After lunch, Samuel Klinefeld called his first witness, Theodore. Of course. I muttered sarcastically under my breath when the lawyer asked Theodore to swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." I hardly believed Klinefeld was capable of that, let alone the conniving client he was representing.

"Please state your full name for the court," Klinefeld began.

"Theodore Michael Blake," he said and the sound of his voice alone made me feel nauseous. As if he sensed my discomfort, he sent me a disparaging grin.

Klinefeld asked, "When did Juliette McGill begin working for you?"

"I hired her on May 19, 2017. She arrived at the residence on June 5, 2017."

"Did Juliette begin her duties right away?"

"Not quite. There was some question about the terms of the contract. She was planning to leave since she felt she had been misled, but the following day, we read the terms of the contract together and found that she was mistaken. I offered her an increase in pay and told her that I expected her to adhere to the contract."

"What do you mean when you say that there was a question about the terms of the contract?" Klinefeld asked.

"Ms. McGill believed that the ad she answered was for a seven-year-old boy," Theodore stated plainly.

"And how old was Harry in reality?"

"He was twenty," Theodore admitted.

"Mr. Blake, do you feel that Ms. McGill upheld her end of the contract?"

"No," Theodore said.

"And why is that?"

"Ms. McGill neglected to follow my instructions about Harry's medications, his routine, and his care in general."

"Can you expound on those statements?" Samuel urged.

"She refused to give him the required medications and then one day, she threw a fit and ordered Harry to take all of the pills that had been prescribed to him for a week. He overdosed and had to be taken to the ER to have his stomach pumped."

"You liar!" I screeched, tears pricking my eyes and several others started mumbling amongst themselves about his statement and my outburst.

"Order!" The judge slammed his gavel against the desk. "Ms. McGill sit down and keep quiet!" The judge ordered me.

I looked at Nathan in desperation and he just motioned for me to sit down as well, apparently wanting me to trust that he had everything under control. Yes, I knew he was experienced and knew a lot more than I did but my hatred for Theodore made me completely irrational.

"Can you tell me what else Juliette did that defied your orders?" Klinefeld asked.

"She broke every single nanny cam in the suite. But the most egregious act of impropriety was when she engaged in sexual activity with Harry."

The crowd gasped and I pounded my fists on my knees in frustration. I was at the point where I was willing to risk going to prison just so I could run over there and choke the life out of that bastard once and for all.

"Can you please clarify?"

"Your honor!" Nathan stood in a rush. "We have already determined that Harry was an adult and had no intellectual disability. Why is this even relevant?"

The judge gave Nathan a pointed look and said, "Overruled. Theodore, please answer the question."

"Early on, Harry told me that Juliette was teaching him about sex. Also, she 'took a nap' with Harry every day," Theodore said, making air quotes around the words. "She rubbed his bare back and held him close, like a lover would do. Harry was still young and impressionable and such activities led him to believe that Juliette had a romantic - and sexual - interest in him."

"Objection, your honor," Nathan interrupted. "The witness is speculating about what Harry was thinking."

"Sustained," the judge replied.

"All right," Klinefeld mused, apparently finding the objection humorous. "Before the nanny cams were destroyed, did you witness actual sexual activity between the two of them?"

"Not firsthand, no," Theodore answered. "But I knew it was happening."

"Objection!" Nathan stood. "The witness is still speculating."

"Sustained," the judge answered. "Please remove the witness's last statement from the record."

Theodore and his lawyer were playing a dirty game and everyone knew it, saying things that weren't legitimately supported by evidence. They knew they'd get an objection. However, even though the judge directed that Theodore's statement be stricken from the record, the jury would remember it. How could they not?

"So Juliette McGill was hired by you to care for Harry and yet she came into your home, disobeyed your rules, and engaged in sexual activity with Harry?"

"Yes, that's correct."

Well, yeah, it was correct but completely out of context. I hated this one-sided nonsense.

"That's all I have for now," Klinefeld told the judge.

Judge Stoneridge said, "Prosecution, you may cross examine."

Nathan looked like a hawk, going in for the kill. "Theodore Michael Blake. You're a very well-respected business man in these parts. Is that an accurate assessment?"

"Yes," Theodore answered in a cocky tone.

