Chapter 7 - The Empire Trembles
The deposition ended three minutes later.
Richard Latham didn't ask another question. He grabbed his leather briefcase, ordered his partners to turn off the video cameras, and hurried out of the glass conference room without looking back.
Headmaster Victor Hale spent twenty minutes screaming at his legal team in the private hallway outside, his furious voice echoing through the glass walls of the skyscraper.
When my mother and I walked down the marble steps of the law firm into the bright afternoon sun, she stopped, pulled me into her arms, and spun me around in a circle right there on the sidewalk.
"We did it, Ava!" she laughed, her eyes shining with incredible joy. "Did you see his face? Did you see the headmaster's face?!"
"They're falling apart, Mom," I said, holding onto her shoulder. "They built an empire out of fear and money. But fear doesn't work when people stop being afraid."
By the next morning, the story had broken across every major news network in the state.
Front-page headlines lined the newspaper stands:
CRESTWOOD PREP EMBROILED IN EMBEZZLEMENT AND POISONING SCANDAL.
9-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER TAKES ON MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR LAW FIRM IN COURT.
STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ISSUES SUBPOENAS FOR CRESTWOOD BOARD.
Parents of Crestwood students began pulling their children out of the school by the hundreds. The board of directors held an emergency midnight meeting, stripping Victor Hale of his administrative authority and placing him on unpaid administrative leave.
Three days before the trial was scheduled to begin, a sleek black limousine pulled up outside our modest apartment building.
A driver in a dark uniform stepped out, opened the rear door, and extended an invitation to my mother and me.
Inside the limousine sat Evelyn Vance—not Judge Vance, but his older sister, who happened to be the President of the Crestwood Preparatory Board of Trustees and the largest donor to the school's endowment fund.
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She was an elderly woman with silver hair, wearing an elegant dark emerald suit, holding a silver walking cane.
"Ms. Moore," Evelyn Vance said softly, gesturing for my mother and me to sit across from her on the leather seats. "I believe it is time we spoke without lawyers present."
