She'd always been good at tuning things out when she wanted to. Maybe it was being the youngest of four siblings. Maybe it was from years of captivity. But for Emma, sitting in the courtroom before it was called to order was nothing more than sitting alone in a room. She could tune out the hum of voices around her, the whispers about her family, and the shuffling of feet as people settled into their chairs. She could feel the bench they were sitting in move and shift as people stood up to let people in. The feeling of eyes on her didn't distract her from her own mind.
But Emma just stared ahead.
She knew her mother was right beside her. Charlotte on the other side. Her dad sitting beside her mother.
She'd smiled at Russell sitting a few rows behind them as they walked into the courtroom.
She didn't want anyone else in here. If only the courtroom hadn't been packed. She'd asked her siblings not to come. They'd see it on TV anyway, probably. Or at least coverage of it.
"But we want to be there to support you, Em." Stevie had said when Emma sat down with her siblings.
Emma had said no.
Charlotte said she was being mean.
Emma knew what was going to be said in court. She didn't want to look at everyone and see their view of her change.
She felt her mother shift beside her, leaning over and whispering, "You ok, Em?"
She turned her head slightly to look at her mother and shook her head.
Her mother reached out and set her hand over Emma's in her lap, squeezing gently. "Don't think anyone about to do this would be ok." Her mother's words settled into Emma. Like a gentle reassurance of the absurdity of this moment.
Emma stared straight ahead again.
And she mentally checked through the reassurances that she'd created for herself. And breathing.
Mike had walked her through the testimony she would give, coaching her through the best way to appear to the jury. Quiet. Wounded but strong. The term plays well had been said. Compliant was another term.
One breath.
Her dad had told her that it didn't matter what happened, she wasn't the one on trial. This was just Emma's testifying about the truth against Lydia.
Another breath.
Charlotte's words from the car ride over settled Emma's pounding heart just a bit: "Be thankful you're not testifying in the UK. You wouldn't be able to keep a straight face seeing Mike in a powdered white wig."
A small smile and another breath.
The hugs from her siblings earlier that morning – the tiny squirming of two toddlers also brought Emma comfort.
Breath.
Emma felt her mother's hand tense, almost imperceptibly. Emma looked up and saw that the Defense team – Lydia and her lawyers were walking into the courtroom. Emma looked straight ahead after noticing. Emma didn't care about seeing Lydia – didn't want to – until it was her turn to testify.
Then she heard the words, "Please rise."
And she stood up, feeling the weight of the stiff suit around her. She steadied herself by putting both hands on the bench in front of her.
The stiff suit. The feeling of the ground under her feet. She steeled herself. Imagining a steel suit emerging throughout her body, starting at her hips and enclosing around her. Emotions held in. Dangers kept out. She settled her shoulders. Took a deep breath. She locked her jaw.
The bailiff continued: "The Court of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, Criminal Division, is now in session, the Honorable Judge Westover presiding."
"Please be seated."
As they were sitting, Charlotte whispered, "Are you ok?"
Emma turned to her and nodded, "Yes."
This was the fifth day of the trial proceedings. Emma hadn't wanted to watch or see any coverage about it. She didn't care. At least that's what she told herself.
Before she knew it, she was called to the stand. She held her head high, walked with purpose, and took the oath.
Then the questions started.
Mike was asking the questions for the prosecution. Which made it a bit easier.
Emma still could not look at Lydia.
She instead sat straight, feet flat on the ground, looking at Mike. She refused to show fear anywhere on her body. She was not afraid.
Mike had explained how it would begin. The prosecutor, Martin Carr, who was on their side, would begin the questioning.
And Carr began, "Ms. McCord, can you tell us about the first time that you remember meeting the defendant?"
Her voice was clear, and steady. "I met her at the White House, outside of the Oval office." She almost didn't hear her own words – she knew what she was going to say, "My mother, then the Secretary of State, was meeting with the President, and I had been sent home from school early for getting into a fight at school. Lydia came in and saw me sitting there waiting for my mother, and cleaned up my knee and put a band aid on it."
Carr asked, "Was your mother there with you?"
"No." Emma said, "She was in the Oval Office."
"And that was the first time you met Mrs. Dalton?"
"Yes."
Carr paused. And then continued, "You were taken from your home when you were twelve years old, is that right?"
"Yes." Emma inwardly cringed but refused to show it. She knew the question that was coming.
"Please explain what happened that day to the jury."
And Emma explained. She explained the story that had dominated her life from that moment on. She did it with a confident aura around her. She wasn't sure how she got through that first day, but she did.
"And how long were you kept from going back to your home?" The lawyer asked somberly.
"Four years." Emma stated. These weren't the hard questions yet.
But those were coming.
The lawyer referred to "exhibit g" as they'd named it. The first ransom video they'd sent.
"Explain, as much as you can, what you remember about your surroundings in the space before this video."
Here it was. Here was the story. The one that she'd been dreading. She forced herself to not shift in her seat. To not wring her hands in her lap. To simply sit still, and speak with the same authority she had. She forced herself to focus on the individual words in the sentences she said. Like she was forcing her mind to block out the pictures that came with those words.
"It was a small room. Underground. Two chainlink fences made into cells." She focused on the lawyer's face, the way his eyebrows looked like he may wax them. Anything to distract. "It was both humid and cold, the ground was stone. I was…" She refused to touch her wrists, "chained in one of the cells."
The courtroom was quiet. Emma wished a baby would start crying or some marital fight would break out just to take away from the quiet where thoughts could grow.
In a soft voice, the lawyer asked, "Who was there with you?"
"Two men." Emma said, the words fluttering to the front of her mouth, begging to come out but terrified of what might come of them, "One was on a video call with someone." Amir.
"And can you tell me what you understood from that call?"
"It was all in English." Emma started. "It was regarding checking that they'd gotten the right hostage." She refused to remember herself then. "Before they made the video you saw there, the person on the other end of the call wanted to make sure they had the right…" child. The word threatened to come out, but she repeated herself, "the right hostage."
"How did they verify that you were the right one?"
Her heart pounded. But she refused. Refused to give into the memories. "The man not on the call brought me to the camera. The person on the other line apparently could confirm my identity."
Emma about jumped out of her skin when the defense lawyer shouted, "Objection, your Honor, on the grounds of speculation." When asked to continue, the defense lawyer quieted down to normal and explained, "The witness cannot speak for the motive of another person."
"Sustained." The judge said, "please disregard Ms McCord's last sentence."
Carr tried to work the question in differently, "After the man brought you to the camera, what happened?"
"I saw the person on the other end of the video call, and she said, 'You got the right one.'"
"Who was the person on the other end of the video call?"
Emma turned her head to finally look at the woman at the defense table. "Lydia Dalton."
Lydia was a little thinner. Her hair and makeup were much too overdone. But Lydia couldn't look at her. At least she didn't. She was staring at some paper in front of her.
"Other than confirming your identity, was there anything else that Lydia said?"
Emma nodded. And she took a break. Took a breath. Then calmly and without emotion, "She told the man that I looked too good for a ransom call. She told them to make me look worse."
"What happened after that?" The lawyer asked.
"They beat me."