"Can you tell me how you came into this line of business?"

"I started working for my father's company when I was just ten or twelve years old. Once I reached adulthood, my father arranged for the company to be given to me, upon his retirement or his death."

"Do you remember what caused him to change the terms of the will?" Nathan asked.

Theodore gave him the evil eye. "His mistress gave him a biological son, Harry," he said with absolute hatred.

"He did marry Anne after Harry was born, though. Is that correct?" Nathan asked.

"Yes, after he cheated on my mother," Theodore seethed.

"I can see how you would be upset by the change in terms for the will. But it was, after all, William Blake's company and his money to do with as he chose, was it not?"

"Yes," Theodore grumbled.

"And you and your brother were still set to receive $5 million once Harry took ownership, is that correct?"

"I suppose so," Theodore answered.

"Yes or no," Nathan pressed him.

"Yes, I was supposed to receive $5 million when Harry took over the company."

Nathan continued, "So it was a stroke of good luck that you were able to take over the company when you were twenty-four."

"Excuse me," Theodore growled. "You're calling the death of my father a stroke of good luck?"

"Oh," Nathan said innocently and glanced back at me. He then looked back at Theodore. "I apologize. I was just using the exact words you said to Juliette when you confessed your reasons for oppressing and manipulating Harry."

"Objection," Samuel Klinefeld said in that whiny voice. "Hearsay."

"Sustained," Judge Stoneridge nodded. "Counsel, stick to the evidence presented in this courtroom."

"All right," Nathan moved on without a hitch. I had a deep admiration for him and his ability to switch gears so smoothly. "Let's talk about the contract. Theodore, when was the last time you paid Juliette McGill for her services?"

"August 30, 2017."

"Why didn't you pay her for September and October?"

"She violated the terms of the contract," Theodore said stoically.

"All right, well let's take a look at the contract, shall we?" Nathan said. "Oh, wait, there are three different versions of the contract. Which one should I start with?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Theodore muttered.

"There is the original contract, stating that Juliette would be caring for a seven-year-old boy with special needs. This is the one that was emailed to her as an attachment. Luckily, her parents and her sister both had copies in their files because Juliette's copy mysteriously disappeared from her phone when it was in your possession. It was a good thing she had asked her family members to look over it before she signed anything."

"It was a typographical error," Theodore said.

"But when you and Juliette had that first misunderstanding when she arrived, you insisted that she had misread it. The contract you produced stated that Harry was a seventeen-year-old with special needs. Why is it that you told Mr. Klinefeld a few moments ago that you knew that Harry was twenty when Juliette arrived?"

"Again, a clerical error. I must have pulled out an older copy of the contract. I've had the same contract for all my nannies since 2003."

"Wait, first you said it was a typographical error and that's somewhat understandable for someone to accidentally type seven instead of seventeen. But now you're saying you pulled the wrong copy of the contract from your records. Did Juliette sign a copy that said Harry was twenty years old?"

"You can easily look at the one in your hand," Theodore spat.

"Answer the question, Mr. Blake," the judge ordered.

"No, she did not sign a copy that stated Harry was twenty years old," Theodore sighed.

"Your honor, let the record show that Theodore Blake admitted to having Juliette sign a contract with false information. Not only does it state an incorrect age for Harry Styles, it also states that Harry had special needs, which we now know he does not."

"I believed he had special needs at the time," Theodore yelled.

"Okay, well the terms of the contract were still inaccurate because of Harry's age. And Theodore still neglected to pay Juliette for September and October, which means he himself negated the terms of the contract. But he still expected Juliette to carry out her obligations as outlined in the contract," Nathan told the judge.

"Fine, continue," the judge advised.

Nathan kept going, "So Juliette didn't follow your directions for Harry's medications and as we've established, the types and doses you were giving to him could have been life-threatening."

"I didn't know that," Theodore snapped. "I am not a doctor."

"Even when Ms. McGill stated her concerns about the medications repeatedly?" Nathan asked. "Did that not raise any red flags for you?"

"I'm accustomed to my employees following my instructions," Theodore said flatly.

"So if Harry had died from the medications, who would have been to blame? Juliette, who was simply following directions? Or you, because you refused to double check on the safety of the medications?"

