But that night, alone in her hotel room, Dorothy understood something important:
Winning would not come from one hearing or one revelation.
It would come from endurance.
Colleen had prepared for war.
Now Dorothy had to finish it.
Part 4
The waiting was almost worse than the hearings.
At least inside a courtroom, time moved toward something. Outside it, Dorothy lived in suspended motion—bottle feedings, supervised visits, legal calls, hotel laundry, lists, receipts, and the constant ache of not yet knowing whether love and evidence would be enough.
Emmett warned her the next phase would involve strategy from Grant’s side.
“He knows the financial case is bad,” Emmett said. “So he’ll change the story.”
“He already has.”
“He’ll do it bigger.”
Dorothy understood what that meant two days later when Channel 7 aired an interview from Grant’s living room.
He wore an open-collar blue shirt and the carefully hollowed expression of a man inviting the public into his pain. The room behind him had been staged to look nurturing and tragic at once—neutral throw blankets, soft lighting, not a single visible photograph of Colleen.