Dunmore, before you say another word — I would think very carefully, if I were you, about who took that photograph, and how, and whether your office knew.”
That last question turned out to be the thread that unraveled everything.
The “surveillance image” Dunmore had brandished so proudly had not come from anywhere legitimate.
It had come from a private investigation outfit Lyle had paid, off the books, to follow us — an unlicensed operation working in direct violation of the three separate restraining orders already standing between my ex-husband and my son.
The photo was not evidence of my neglect.
It was evidence of his stalking.
In holding it up to the court as his trump card, Lyle had walked a documented crime into the room and set it on the table himself.
Chapter 9 — The Collapse
Within two hours, the case my ex-husband had spent two years and a great deal of money building did not merely fail.
It inverted.