My Husband Dismissed Seven Ransom Calls as AI novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Sentencing

The courtroom had wooden pews, a flag and a ceiling fan that ticked.

Janelle sat at the defense table in a tan jail-issue top, with her blonde bob grown out and no lanyard.

She did not look at the pews.

I sat in the front row with Pip asleep in the carrier on Beth's lap.

Ansel sat on my other side, close enough to feel, and he had not tried to touch me.

The judge was a heavy, tired woman with reading glasses on a chain.

"The court will hear from the victim," she said. "Mrs. Erickson."

I stood.

My statement was typed on three pages, and my hands were steady.

I walked to the lectern and laid the pages down and did not look at them.

"I teach music," I said. "I count time in songs."

The courtroom listened.

"The night I was taken, I spent four hours in a storage unit and a van. Every one of those songs ended. The seven phone calls were not songs. They did not end. They went on in my head for six weeks."

I turned my head and looked at Janelle.

She had finally lifted her face.

"You didn't want my money," I said. "You wanted my husband to say hang up. And he did. He will carry that for the rest of his life, and he should."

Behind me I heard Ansel breathe in.

"But you did not make him say it. You only held the phone. That is the difference between you and him, and I want it on the record."

I took one breath.

"You took a pregnant woman off a street. You wanted the one man who loved me to hurt me and never know it. My daughter was born at thirty-four weeks because of you. She weighed four pounds. She spent a month in a plastic box."

I stopped.

My voice had started to shake, so I waited until it stopped.

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