“I…

I don’t recall.”

That single admission did not produce handcuffs, or a dramatic collapse.

But it did something quieter and more total: it broke, in one sentence, the credibility of a story she had held without a crack for the better part of a year.

Then Howard’s forensic accountant took the stand and laid out the money — the clean hundred and fifty thousand in, the three hundred thousand and more out, into entities tied to Arthur Cole and to Selina.

Her attorney argued, with visible strain, that these were legitimate repayments of informal family loans.