Chapter 3 - THE SUBPOENA AND THE STORMWATER
By noon that same day, Javier was sitting across a mahogany desk from Marcus Vance, one of the most aggressive civil rights and education litigators in Texas. Marcus’s office on the twentieth floor of an Austin high-rise overlooked the entire city, but his attention was entirely fixed on the flash drive sitting between them on the desk.
Marcus plugged the drive into his secure laptop. For twenty minutes, the office was completely silent except for the clicking of the mouse and the quiet hum of the air conditioner.
Javier sat on the edge of his leather chair, watching Marcus’s face. The lawyer’s expression shifted from professional detachment to absolute, hardened fury.
“This is a goldmine,” Marcus murmured, looking up at Javier through his wire-rimmed glasses. “Not only do we have concrete proof of physical abuse, but these internal emails prove a systematic, premeditated cover-up by Principal Martha Collins and the board of directors. They knew Patricia was a liability, and they chose to protect the academy’s endowment instead of your child.”
“Can we sue?” Javier asked, his jaw clenched. “Can we close them down?”
“Sue them?” Marcus let out a sharp, humorless bark of laughter. “Mr. Morales, we aren't just going to sue them. We are going to dismantle St. Catherine’s Academy brick by brick.”
Marcus spun his laptop around, showing Javier a high-definition video file dated three weeks prior.
The camera angle was from the upper corner of Classroom 4B. The room was empty; the other students were outside for recess. Little Lucy Morales was sitting alone at her desk, struggling to pack her coloring pencils into her box. She looked small, frightened, and utterly exhausted.
Miss Patricia walked up behind her.
The audio was crystal clear, captured by the teacher’s lapel microphone.
“You are pathetic, Lucy,” Miss Patricia hissed, leaning down. “You’re holding the whole class back. Look at me when I speak to you.”
Lucy tried to turn her head, her lower lip trembling.
Miss Patricia’s hand shot out, grabbing Lucy firmly by the upper right shoulder. She squeezed hard—so hard that the skin blanched white before turning dark. Lucy let out a sharp, muffled gasp of pain, biting her own hand to keep from crying out too loudly.
“If you tell your daddy anything about this,” Miss Patricia whispered right into the child’s ear, “your daddy won’t love a broken, difficult girl. He’ll send you away.”
Javier stopped breathing. The room spun.
A red haze of pure, blinding rage flooded his vision. He stood up so fast his chair crashed backward onto the hardwood floor. His hands curled into fists at his sides, trembling with a violence he had never felt before in his life.
“I’m going to kill her,” Javier choked out, his voice sounding like gravel grinding together. “I am going to rip her throat out.”
Marcus stood up immediately, stepping around the desk and placing a firm, heavy hand on Javier’s shoulder.
“Listen to me, Javier,” Marcus said firmly, looking straight into his eyes. “If you touch that woman, you go to prison, Lucy loses her father, and Martha Collins wins. They want you to lose your temper. They want to paint you as an unstable, dangerous father so the jury ignores the video. Do you understand me? You don't lay a finger on them. We let the law act as our sledgehammer.”
Javier stood frozen, his chest heaving, tears of pure rage burning his eyes. He closed his eyes, visualizing Lucy’s terrified face, and forced the breath back into his lungs.
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“Okay,” Javier whispered, his voice trembling as he forced himself to calm down. “No violence. Just total destruction.”
“That’s my client,” Marcus said grimly, picking up his desk phone. “Let’s call the judge on emergency docket. We’re slapping St. Catherine’s with a temporary restraining order, an emergency preservation of evidence writ, and a federal civil rights lawsuit before the sun sets today.”
