Emily’s face crumpled and recovered.
She nodded once.
“Ms. Rourke,” said Judge Marsh.
“Do you wish to be heard?”
Pike touched Ashley’s wrist.
Ashley shook him off.
She stood.
Her chair scraped.
Her face was the color of chalk, and her lipstick looked like a wound.
“She was nothing,” Ashley said.
“She would have lost them anyway! I gave her a way out of that debt! I made her a deal!”
“Nobody forced a pen in her hand!”
“Ms. Rourke,” said the judge, very softly.
“I believe you just did.”
Nobody in the courtroom moved.
Not the deputy at the door.
Not Dana, who had gone gray as dishwater.
Pike let his hand fall away from Ashley’s arm, and slowly, like a man setting down a weight, he sat.
PART 5 — FINAL
Judge Marsh took off her glasses.
“The agreement is void,” she said.
“It was signed under sedation, by a woman who could not consent, on the guidance of a third party, in exchange for a benefit that party arranged.”
