Chương 11
“The recordings support that.”
“Then she wasn’t helping me.”
“No.”
“What was she doing?”
“Building protection for herself.”
Marta said Daniel had become more violent and that she feared he would blame her if the baby died. She wanted proof that he gave the orders.
But the recordings captured Marta giving many of the orders herself.
“She believed the phone would show him as the main aggressor,” Grace said.
“She thought I would die.”
Grace did not answer.
“She left it because dead women don’t explain recordings.”
“That is a possible inference.”
Elena stood and walked to the office door, then back.
“Does she get the deal?”
“Not unless her testimony is truthful, complete, independently supported, and useful.”
“She’ll lie.”
“Probably in some areas.”
“You said truthful.”
“Plea negotiations are messy.”
“I don’t want her helping you.”
Grace folded her hands. “Daniel’s defense will argue Marta controlled the household and manipulated him. Marta’s testimony could establish that he knew you were bleeding, prevented medical care, restrained you, and tried to create a false story before the ambulance arrived.”
“The phone already does.”
“Parts of it.”
“She gets to trade me again.”
Grace’s expression changed slightly. “Explain what you mean.”
“She traded me for a grandson. Now she trades him for fewer years.”
The prosecutor looked down at her notes.
Elena left without saying goodbye.
For the next month, the case pulled at every part of her life.
Daniel wrote letters to his attorney knowing prosecutors would review them. In one, he described Elena as “the mother of my child” and said he prayed she would recover from outside influence. In another, he blamed Marta for teaching him “old ways” and claimed he had acted from fear.
Marta’s church collected money for legal expenses.
A podcast devoted an episode to the case and used Elena’s wedding photograph without permission. The host called the recordings “the most chilling audio in recent domestic crime history,” though he had heard only excerpts released in court.
Mr. Cho found Elena crying in the veterinary clinic supply room after a client played the podcast at the front desk.
“You can go home,” he said.
“I need the hours.”
“Then sit for ten minutes.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re in the paper-towel closet.”
Elena looked around.
It was not technically a closet. Bags of pet food lined one wall. The distinction did not matter.
Mr. Cho closed the door halfway and placed a bottle of water on the floor beside her. “Ten minutes.”
She returned to work after eight.
In December, Grace called to say the district attorney had approved Marta’s plea agreement.
Elena felt betrayed, though no one had promised otherwise.
Marta would plead guilty to two felonies, receive a sentence between four and seven years, and testify against Daniel. The aggravated assault charge would be dismissed. The agreement required her to admit under oath that she participated voluntarily in restraining Elena and delaying medical care.
“Voluntarily,” Elena repeated.
“Yes.”
“Not because Daniel made her.”
“Yes.”
“Will she say Mateo’s name?”
“I can request that the factual statement identify him.”
“Request?”
“Marta must agree to the wording.”
Elena laughed without humor. “She still gets rules.”
Grace said nothing.
The plea hearing occurred four days before Christmas.
Elena attended in person.
Marta entered the courtroom wearing a navy dress and electronic monitor beneath one ankle. Her hair remained in the same tight low bun. She looked smaller than Elena remembered, but her posture was unchanged.
The judge asked whether anyone had threatened or forced her to plead guilty.
“No,” Marta said.
“Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The prosecutor read the factual basis.
Marta Reyes knowingly restrained Elena Reyes, then twenty-nine weeks pregnant, by directing and assisting Daniel Reyes in securing Elena’s wrists to a wooden chair. Marta knew Elena was experiencing vaginal bleeding and severe abdominal pain. Marta discouraged and delayed emergency medical treatment. The fetus, later named Mateo Reyes by his mother, did not survive.
Marta’s face moved at Mateo’s name.
Only slightly. A tightening beneath one eye.
The judge asked whether the facts were accurate.
Marta looked toward Elena.
It was the first time they had seen each other since the hospital.
Elena expected hatred. Instead, Marta’s expression held something worse: a request. Not for forgiveness. For recognition. She wanted Elena to see her as a woman trapped inside inherited cruelty, not merely as the person who tightened rope.
Elena kept her face still.
Marta turned back to the judge.
“Yes,” she said.
After the hearing, Marta’s attorney approached Grace in the hallway. He carried an envelope.
“My client asked that this be given to Ms. Reyes,” he said.
Grace did not take it. “What is it?”
“A letter.”
Elena heard from several feet away. “No.”
The attorney looked at her.
“I don’t want it.”
“He says it may explain—”
“She,” Elena said.
The attorney blinked.
“Marta is a woman.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“She doesn’t get to become he because you’re talking for her.”
He flushed. “My apologies.”
“I don’t want the letter.”
Grace stepped between them. “Then it will not be delivered.”
Elena walked to the elevator with Lucia.
Inside, Lucia pressed the button for the ground floor. “That was strange.”
“What?”
“The he thing.”
“He wasn’t looking at her.”
“You could have just said no.”
“I did.”
They descended one floor.
Lucia glanced at her. “I liked it.”
Elena smiled.
Daniel’s trial began in January.
Jury selection took three days. The court questioned potential jurors about domestic violence, pregnancy loss, religious practices, audio evidence, and media exposure. Several had heard of the case. One woman cried during questioning and was excused. A man said wives sometimes exaggerated arguments to punish husbands. He insisted he could remain fair. Grace used a strike to remove him.
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Elena sat in a witness room with Renee during opening statements.
Grace later summarized the defense position: Daniel loved Elena, feared she would harm herself, relied on his mother’s misguided advice, and never intended injury to Elena or Mateo. The fall caused the abruption. The delay in medical care was a tragic mistake, not a crime.
