tell what they’re thinking as they hang on Erica’s every word, every gesture. She doesn’t know if they believe Erica’s story or not. It sounds so over the top.
‘And what happened to that child?’
‘I gave him up for adoption at birth. I don’t know where he is.’
‘One last question. Did anyone else know about your affair? Can anyone confirm what you’ve told us?’
She shakes her head. ‘We didn’t tell anyone. I’ve come forward now because I can’t live with this any more. I owe it to Lindsey to tell the truth. And I want the world to know what he did because I’m afraid for his current wife. I’m afraid he might do it again.’
There is an audible gasp in the courtroom. Of horror? Or of disbelief?
‘Thank you, Ms Voss.’
Stephanie watches anxiously as Lange stands up to cross-examine. He walks slowly towards the witness stand. ‘Ms Voss. You say that you and Patrick Kilgour were “in love”. Do you have any proof of that?’
‘Well, no. We didn’t tell anyone, and no one saw us, because we had to keep it secret.’
‘Right. So we only have your word for it. Do you have any proof of the number of times that the two of you slept together?’
‘I had his baby,’ she says, a little defiantly.
‘You had a baby. We haven’t determined that it was Mr Kilgour’s, have we?’ He waits.
Finally she says, ‘No. But I know it was his.’
‘In any event, a single act of intercourse can result in pregnancy. Do you have any actual proof that the two of you slept together more than once or twice?’
‘No.’
‘One more thing. Isn’t it true that last August you approached Patrick Kilgour in Aylesford and attempted to blackmail him? Did you not threaten that if he didn’t pay you money, you would tell his wife that you’d had an extramarital affair with him and that he’d deliberately killed his first wife – and when that didn’t work, did you not threaten that you would try to have the investigation into Lindsey Kilgour’s death reopened?’
Stephanie holds her breath.
Erica looks back at the attorney, perfectly calm. ‘Not at all. Is that what he told you? In fact, I approached him, in Aylesford, to tell him I was going to the authorities in Colorado with the truth. When I told him that, he tried to give me money. Cash. I refused to accept it and told him I couldn’t be bought off.’
Stephanie feels like she’s had the breath sucked out of her. She wants to leap up and yell, ‘She’s lying!’ But she’s paralysed. She looks at the attorney’s face – he hadn’t anticipated this, clearly, and is doing his best to recover. He’d expected a flat denial. Patrick has gone white.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
UNABLE TO SHAKE Erica’s story, Lange says he has no further questions. The judge calls a short lunch break, and when they reconvene, it’s Patrick’s turn to take the stand. Counsel to the coroner says, ‘I call Patrick Kilgour.’
Stephanie can see that he’s nervous. She squeezes his hand encouragingly as he rises, but he doesn’t even look at her. He walks up and takes his place in the witness box as if he’s going to his doom. At least, that’s the way it looks to Stephanie.
Stephanie feels dizzy. She barely slept last night, plagued by insomnia, unaccustomed to being apart from the twins, worried about what would happen today. And she hadn’t been able to get much food down at breakfast. Now she’s feeling light-headed. Erica just perjured herself. Stephanie tries to focus on what’s happening in front of her – it’s so important, but her head is swimming, and the tightness in her chest is becoming unbearable.
Once Patrick is sworn in, Ms Spellman says to him, ‘Tell us about the morning of January 10, 2009.’
He has considerable poise, and Stephanie is relieved to see it. ‘We were going to Grand Junction to visit Lindsey’s mother and sister. Lindsey was eager to go. It had been snowing heavily, so I didn’t want to go, but she insisted. We did have a mild argument about that the night before, but I could see how important it was to her. It had been snowing since Thursday night, and I’d worked from home on Friday for that reason. By Saturday morning, the car was almost buried in snow. I went out to shovel out the car, turned it on to warm it up. She came out and got in the car to wait. I’d told her to