Page 51 of Ashes of Us

Danica's Monday morning was spent with David in his office, going over everything for court the next morning and coaching her on how to respond if they got to the point that she had to take the stand.

He assured her that, given all the evidence he had compiled with Maverick's help and the police recordings, it was unlikely that it would get to that point, but he still wanted her to be prepared for it.

“Since we're the defending party, we go second,” David assured her.

“But when I lay out the evidence I've collected in my opening statement, I think there's a very good chance Judge Perella will dismiss the case and refer it for criminal investigation.” He slid a folder across his desk to her.

“The forensic recovery of his text messages with his mother showed he told her what happened that night, and she knew damn well he never had sex with Lucy.

As a matter of fact, they show he had told her about your argument and what happened that night at his cousin's.

It's strongly inferred that she convinced him to keep it from you.”

Danica took the folder and opened it. From the looks of things, they had been able to recover about a weeks worth of text messages between Jasper and his mother, with the first dozen or so being fairly innocuous, just Amy telling him to tell his father lunch was ready, asking him if he was sure he didn't want to spend the night at their house while Danica was away, that kind of thing, but halfway down the second page of the transcripts Jasper's texts become frantic.

Jasper Preston: She says she's pregnant!

Amy Preston: Who? Danica? Why are you telling me over text? This should be an in-person conversation so we can celebrate with you! Does Danica know you're telling me?

Jasper Preston: Lucy! She says she's pregnant and its mine! What the hell do I do? How am I supposed to explain this to Danica?

Amy Preston: I thought you said nothing happened? How can she be pregnant?

Jasper Preston: I don't know! I swear I never touched her; I wouldn't do that to Danica.

Jasper Preston: She was asleep on top of me when I woke up

Jasper Preston: But I swear I never touched her, there's no way that baby is mine.

Jasper Preston: What the hell am I supposed to do? Danica will leave me.

Amy Preston: Danica doesn't need to know unless the baby is actually yours. Tell her you want a paternity test.

Jasper Preston: I never should have listened to you. I should have told her immediately.

Amy Preston: No, she would have left you, you know that.

Amy Preston: If the baby is yours, what are you going to do?

Jasper Preston: It's not, but I don't know. She won't get an abortion, I already told her to, she refused.

Jasper Preston: She's definitely pregnant; she sent me proof

Jasper Preston: Raise it, I guess.

Amy Preston: You said you never had sex with her, so it's not yours. Stop panicking and confront her.

Jasper Preston: She claims I'm the only one she's slept with in the last year.

Jasper Preston: I woke up with her on top of me in her bra and underwear.

Amy Preston: You're positive you didn't sleep with her?

Jasper Preston: If I did, I was on something more than weed.

Jasper Preston: I crashed out hard.

Jasper Preston: She's agreed to meet with me tomorrow

Amy Preston: Good. Demand the paternity test, and we'll go from there.

Danica looked up at David, feeling stomach sick.

It didn't really surprise her that much that Amy told him not to tell her about the night in question; she knew the way the family was with cheaters and wouldn't want her precious boy to be ostracized by the family.

“He was planning to raise it if it was his?” She groaned and leaned back in the chair. “Fuck me and our marriage, I guess.”

“To me, it sounded like he didn't believe it was his, but if it was, he was going to step up and be a dad since he knew you would most likely leave him over this.” David smiled sympathetically at her. “He repeatedly insists the baby isn't his.”

“The thing is, I wouldn't have left him if he'd just been honest about things.” Danica put her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands. “I would have thought it was suspicious, but I wouldn't have just believed her over him.”

David nodded and looked pensive for a moment.

“I spoke with the detective in charge of your husband's accident investigation, and he agreed to take the stand and talk about the dash cam audio.

He agrees that if she were pregnant with Jasper's baby, then she either raped or sexually assaulted him while he was asleep.

