Reborn: I Let My Mother Suffer the Price of Her Favoritism novel · Chapter 26 of 32
Chapter 26: Butter Pecan
My brother wore a gray suit he had bought for a client's funeral, and his hands shook when he raised the right one.
"State your name for the record."
"Dale Haldane."
"What is your relationship to the defendant?"
"She's my mother."
The prosecutor let that sit before she asked her next question.
"Mr. Haldane, have you been promised anything for your testimony today?"
"No, ma'am."
"Has the State told you whether you will be charged?"
"It told me it can't promise me anything." He looked at the jury, not at her. "I turned over my passport and eleven thousand dollars in cash last month. I expect I'll be charged, and I think I should be."
The defense lawyer made a note and underlined it.
Dale put the paper bag on his knee and took out the leather ledger with the rubber band around it.
"I'm an insurance salesman," he said. "I write everything down. For twelve years I wrote down every time I picked up my mother's prescription, and every night my sister Sloane had a bad one."
"Why did you write it down?"
"Because it didn't add up, and I didn't want to be the one who added it."
He read them to the jury.
He read the dates and the pharmacy and the name he gave the pharmacist, and the second line in the other ink, the one that always began with Sloane's name and ended with Callie's.
He read nineteen bad nights from one page, in a flat clerical voice, and a gray-haired juror in a cardigan, front row, stopped looking at the defense table.
"Mr. Haldane," the prosecutor said. "Turn to the Easter entry."
He turned.
"Read it."
He read it, and he read the number at the end of it.
Keep reading free with an account. Start Reborn: I Let My Mother Suffer the Price of Her Favoritism from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 25 · All chapters · Chapter 27 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend