The trial date is set for October fifteenth.
That gives us six weeks to prepare.
Six weeks sounds generous until Diana Reeves hands me a calendar full of depositions, document deadlines, expert interviews, motions, and something called a pretrial conference that appears designed to make adults fear binders.
"The legal system is mostly folders," I tell Callum.
"I thought it was laws."
"That is what the folders want you to believe."
Wade's lawyers file for summary judgment.
Denied.
They try to exclude Tommy's Meridian records.
Denied, subject to authentication at trial.
They challenge the joined owners and accuse Diana of turnin' a defamation case into a publicity campaign.
Judge Patricia Harlan writes that the defendants opened the door to related counterclaims by their own pleadings.
Diana prints the sentence and tapes it above Mr. Caldwell's copier.
My deposition is on a Monday in San Antonio.
The conference room has no windows, one fake plant, and a bowl of hard candy old enough to vote. A court reporter sits at the end of the table. Wade's attorney, Martin Kessler, arranges three yellow pads as if symmetry wins cases.
Diana sits beside me.
"Answer only what is asked," she says. "Do not guess. Do not fill silence because it makes you uncomfortable."
"Silence and I have a hostile history."
"Make peace for six hours."
The court reporter swears me in.
Kessler begins politely.
Name. Education. Employment. Why I came to Copper Creek.
Then he reaches Dallas.
"You were terminated from Brandt and Associates shortly before inheriting the ranch?"
"Yes."
"And evicted from an apartment leased in your former boyfriend's name?"
"I moved after the leaseholder ended the arrangement."
"That was not my question."
Diana touches one finger to her legal pad.
Do not spar.
"Yes," I say.
"You arrived financially distressed."
"I had severance and savings."
"But no employment."
"Correct."
He spends forty minutes buildin' a version of me that Wade can understand: desperate, angry, embarrassed, eager to blame a wealthy man for offerin' money.
My back begins to ache.
The fake plant gathers dust with great confidence.
"When Mr. Prescott offered two and a half million dollars," Kessler says, "you rejected him in three sentences."
"Yes."
"You considered that professional?"
"Clear communication is professional."
Diana's shoe touches mine beneath the table.
Less.
"Yes," I correct. "I did."
Kessler slides a printout toward me.
"This is a text to your friend Jessica Lane. You wrote, quote, 'I am going to ruin this man's week.'"
I remember the message.
It followed Wade's revised offer and his consultant tellin' Bob Henderson I planned to sell.
"That was a joke."
"You wanted to ruin Mr. Prescott."
"I wanted his conduct investigated."
"Because you disliked him."
"Because the same pattern appeared across multiple properties."
"And because you disliked him."
I look at Diana.
She gives nothing away.
"I disliked what he did," I say.
Kessler lets the answer sit.
After lunch, he turns to Callum.
"Mr. Brennan had a financial interest in preventing a sale to my client, correct?"
"He had first-refusal rights under an old agreement."
"And you were romantically involved with him when you contacted the press."
"No."
"Not physically?"
Heat climbs my neck.
Diana speaks. "Counsel, if you are seeking a date, ask for a date. If you are seekin' intimate detail to embarrass the witness, we will suspend and contact the court."
Kessler smiles. "When did the romantic relationship begin?"
I give the date of our first kiss.
He asks when Callum began spending nights at the ranch.
I answer.
He asks whether Callum influenced my decision to keep the property.
"He told me the choice was mine."
"But he benefited."
"A person can benefit from a decision without controlling it."
"You expect a jury to believe love had no influence?"
There is the question under every question.
City woman manipulated by cowboy. Vindictive girlfriend weaponizes newspaper.
I take a breath.
"Callum influenced me by teaching me what the work required. Wade influenced me by threatening people after they said no. I considered both. Then I made my own decision."
Diana writes something.
Kessler moves on.
At hour five, he produces photographs of the fundraiser. Me at the microphone. Callum behind me. The town applaudin'.
"You enjoyed the attention, didn't you?"
I almost laugh.
"No."
"You raised sixty-two thousand dollars because the article made you a local celebrity."
"We raised money because your client sued me for five million dollars."
"My client's suit followed your public accusations."
"His code campaign came first."
"That is your interpretation."
"The dates are not an interpretation."
Diana does not touch my shoe this time.
When the deposition ends, I walk into the restroom, lock myself in a stall, and shake.
Just shake with the delayed anger of a person who has watched strangers turn every wound into motive.
Diana waits by the sink.
"You did well," she says.
"I wanted to throw a candy at him."
"That is why they make them too hard to eat. Litigation safety equipment."
I laugh, and then I cry anyway.
That night, Callum makes dinner at the ranch.
He does not ask for every question. He waits until I put my fork down.
"They asked when we slept together," I say.
His hand stills.
"Why?"
"To make you my motive instead of Wade's records."
"I'm sorry."
"You didn't ask it."
"I still hate that loving me can be used to make you look less capable."
"Then help me practice."
We turn the kitchen into a courtroom.
Callum plays Kessler badly.
"Ms. James," he says, holdin' a wooden spoon like a microphone, "is it true you came to Copper Creek with city shoes and no useful understanding of chickens?"
"Objection. My sneakers were excellent."
