Chapter 19 - SENTENCING DAY
Michael's sentencing happened six months after the verdict.
By then, Laura's Ledge had opened its first emergency residence in Denver.
Ashley had accepted a twenty-two-year sentence under her cooperation agreement.
Michael faced far more.
Before the judge announced the sentence, victims were allowed to speak.
I carried no notes.
Michael sat ten feet away.
For once, there was no glass.
No storm.
No cliff.
No place for him to hide.
I stood.
"You told me I wouldn't suffer much longer."
Michael looked down.
"You were wrong."
I waited until he raised his eyes.
"I suffered."
"I spent hours bleeding in snow."
"I gave birth terrified my son would die."
"I watched my own funeral."
"I learned that my marriage was a financial transaction."
"I learned my husband had studied my value more carefully than he ever studied my heart."
Michael's face tightened.
"But you made one mistake."
I looked toward James sitting with Daniel.
"You thought surviving meant I would spend the rest of my life afraid."
"It doesn't."
"Surviving means you don't get the rest of my life."
I faced the judge.
"I don't care whether Michael is sorry."
"He isn't."
"I don't care whether he understands what he did."
"He probably never will."
"I only ask this court to make sure he never gets another chance to decide what someone else's life is worth."
I returned to my seat.
Michael declined to speak.
The judge sentenced him to decades in prison, with consecutive portions attached to the most serious counts.
Barring extraordinary changes, Michael Carter would be an old man before he had any realistic possibility of freedom.
As deputies prepared to remove him, Michael looked at me.
"Emma."
I almost ignored him.
Then I turned.
He whispered, "Was any of it real?"
For a moment, I saw something different.
Not remorse.
Fear.
The fear of a man wondering whether his entire life had been empty.
I answered truthfully.
"My love was."
His face changed.
"Yours wasn't."
The deputies led him away.
Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted questions.
I gave none.
Daniel opened the car door.
James was waiting inside.
I picked him up.
He laughed and grabbed my hair.
I kissed his forehead.
For the first time since the mountain, I felt something I had almost forgotten.
Ordinary happiness.
Then Rebecca's phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
"What?"
Daniel noticed.
"So did I."
Rebecca slowly lowered the phone.
"Someone broke into the old Bennett family archive."
Daniel frowned.
"When?"
"Last night."
"Anything stolen?"
Rebecca looked at me.
"Only one file."
May you like
I already knew before she said the name.
Laura Bennett.