"Objection," Samuel Klinefeld barked. "Conjecture. There's no way to know what would have happened."

"Sustained," the judge replied. "Stick to the facts, Mr. Greenwood."

"Fine," Greenwood nodded, coming back to his table to take a drink of water. "Mr. Blake, please tell me about the doctors and specialists who either evaluated or treated Harry over the years."

"He had so many doctors and therapists, I can't quite remember," Theodore lied.

"Please, try to remember at least try to remember his primary doctor's name. That shouldn't be too hard." I secretly cheered at Nathan's snarky tone towards Theodore.

Theodore answered, "Dr. Benjamin Blake was his primary doctor throughout his adolescence."

"Blake, you say?" Nathan asked. "Is he a relative of yours?"

"He's my brother," Theodore muttered.

"Did Dr. Benjamin Blake specialize in pediatrics? Children with disabilities? Did he have his own clinic?"

"No," Theodore grunted.

"No to which one," Nathan pushed.

"No to all, he did not have his own clinic and he didn't have a specialty." Theodore's voice reflected his irritation and I couldn't help but secretly enjoy his discomfort.

"Exactly," Nathan replied. "He did not have his own clinic or a specialty because he was actually a professor of health-related law. My records show that Benjamin Blake finished medical school but did not pass his boards and was never licensed to practice medicine. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Theodore grumbled.

"Also, he was not licensed to prescribe medications. Is that correct?"

"My brother already got his punishment! You took away his entire fucking career because he was trying to help me!" Theodore roared.

"Mr. Blake, please sit down and control yourself," the judge demanded.

Nathan said, "Let the record show that from the ages of seven to twenty, Harry was evaluated, treated and prescribed medicine by a man who did not have a license to practice medicine, nor did he have a license to prescribe drugs."

"Yeah, I think they got it!" Theodore snapped in an irritated voice and the judge reminded him again to keep his temper in check.

Nathan continued, completely unruffled by Theodore's rising anger. "You said there were many people who evaluated and treated Harry. Can you tell me about any of the others?"

"Well, to be honest, Dr. Blake was primary throughout most of his childhood."

"So did you lie to the court a few moments ago when you said there were so many doctors and therapists that you didn't remember them all?"

"Yes, I misspoke and I apologize," Theodore said smoothly. "He had many nannies and teachers so I was confused."

"May I remind you that lying under oath, also called perjury, is a criminal offense?" Nathan said.

"I did not lie," Theodore said coldly. "I merely...mis-remembered."

I couldn't believe the judge was going to let him get away with that but I continued to watch with interest, along with Clive, my parents, and Harry. I wondered what Anne was thinking about all of this as she watched from the other room.

Nathan took a detour in the same conversation. "You've stated that you're not a doctor and that you honestly thought that Harry was intellectually disabled."

"Yes," Theodore agreed.

"If that's the case, may I ask why you never hired a special education teacher before Juliette? Why were there no therapists or other specialists called in? Any guardian who wants the best for a child would at least make sure they were getting a quality education."

Theodore answered with a sneer. "I was assured that the curriculum he was using would be sufficient for his mental capacity."

"But what about a special education teacher? None of your previous nannies before Juliette McGill had any special education experience. Why is that?"

"I...I honestly don't have an answer. All I can say is that I believed I was doing right by Harry by providing him state of the art equipment and learning environment as well as caring nannies."

"Nannies who taught him the same thing day in and day out for years!" Nathan shouted.

"I already said I didn't have an answer and I thought I was doing what was best. What more do you want from me?" He growled.

"When was Harry diagnosed with psychosis?"

"He wasn't," Theodore muttered.

"And yet he was taking heavy sedatives and antipsychotic drugs."

"We covered this. Dr. Blake didn't know what he was doing," Theodore said. "And now he's lost his job and his reputation. So he got what was coming to him. What more do you want?"

"And through all those years, it never occurred to you that something wasn't right? That maybe Harry really was normal and that the drugs were possibly causing him to have symptoms of intellectual disability?"

"No, it did not," Theodore answered curtly. "I hired employees to care for Harry as I had a tremendous responsibility running the company."

"So you admit that you hired people to do your job? As a father, I mean?"

"I'm not his father," he hissed.

