Chapter 5 - The Deposition
Three weeks later.
The deposition room on the twentieth floor of the county courthouse was blindingly bright. The morning sun reflected off the river below, casting long, sharp shadows across the long conference table.
I sat between my court-appointed public defense attorney, David Ross—a overworked man who looked exhausted by the sheer volume of financial evidence stacked against me—and two court stenographers.
Across the table sat Claire, flanked by Arthur Vance and two senior forensic investigators.
"For the record," Arthur Vance began, pressing the record button on the central microphone. "This is the deposition of Daniel Mercer in the matter of Mercer v. Mercer, Case No. 2026-DR-8891. Mr. Mercer, please state your full name for the record."
"Daniel Edward Mercer," I mumbled, staring down at my folded hands. My suit was rumpled; I had been staying at an extended-stay motel near the airport after the court evicted me from the Crestview house.
"Mr. Mercer," Arthur said, turning a page in his thick blue binder. "Let’s direct your attention to Exhibit C. This is an invoice dated November 12, 2024, from the Eastside Private Hospital for a specialized neonatal consultation."
I looked up, confused. "What does that have to do with the financial assets?"
"On November 12, 2024," Claire spoke up, her voice calm, clear, and resonant in the quiet room, "our daughter Hope was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit with a severe respiratory syncytial virus infection. Her oxygen levels dropped to eighty-two percent."
I swallowed hard, a cold knot forming in my stomach. "I... I remember that week. I was out of town on a business development trip in Chicago."
Arthur Vance tapped a yellow highlighted document attached to Exhibit C.
"According to the hotel registry and credit card charges retrieved from the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami," Arthur said coldly, "you were not in Chicago, Mr. Mercer. You were attending a boat show with Samantha Vance, spending four thousand two hundred dollars on private yacht charters while your six-week-old daughter was on a ventilator."
The court reporter’s fingers flew across the stenography machine with a soft, rhythmic clicking sound that felt like nails being driven into my coffin.
I looked at Claire. Her eyes were fixed on mine, completely devoid of hatred or anger. There was only an absolute, terrifying emptiness—the look of a woman who had already mourned the man I used to be and was now simply finishing the paperwork.
"Claire..." I whispered, my voice breaking. "I didn't know she was on a ventilator... you didn't tell me—"
"I called you eleven times that night, Daniel," Claire said softly, her words hitting me with the weight of lead weights. "You forwarded every single call to voicemail. And at two o'clock in the morning, you sent me an automated text saying: In a low-reception client dinner. Don't worry, everything is fine."
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I closed my eyes, but I couldn't block out the image of her sitting alone in that sterile hospital room while I was drinking champagne on a deck three hundred miles away.
"I have no further questions for this witness," Arthur Vance said, shutting the binder with a heavy, final thud.
