Chapter 8
The trial started six months later.
The courtroom was packed.
Reporters, family friends, people who’d seen the story on the news.
Lila sat at the defense table, wearing a nice dress, her hair perfectly styled, dabbing fake tears with a tissue every time the prosecutor mentioned Mia’s name.
Jake sat next to her, his face blank, staring straight ahead.
The prosecution called Dr. Hale first.
He testified through sobs, telling the jury everything—how Lila had approached him, the threats against his daughter, the night he’d signed Mia’s death certificate.
He held up the vial for the jury to see.
Then they called me.
I stood on the witness stand, my hands shaking, and told them about Mia.
About her love for rainbow sprinkles, the way she’d sing off-key in the car, how she’d hidden her teddy under her pillow every night because she was scared of the dark.
I told them about finding the recorder.
About Lila and Jake showing up at my house, threatening me.
About the 12 hours I’d sat on the hospital floor, holding my dead baby, not knowing the people I’d trusted most had killed her.
Half the jury was crying by the time I finished.
The defense didn’t have much.
They tried to paint me as a grieving, unstable mother who’d framed her own sister.
But no one believed them.
Halfway through the trial, Jake took a plea deal.
He agreed to testify against Lila in exchange for 15 years in prison, no parole.
He stood on the stand and told the jury everything.
How Lila had come up with the plan six months prior, after finding the trust papers in my baby book.
How she’d researched digoxin for weeks, making sure it would be undetectable in a standard toxicology screen.
How she’d been the one to inject Mia, not him.
Lila screamed at him as he testified, calling him a liar, a traitor, every name in the book.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
They came back with a verdict of guilty on all counts—first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud, witness tampering.
The judge sentenced Lila to 25 years to life in maximum security prison.
“Your actions are the most evil, selfish thing I have ever seen in 30 years on the bench,” he said, looking at her.
“You killed a 7-year-old little girl who loved you like an aunt. For money. You will spend the rest of your life in a cell, thinking about what you did.”
As the officers led Lila away, she locked eyes with me.
“I hate you,” she mouthed.
I didn’t feel anything.
No anger.
No sadness.
Just peace.
May you like
Mia had justice.
And I was finally free.
