Chapter 4 - FIVE MONTHS OF FIRE
The legal proceedings consumed five relentless months. By the time winter loosened its grip on Chicago, Lucas had learned more about subpoenas, depositions, trust law, toxicology, and criminal procedure than he had ever wanted to know. Every week seemed to produce a new motion. Victoria’s attorneys challenged the search warrants, the medical examiner’s methods, the recorder’s chain of custody, Jonathan’s mental capacity, and the validity of the trust. Raymond’s defense team tried to separate him from the poisoning, claiming his messages were crude jokes and that the attack on Lucas had been a misunderstanding involving private security contractors. None of the explanations sounded convincing, but money could make even absurd arguments expensive to defeat.
The defense strategy toward Lucas was more personal. Private investigators appeared near his apartment building. Old coworkers received calls asking whether Lucas had ever stolen from the hospital, exaggerated his sister’s illness, or complained about rich patients. Reporters camped outside St. Catherine’s and shouted questions whenever he crossed the street. Online commentators called him a hero, a con artist, a gold digger, and a lucky janitor who had somehow inherited a fortune. Lucas hated all of it. He especially hated the phrase “overnight millionaire,” because it erased the part where a frightened old man had died and an eleven-year-old girl had become leverage in an extortion plan.
Samuel Pierce became Lucas’s shield against the financial chaos. He explained that the trust could pay for professional management, legal fees, and Chloe’s medical care without giving Lucas a blank check. Sarah Vance kept Mercer Industrial stable through rumors that the company would collapse after Jonathan’s death. She met with factory managers, union representatives, suppliers, and banks, repeating Jonathan’s final instructions: no mass layoffs, no fire sale, no liquidation. Lucas attended some meetings in a borrowed suit and said very little at first. When executives addressed him as “Mr. Bennett,” he looked over his shoulder out of habit.
Chloe’s surgery was scheduled for early summer, but her cardiologist warned that stress and respiratory infection could delay the procedure. Denise became fiercely protective, limiting visitors and refusing to let Chloe follow television coverage of the case. Chloe, however, was too clever to be completely sheltered. One evening she asked Lucas whether “the red-haired lady” really wanted to hurt her. Lucas struggled for an answer that would not poison childhood with adult fear. “She wanted something she thought mattered more than people,” he said. Chloe considered this, then replied, “That sounds like being poor in the worst way.” Lucas never forgot the sentence.
The prosecution’s case grew stronger. Audio experts examined Jonathan’s recorder and concluded the file had not been edited, synthesized, or altered. Metadata showed it was created at the hospital at the exact time staff logs placed Victoria in Jonathan’s room. A voice-comparison specialist matched Victoria’s speech pattern to verified recordings with extremely high confidence. The attending physician who witnessed Jonathan’s final legal documents testified in pretrial hearings that Jonathan was fully lucid, understood the size of his estate, knew the identities of his beneficiaries, and consistently explained why he wished to restructure his trust.
The notary’s video became another cornerstone. Jonathan appeared weak but mentally sharp. He identified the date, location, company holdings, and family relationships. He explicitly stated that Victoria had pressured him about selling Mercer Industrial and that he feared she was harming him. At one point Samuel asked whether Lucas had requested money. Jonathan almost laughed. “The boy tried to refuse it,” he said. “That is one reason I trust him more than the people who already think everything I own belongs to them.” The clip circulated among attorneys but remained sealed from the public before trial.
Sarah Vance uncovered financial evidence that widened the motive. Months before Jonathan’s death, Victoria had transferred four hundred thousand dollars from a shared investment account into a shell company linked to Raymond. Another set of transactions showed luxury travel reservations and a deposit on a coastal property in California. The timing aligned with several entries in Victoria’s poison journal. On days when Jonathan’s condition worsened, large transfers or planning messages often followed. Prosecutors argued the pattern revealed expectation, not grief.
Lucas’s own deposition lasted nearly seven hours. Victoria’s lead attorney, Martin Keller, repeatedly asked whether Jonathan had promised to pay for Chloe’s surgery before changing the will. Lucas answered truthfully: Jonathan had offered help, but Lucas initially refused anything beyond the medical trust because accepting personal wealth from a patient felt wrong. Keller tried to suggest that Lucas manipulated Jonathan by displaying Chloe’s photograph and talking about medical bills. Lucas explained that the photo had been inside his badge holder for years. “I didn’t need to tell Jonathan my family was struggling,” he said. “He noticed because he asked questions. That’s what decent people do when they care about the person in front of them.”
As trial approached, Samuel warned Lucas that the defense would try to humiliate him publicly. They might portray his mother as irresponsible for debt, dissect his work history, and imply Chloe’s illness had made him desperate enough to manipulate a dying man. Lucas felt rage at the thought of strangers turning his sister into evidence against him. Yet Detective Miller reminded him that anger was exactly what the defense wanted. “They cannot change the toxicology,” she said. “They cannot change the texts. They cannot change the recording. What they can try to change is how the jury feels about you.”
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On the final night before jury selection, Lucas sat beside Chloe in the pediatric courtyard. Her surgery was only three weeks away. The trees were beginning to bud, and the air smelled faintly of rain instead of snow. Chloe asked what he would do if the jury believed Victoria. Lucas looked at his sister and realized the answer mattered less than he once thought. Jonathan’s trust had already placed safeguards around Chloe’s care and the company. Even if public opinion turned against him, the evidence remained. “Then we keep telling the truth,” he said. “As many times as it takes.”
Across the city, Victoria sat in the county detention center preparing for court. She had abandoned spa robes and designer dresses for jail-issued clothing, but her attorneys promised the jury would see a composed widow, not a murderer. Raymond, housed in a separate unit, had begun asking his lawyers whether cooperation could reduce his sentence. Neither defendant knew that one of the hired attackers had agreed to testify in full detail, including the exact words Raymond used when ordering Chloe’s kidnapping. The five months of legal smoke were almost over. The fire was finally heading toward open court.