I'm hoping that having him on the stand will either get her to admit it wasn't Jasper's baby or to admit she assaulted him, because we have lots of evidence that says he didn't consent to having sex with her.

If she doubles down that it was Jasper's baby, he will be passing the case over to the sexual assault unit regardless of whether or not the Judge refers it to the district attorney.”

Danica nodded and drew in a deep breath. “Trista said all this shouldn't have gotten this far, that the Judge should have shut it down. Why did he let them move forward with things in the first place?”

David leaned back in his chair, tapping his pen on the desk as he appeared to think over her question.

“From what I understand, he believes grandparents should have more rights to their grandchildren than they currently have.” He said slowly.

“In Massachusetts, if the parents of a child are estranged from their parents for whatever reason and won't allow the kids to see the grandparents, they can petition the courts for visitation rights. Normally, there is certain criteria the grandparents must prove in order to win, like visitation is in the best interests of the child, lack of visitation would cause harm to the child, in particular emotional harm, or there has been an ongoing and meaningful relationship between the grandparents and grandchildren that does not affect or cause harm to the child’s relationship with the parents.”

He cleared his throat and continued. “Nine times out of ten, the petition is turned down because parents have a constitutional right to decide who has contact with their child unless there's a clear danger or detriment to the child by denying the relationship.

This is not the case in all States. Oklahoma, Utah, and Alabama, for example, all tend to rule in the grandparents' favour. Have a guess where Judge Perella is from.”

“One of those?” Danica rolled her eyes. If she had to guess, Perella probably had grandchildren he wasn't allowed to see.

“Utah.” David turned to his computer and began typing.

“And from what I could find in the records, he oversaw a lot of grandparents' rights cases in family court back there and almost always ruled in the grandparents' favour.

I only found two cases where he denied them access, one was because the grandmother had an opioid addiction and showed up to the hearing clearly high and the other because the grandfather liked to leave his guns around loaded.

They only won after a social worker testified on behalf of the parents that the grandparents neglected the kids when they were in their care, and their house wasn't safe for children.”

“Great. Danica muttered. “So, they lucked out when they drew him.”

“Mmm.” David shook his head. “I'm not so sure. It looks like he gets assigned to grandparents' rights cases frequently. It's something I'm going to look into after we're done.” Danica raised her eyebrow.

“Why wait?”

“I don't want word to get back to him if I start making inquiries.” He explained as he found what he was looking for and turned his screen toward her.

“I don't want him to be biased against us.

Anyway, this is the list of witnesses I plan to call tomorrow and why.

Is there anyone missing or something I need to bring up that isn't here?”

After Danica looked over the list and gave him her approval, they said their goodbyes and she headed into the office to get some work done, print some paperwork she would need for the next morning and pick up Indie, who she had left with Alex.

She was just stepping off the elevator when the sound of raised voices reached her and she paused, trying to make out who Alex was practically yelling at.

Then she heard the posh British accent and felt all the air leave her lungs.

Heidi had actually flown across the Atlantic to confront Alex!

Danica had to admire the woman's tenacity.

If Alex were talking to her in that tone of voice, she'd probably run away as quickly as she could.

She couldn't really make out what was being said, but she quietly opened her office door and bent down to greet Indie, who came running toward her when she saw it was Danica, whining softly.

It was clear the argument next door was making her anxious.

She tried to get past Danica into the hallway and was only stopped by Danica quickly closing the door behind her.

“Don't worry about him, Alex can handle himself.” She told her, going to the desk drawer and pulling out a treat for her.

She sat at her desk and got started on some work, trying to ignore the voices coming through the vent, neither wanting to intrude nor to help without him asking for it.

After twenty more minutes, she found herself wondering why Alex didn't just kick her out, and her general nosiness kicked in.

Pulling out her phone, she sent him a quick text, asking if he needed her to intervene.

There was no response for a while, and then, just when she was about to leave it alone, her phone chimed.

Get over here.