Joan looked at them and said, “I lost nine years because he controlled where I could stand—he does not get to control whether I speak.”
The courtroom was packed on the morning Joan testified.
Journalists filled the back rows.
Truck drivers who had followed her disappearance nine years earlier sat shoulder to shoulder with local residents.
Her family sat near the front.
Greg sat at the defense table.
Joan had spent years wondering whether anyone remembered her.
Now an entire room was waiting for her voice.
She entered slowly.
Her physical recovery had begun, but nine years of malnutrition and confinement could not disappear in a few months.
Her steps were deliberate.
Her hands trembled slightly.
When she reached the witness stand, she did not look at Greg immediately.
The prosecutor began gently.
“Do you remember the night you disappeared?”
Joan closed her eyes for a moment.
“Yes.”
She remembered the rain.
The truck stop.
