Still, he strutted through town as if the divorce were a temporary inconvenience. He even posted smiling photographs online, calling himself the victim of a bitter, ungrateful wife.
At a preliminary hearing, he leaned across the hallway and murmured, “When this is over, she’ll come crawling back. Women like your mother need someone stronger.”
“You confuse strength with cruelty,” I said.
“And you confuse paperwork with power.”
That single sentence told me exactly how he thought. He believed law was only paper until a man with a weapon decided otherwise.
So we let him believe he was winning.
My mother’s attorney requested in-depth corporate financial records, knowing Garrick would panic. I moved her into my guest room and installed highly visible security cameras around the perimeter of my house. Those were the bait. The real surveillance system was hidden, encrypted, and monitored by federal agents from a utility van parked two streets away.
