Page 110 of Matlock
The drive to Simon’s house was silent.
I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white, my mind replaying the footage we’d just watched in Judge Markham’s chambers. Over and over. Frame by frame.
Alan’s hands closing around Sadie’s throat. Her body convulsing, her eyes rolling back as she clawed at his wrists, herfingers scrabbling uselessly against his grip. The desperation in her movements was not the calculated violence of a killer, but the primal thrashing of prey fighting for survival.
The knife. Her hand finding it on the table. The first stab was wild, panicked, driven by pure survival instinct. Then another. And another. Each one a scream without sound, a plea for her own life.
Alan collapsing. Sadie stumbling backward, the knife still clutched in her hand as if she couldn’t let go, her entire body shaking so violently she could barely stand.
The recording proved everything. Sadie’s self-defense was irrefutable. Complete. She had evidence that would have cleared her from the beginning. Simon’s confession, his sacrifice, his willingness to go to prison—all of it had been unnecessary.
And he’d done it anyway.
I’d won the trial. Simon would walk free. The case was over.
But so was the house arrest. The ankle monitor would come off. The legal obligation binding us together and forcing us into proximity, the excuse to be near him, to touch him, to pretend I had a right to him, would all disappear.
Simon was free now.
Truly free.
Free to leave. Free to find someone who wasn’t ashamed of being seen with him. Someone who would claim him openly, proudly, without hesitation.
Someone who loved him the way he deserved to be loved.
Simon had sacrificed his freedom without blinking.
I couldn’t even sacrifice my pride.
But watching that footage, seeing what Sadie had endured, what Simon had sacrificed to protect her, had left me raw in a way I hadn’t expected.
I glanced at Simon in the passenger seat. He stared out the window, his jaw tight, his hands folded in his lap. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the courthouse.
I wanted to reach for him. To tell him it was over, that hewas safe, that everything was going to be okay.
But I couldn’t.
Not yet.
Because even though the recording proved Sadie’s self-defense, Simon had still confessed. He’d still taken the fall. And Rosalind wasn’t going to let this go without a fight.
The legal complications weren’t over.
And neither was the emotional fallout.
I pulled into Simon’s driveway and cut the engine. For a moment, neither of us moved.
“Tony,” Simon said quietly, his voice hoarse. “What does this mean?”
I turned to look at him. His eyes were red-rimmed, exhausted. He looked like a man who’d been holding his breath for months and didn’t know if he could finally exhale.
“It means we have the truth,” I said. “On video. Irrefutable. The jury will see exactly what happened. They’ll see Alan attack Sadie. They’ll see her defend herself.”
“But I confessed,” Simon said. “I said I killed him.”
I kept my voice steady, professional. Like I was discussing strategy instead of processing what I’d just witnessed on that screen.
“And when they see the video,” I said carefully. “They’ll have no other option than to find you not guilty.”
