My son and daughter liked him and had no issues with spending time with him. Frank had been around them both long before Oakley had stopped talking, and she’d never expressed any unease in his presence.”
A fresh fire lit inside me, the flames licking at my skin. I curled my hands, my short fingernails cutting into the flesh of my palm.
“So, it never crossed your mind that someone could be forcing her to stay silent? In your statement, you said that you spent many hours researching and visiting doctors.”
“It was a consideration, of course, but we trusted everyone we had around our children.”
“Wanker,” Jasper growled under his breath.
“Still, the one person who saw more of your daughter than your son on a one-on-one basis was Mr Glosser.”
“Frank had spent time with just myself and my son over the years,” Max replied smoothly. He was a picture of calm, as if the questions being asked now were about the weather.
Linda smiled briefly. “How did Oakley’s silence affect you?”
“It was difficult, to say the least. Oakley’s mother and I were desperate to help her, and we put everything in to finding out what was wrong.
As a result, we suffered physically, emotionally, and financially.
I lost work because I was so preoccupied in finding out what was wrong with my child.
My now ex-wife and I fought, both lost as to what to do for the best. We didn’t know how to help.
I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since the day she stopped speaking. ”
“Probably worrying she’d speak up,” Jasper muttered in disgust under his breath.
“You suffered financially?” Linda asked.
“Yes.”
“Mr Farrell, did you take money in exchange for allowing Mr Glosser to sexually abuse your daughter?”
“No,” Max replied, pretending to be appalled. “Absolutely not.”
“How was your relationship with Oakley affected once she stopped talking?”
His eyes tore from the lawyer, and he blinked hard a few times.
Jasper glared.
“It was never quite the same. I still loved her just as much, of course, but part of her had closed off to us all. She no longer squealed in delight when I threw her in the air or ran around the back garden with her on my shoulders. She couldn’t talk, and I stopped hearing her say, ‘I love you, Daddy.’” He paused and took a deep breath. “It broke my heart.”
Fuck. You.
I gripped the seat, my fingertips digging into the wood, silently praying to a God I didn’t believe in to show the jury the truth.
Linda rocked back on her heels. “Mr Farrell, why do you think Oakley stopped talking?”
“I believe she has histrionic personality disorder.”
What?
Jasper’s head snapped to me, and he frowned, his dumbfounded expression mirroring mine. What the fuck was that?
Linda didn’t look at all surprised by this disorder Max had just thrown out of his mouth. “People with histrionic personality disorder—HPD—typically have extravagant and lively personalities, Mr Farrell.”
She had been ready for it.
Max tilted his head to the side. “Sufferers tend to have dramatic behaviour,” he corrected.
“Oakley was a very lively child, but with a sibling, she could never have the majority of our attention—until she stopped talking. People with histrionic personality disorder also act out a role, that of a character or a victim.”
I looked to Jasper, panicked. Shit, he’d found something that could explain her behaviour. Jasper stared at the jury with wide eyes, willing them to see through Max’s crap.
This isn’t good.
“Mr Farrell, you state that you’ve spent the best part of fifteen years trying to figure out what was wrong with your daughter. Is that correct?” Linda asked.
“Yes.”
“Hmm, then, it seems rather odd that you’ve only come across this disorder after your arrest.”
Yes!
Max said nothing. He blinked rapidly.
“I’ve been looking over your police statements, and nothing was mentioned then, either. Your wife also had no idea about this. I have her statements.”
“My ex-wife and I spent hours on the Internet, searching selective mutism and damaged vocal cords. We didn’t know what to do.
We visited countless doctors and specialists in that field, and not one of them mentioned histrionic personality disorder.
When Oakley went to the police with her claim, I realised there was something more to it—that she had chosen not to speak.
My searches changed, and that was when I found HPD. ”
“Bullshit,” I whispered.
“Hmm. So, why do you think she spoke out, then? You say you believe that Oakley fabricated this story to gain attention, but she was away with you, getting your full attention. Why would she have felt the need to act out in that moment?”
“I told her that Mr Glosser was coming for the weekend, and she was unhappy, to say the least. I hadn’t seen Frank in a while, and he was in town.
Oakley’s withdrawn behaviour told me that she didn’t want him to come.
I’d told her it was just going to be us.
I assume that was when she created her story.
She had been excited about the trip, brought two backpacks full of marshmallows.
When I told her that Frank was coming, she dumped the marshmallows in the bin and wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
Rapid shift in emotions is very typical in HPD. ”
I looked at Jasper again, and he stared at his father with pure hatred.
The jury couldn’t fall for that.
They couldn’t.