"But you were his guardian and it was your responsibility to raise him," Nathan reasoned.

"Well, yes, then I suppose it can appear to someone outside the situation that I hired other people to raise him. I still made the ultimate decisions for his well-being. Isn't that what most people do when they hire nannies?"

"That's debatable," Nathan said. "Makes me wonder why you even took custody of Harry after the accident at all. Wouldn't it have been easier to just relinquish your custody and put him up for adoption?"

"I suppose so," Theodore answered through gritted teeth. "But Harry was family and I don't turn my back on family."

"Well, he's not technically your family," Nathan shrugged. "You aren't related by blood at all, and just a while ago, you showed us how angry you were when Harry was born to your father and his mistress. And you weren't very happy when I said you were Harry's father. So I still wonder why you didn't just take the easy route and put him up for adoption."

Theodore shook his head. "I guess...I guess he was the only part of my father I had left."

"Or," Nathan proposed, "If Harry was raised by a loving mother and father, he never would have been diagnosed with a disability because he never had one-"

"Objection!" Klinefeld shouted but Nathan kept going.

"And Harry would have grown up to inherit the company you worked so hard for, and you just couldn't let that happen so you chose to keep Harry under wraps and oppress him with drugs and fake doctors-"

The judge ordered Nathan to stop but he spit out the last of his sentence before he finally shut his mouth.

"-so you could pass him off as disabled and therefore resume your place as the heir to the company and the family fortune!"

I wanted to give Nathan a standing ovation, but I could see he was in trouble with the judge.

Judge Stoneridge stood and addressed him in a rather frightening voice. "Mr. Greenwood as of this moment, you are in contempt. It would be well within the laws of this district to send you straight to jail. However, I'm letting you off with your first and only warning. Do not ever defy an order from me again or it will be the last day you practice law!"

"Yes, sir. I apologize," Nathan said.

Klinefeld remained standing and I could see the hatred in his eyes. He would love to have argued with the judge's ruling but he didn't want to risk putting himself in contempt. But he did speak up. "Your honor, I move to strike the last statement by Mr. Greenwood from the record."

"Sustained. The court reporter is ordered to strike Mr. Greenwood's last statement from the record and the jury is ordered to not consider his last statement in their deliberation."

Those of us represented by Nathan breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close call but it was good to know that he could play the same game as Samuel Klinefeld.

* * * * *

Whew! Intense moments there, no? I'm not sure how the next chapter or two will go. I wonder if it's tedious for you to read the dialog of the trial, but at the same time, if I try to summarize or skip some of it, you might not know what has already been discovered. I don't want to drag this on forever but you know we still need to hear from Juliette and Anne, so I'll just try to be a succinct as possible.

I'm trying my best to make the courtroom procedure seem as realistic as possible, but I'm using a US courtroom as my model because I have no idea how it works in Canada (and let's be honest, I don't even really know how it works in the US, lol)

But in case you're not familiar with some of the language, here's some common courtroom lingo:

Objection: formal protest raised in court during a trial to disallow a witness's testimony or other evidence; an objection is typically raised after the opposing party asks a question of the witness, but before the witness can answer, or when the opposing party is about to enter something into evidence. An objection is either sustained or overruled by the judge.

Sustained: the judge agrees with the objection and disallows the question, testimony, or evidence

Overruled: the judge disagrees with the objection and allows the question, testimony, or evidence

Badgering the witness: the proper objection for a lawyer who is antagonizing or mocking a witness by asking insulting or derisive questions, perhaps in an attempt to provoke an emotional response.

Conjecture: a judgment based upon incomplete evidence.

Contempt: the offense of being disobedient to or discourteous towards a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice and dignity of the court.

Hearsay: an out of court statement, repeated in court, to prove the truth of the matter asserted; in other words, referring to a statement that was made out of court and using it as in-court evidence.

Leading the witness: putting words into the witnesses mouth, leading them to say what you want them to say.

Perjury: lying while under oath in a court of law; carries a heavy penalty if serious enough

Speculation: an attorney might raise an objection based on speculation which means that the opposing attorney or the witness is trying to guess what another person is thinking.

The Record: When they say either "let the record show" or "strike that from the record" they are referring to the word for word dictation being kept by the court reporter.