“Mrs. Prescott, did you personally submit this supplemental evidence packet to my chambers this morning?” he asked gently. I whispered that I did not know because my attorney had been the one responsible for the filings.
I explained that Simon Fletcher was supposed to be there, but he had failed to appear at the designated time. Harrison let out a mocking laugh and pointed out that my confusion was exactly what he had been trying to warn the court about.
The judge turned sharply toward him and warned that one more interruption would lead to a formal charge of contempt. Harrison finally closed his mouth, and for the first time in my life, I saw a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes.
The judge lifted the paper and explained that the packet had been delivered by a private courier at eight o’clock that morning. It contained medical records, bank statements, corporate contracts, and a sworn affidavit from Simon Fletcher himself.
My heart felt like it was skipping beats because I realized that Simon had not abandoned me at all. He had been working on something that Harrison could not influence or control with his wealth.
The judge continued reading and mentioned that the packet included a request for emergency protective orders and a freeze on all marital assets. Tiffany’s face drained of color as she looked at Harrison, who was now leaning over to whisper frantically to his own lawyer.
His attorney did not lean back to listen, and that small gesture of distance told me that Harrison’s legal team was equally in the dark. The judge turned to a new page and asked if I had signed a transfer of interest in the Miller Manor Group eleven months ago.
The mention of that name hit me with more force than the physical blow I had received earlier. Miller Manor Group was the small company my mother had built from the ground up through decades of hard work.
It was a collection of rental properties and a small office building in Des Moines that she had managed with incredible care. She used to clean those buildings herself at night just to make sure the mortgage payments were always on time.
When she passed away, I was so consumed by grief that I would have signed any document Harrison placed in front of me. He told me he was handling the estate cleanup and that the paperwork was too complicated for me to worry about during such a hard time.
I remembered sitting at our dining table while he slid a stack of folders toward me and offered a cup of tea I hadn’t even requested. I signed those papers because I trusted my husband and because I was too tired to fight.
Now the judge was waiting for an answer while staring at the signatures on the bottom of the contract. “I remember signing some papers for the estate, but I was never told I was giving away my inheritance,” I said clearly.
Harrison tried to mutter a rebuttal, but the judge ordered him to stand up and face the bench. The sound of the chair scraping against the floor made me flinch, and the judge did not miss my reaction.
“Did you present your wife with documents that transferred her inherited property into a shell corporation under your sole control?” the judge asked. Harrison tried to claim that married couples shared assets as a matter of course, but the judge was not interested in his generalizations.