"Answer the question."
For the first twenty minutes, we laugh.
Then he asks the real ones from Diana's list.
Why did you call Wade a predator?
What verification did you perform?
Did you intend to harm his business?
What did Callum stand to gain?
I answer until the defensiveness drains out and only facts remain.
On Wednesday, Diana puts Tommy through the same process.
He admits he built the ranking program. Admits he ignored warning signs. Admits he copied records when he left.
"Why should a jury trust you now?" she asks.
Tommy swallows.
"They shouldn't trust me because I'm sorry. They should trust the files because the metadata, server logs, and other witnesses prove they're real."
The next witness is George Peterson.
He cannot travel, so Diana prepares him by video from the assisted-living home while Ruth sits beside him with one hand wrapped around his wrist.
George is seventy-nine and looks furious about every year of it.
Diana begins gently.
"Mr. Peterson, why did you sell your property?"
"Because my wife died and I was tired."
"Did Mr. Prescott force you to sign?"
"No."
"Did he threaten you physically?"
"No."
"Then what do you believe was improper?"
George's eyes sharpen.
"That is how his lawyer will ask it, ain't it? Make it sound like if nobody held a gun, everything else was fair."
Diana does not smile.
"Probably. Answer me anyway."
George lifts a folder into camera view.
"He offered while Lila was in chemo. I said no. Inspection came. Then another. Tax problem. Lawyer letter. Every time I handled one thing, another showed up. After she died, his man came back with papers and said they could make the trouble stop."
"Could they?"
"They did. Soon as I signed."
Ruth looks down.
George keeps going.
"That's the part I want the jury to hear. Maybe every complaint had a form. Maybe every deadline had a rule behind it. But all the trouble stopped the minute the deed changed names. Either I'm the luckiest old bastard in Texas or somebody was arrangin' the weather."
No one speaks.
Diana writes something.
"That answer," she says. "Keep that answer. Do not improve it."
After the call, Ruth remains on the screen.
"He'll blame himself after," she says. "For sayin' he was tired."
"Tired isn't guilty," I tell her.
"I know. He don't."
I think about every person Wade's system counted on turning private shame into public silence.
The case is not really about proving people were weak.
It is about proving somebody went looking for the moments they were allowed to be.
Diana nods once.
"That's your answer."
By the final week, the dining table at the ranch holds exhibit copies instead of meals. Callum labels boxes. Tommy builds a searchable index. Mr. Caldwell falls asleep in a chair at nine thirty and denies it while his eyes are closed.
At two seventeen on Thursday morning, I wake to an empty side of the bed.
Callum is in the yard beneath the security light.
He holds a red soccer ball.
The color is faded. One panel has cracked with age. He turns it in his hands without bouncing it, like sound might wake something worse than me.
I step onto the porch.
He sees me and does not hide the ball.
"Ahmad?" I ask.
His throat moves.
"Yeah."
I wait.
"Next week," he says. "Before trial. I need to tell you before I sit in that courtroom and pretend I'm only worried about Wade."
"Okay."
"You ain't gonna ask?"
"You gave me a time. I trust it."
He looks down at the ball.
"I don't know what to do with it after."
"You don't have to decide at two seventeen in the morning. Very little good has been decided at two seventeen."
I take his free hand and bring him inside.
The soccer ball sits by the door until morning.
Visible.
No closet.
No frame turned backward.
A promise waiting to be kept.
The work is exhausting.
It is also strangely intimate.
Truth does not arrive at trial as lightning.
It arrives hole-punched, authenticated, numbered, and carried in by people who kept working after the dramatic part ended.
The night before our final pretrial hearing, Callum sits on the porch with his guitar.
That afternoon, Wade makes one last attempt to avoid trial.
Not through lawyers.
A handwritten note arrives by courier.
Harlow,
This has gone far beyond the land. You have made your point. I will pay every legal bill and donate one hundred thousand dollars to Copper Creek if you end the case now. No retraction. Mutual confidentiality only.
Wade
For ten minutes, I consider it.
One hundred thousand dollars could repair the community center roof, fund the garden, cover George Peterson's care, and leave money for the next fight.
Diana reads the note over video.
"The offer is designed to separate you from the joined plaintiffs," she says. "If you accept without them, their claims remain. If everyone accepts, the record seals."
"He finally dropped the retraction."
"Because discovery hurt more than the article."
I show the note to Bob, Ruth, Tommy, and the others.
George speaks from the tablet screen.
"A donation ain't repayment."
Lena Ortiz, who chose not to join, surprises me.
"Go to trial," she says. "Some of us need the record even if we can't put our names on it."
I tear nothing up.
Dramatic gestures are satisfying and terrible for evidence.
I scan the note, send it to Diana, and write two words beneath Wade's signature.
Offer declined.
"You ready?" he asks.
"No."
"Good. Caldwell says honest people ain't ready."
"Caldwell also owns a mug that calls him billable. His wisdom has limits."
Callum plays the song he has been writing.
It is about a woman who comes to a place she never wanted and refuses to leave when powerful men tell her belonging can be bought.
Halfway through, I realize the chorus is not about him saving me.
It is about watching me save myself.
I cry.
Some tears are grief.
Some are fear.
These feel like being understood.