Chapter 5 - The Subpoena
Wednesday morning broke gray and humid over DuPage County.
The conference room at Feldman Law LLC had been cleared of everything except three legal pads, two boxes of tissues, and a digital recording apparatus sitting between two microphones.
Nicole sat at the head of the table. I sat to her left, dressed in a charcoal wool blazer and an ironed white shirt, my hair pulled back into a severe twist. Across from us sat Greg Miller—a heavy-set attorney with rumpled hair and an aggressive, combative manner—and Audrey Lane.
Audrey looked smaller than she had beneath my maple tree. She wore an oversized black sweater that failed to hide the pronounced swell of her stomach. Her face was pale, devoid of the bright coral lipstick she had favored for fifteen years, her hands clasped tightly over her lap beneath the edge of the conference table.
She refused to meet my eyes. She stared fixedly at the water glass Miller had set before her.
"We are on the record," the court reporter announced, her fingers hovering over the steno machine. "This is the deposition of Audrey Lane, taken in the matter of *Barrett v. Barrett*, Case Number 2023-D-0841."
Nicole did not waste time with introductory pleasantries.
"State your full legal name and address for the record," Nicole began.
"Audrey Marie Lane. 1420 West 75th Street, Apartment 3B, Woodridge, Illinois."
"Ms. Lane, what is your relationship to the respondent, Ryan Barrett?"
Audrey swallowed, her throat moving visibly. "He is my partner."
"Your partner," Nicole repeated, her pen scratching against a pad. "Are you currently pregnant?"
"Yes."
"Who is the father of that child?"
Miller cleared his throat. "Objection. Relevance to financial issues."
"Paternity directly establishes the non-marital nature of the funds expended on behalf of the deponent," Nicole shot back without looking up. "Answer the question, Ms. Lane."
"Ryan is the father," Audrey whispered.
"Speak up for the reporter, please."
"Ryan Barrett is the father."
"When did your sexual relationship with Mr. Barrett commence?"
Miller shifted in his chair. "Objection, harassing."
"Overruled by the scope of discovery regarding the timeline of marital breakdown," Nicole said crisply. "Ms. Lane, the date."
"June of last year," Audrey said, her voice trembling. "June fourteenth."
Fourteen months. Exactly what Ryan had admitted in the yard.
"On June twenty-first of last year," Nicole said, pulling a marked exhibit from an accordion file, "a transfer of one thousand five hundred dollars was executed from an account held at First Midwest Bank ending in 4401 to an account designated *Audrey Lane Design LLC*. Did you receive those funds?"
Audrey looked at Miller. Miller gave a curt nod.
"Yes."
"What was the purpose of that transfer?"
"It was... it was a loan. For my business."
"Do you have a promissory note?" Nicole asked, sliding the paper across the table. "An executed loan agreement? An interest rate? A repayment schedule?"
"No."
"Did you ever repay any portion of that one thousand five hundred dollars?"
"No."
"Moving to Exhibit C," Nicole said, sliding another sheet forward. "August ninth. Two thousand four hundred dollars to *Emerald Court Apartments*. That is your residential landlord, correct?"
"Yes."
"Was that also a loan?"
"Ryan said he wanted to help me."
"Did Ryan tell you where the money came from?"
Audrey paused. Her eyes flickered toward me for a fraction of a second, then snapped back down to her knuckles.
"He said he had personal savings."
"Did you know about the account nicknamed 'Future Family'?" Nicole asked, her voice dropping into a dangerous, rhythmic cadence. "The account Leah Barrett and Ryan Barrett established for the purpose of adoption and fertility procedures?"
Audrey began to cry. The tears rolled down her cheeks, dripping onto the black wool of her sweater.
"I didn't ask," she sobbed. "I didn't want to know the details."
"You didn't want to know," Nicole repeated. "Ms. Lane, on November third, you accompanied Leah Barrett to a medical consultation in Schaumburg, did you not?"
"I don't remember the exact date."
"Let me refresh your recollection," Nicole said, producing a third exhibit. "A calendar entry from Mrs. Barrett’s phone, accompanied by a text message from you: *'Don't worry babe, I'll drive you home after the ultrasound. Ryan has baseball practice, but you're not doing this alone.'* Do you remember that text?"
Audrey didn't answer. She buried her face in her hands.
"At that time," Nicole continued relentlessly, "you were sleeping with her husband. And three days prior, on October thirty-first, Mr. Barrett had transferred three thousand two hundred dollars from that very medical savings account into your personal checking account. Isn't that correct?"
Miller slammed his palm on the table. "Counsel, this is pure theater! The financial records speak for themselves! She has admitted receiving the money!"
"Then she can admit the fraud!" Nicole’s voice rose, commanding and authoritative. "Your client used funds dedicated to family planning to finance his mistress while his wife was undergoing invasive procedures! That goes directly to intent, bad faith, and the willful dissipation of marital assets!"
I leaned forward.
I did not raise my voice. I did not scream. I looked directly across the three feet of wood separating me from the woman who had held my hand in freshman biology.
"Audrey," I said.
She shook her head behind her hands, refusing to look.
"Look at me, Audrey."
Slowly, her fingers came down. Her eyes were red, swollen, swimming in shame.
"Did you really think I wouldn't check the numbers?" I asked.
"Leah, I was so scared," she whispered, her voice raw. "Mark took everything. I had nothing left. Ryan was so kind to me, he made me feel like I wasn't garbage, like I wasn't just some discarded failure—"
"I gave you eight thousand dollars of my own money when Mark left," I said, my voice steady and cold as iron. "I paid your first month's deposit on 75th Street out of my checking account. I didn't abandon you. You didn't steal from me because you were scared. You stole from me because it was easier to take my life than build your own."
"That's enough!" Miller barked, standing up. "We are taking a ten-minute recess. My client needs water."
"Take fifteen," Nicole said calmly, closing her folder. "When we come back, we're going through the lease-option agreement on the townhouse in Plainfield. Page by page."
Audrey stood up so quickly her chair scraped loudly across the vinyl baseboards. She fled toward the corridor, clutching her belly, her breath hitching in ragged gasps.
I sat in my chair. My hands were perfectly still on the legal pad.
I felt no triumph. No satisfaction.
May you like
Just the clean, cold realization that the structure had been surveyed, the rot had been documented, and the demolition permit was now officially issued.
***
