Amelia Crowley enters the room behind Jake Slausen. She may not be dressed for the courtroom, but wearing slimming black pants and a white blouse, she emits an air of professionalism and seriousness. There is a this-chick-means-business feel about her, yet Isabella isn't intimidated by her presence. She trusts her already, and can imagine this woman representing her, if it ever came to that.

"Hello Isabella. Jake filled me in on your very interesting situation. I would like to have a word with you, if I could," she looks at Fryer, "in private, if that is OK."

Fryer doesn't seem surprised by the request. He stands and makes his way to the door, which Jake holds open for him. "I'll be in the waiting room, Isabella."

She smiles when she hears him say her name. He smiles back and the door closes. She is alone with Amelia.

"Wow, you have been through a lot lately. How are you making out?" Amelia's concern seems genuine.

"Fine, really. William has been so good to me, arranging this meeting, and everything."

"Yes, he seems to have a sweet spot for you. How much do you know about him?"

Isabella is taken back by the question, and immediately feels as though she needs to defend him. She thinks for a moment about how she will answer, suspecting that Amelia has information about him that, probably, she should know.

"Not much, actually. Why?"

"Oh, it is just that he is doing a lot for you. I didn't know if you found that unusual."

"He tells me it is so he can have dinner with me, but you are right, there has to be more to it than that." Isabella really wants Amelia to come clean here and tell her everything.

"Listen, I haven't known William Fryer for all that long, but he is a friend of my husband, and that says a lot. From what I know of him, I would consider yourself fortunate to have him on your side."

"I do feel fortunate."

Amelia sits across the table from Isabella and places her hands on the wood surface. "Isabella, I wanted to talk to you in private in case there might be something that you would want to say to me that you might not feel comfortable saying in front of William. He is, after all, still an employee of the company that you might be suing one day. Plus, sometimes it is easier having a woman to woman conversation."

"I see." But Isabella doesn't see. She doesn't have anything she wouldn't say in front of William.

"I mean, perhaps there are parts of the story that you don't want William to know about, things that happened between you and Angelo that might have contributed to the attempted assault. Please be honest with me, Isabella."

Isabella is shocked. How dare this woman insinuate that Isabella might have brought this on herself? She certainly didn't do anything to lead Angelo on, and if she did, she did not do it intentionally. Perhaps their original email conversation is still available. That would provide evidence that she wasn't flirting with him, that he was the one preying on her. Or would it? She thinks, for a moment, about how that conversation might be interpreted if looked at from the outside. Now, she is beginning to doubt herself.

"Ah, Ms. Crowley, you have to believe me, I did nothing to provoke his advances. I—I can't believe that you would accuse me of leading him on."

Amelia smiles and places her hand on Isabella's. "It is upsetting, I know. But if you were to go through with a criminal trial, I can tell you that questions like that would be nothing compared with what they will do to you. Angelo Lord's defence would set out to destroy you, Isabella. That is the way it works: they will do everything they can to discredit you, to turn you into a tramp, to have you question your own integrity. All they need to do is raise the possibility of doubt, and Angelo will get an acquittal."

"But you would help me, my lawyers would defend me, wouldn't they?"

Amelia sounds gentle again. "Isabella, we would not be defending you because you would not be the one on trial. Angelo would be the accused. And he would have the best team of lawyers that money can buy to defend him. You would only be acting as a witness, called on by the State Prosecutor to tell your story. But when it comes time for the cross-examination, Angelo's team will tear you apart. They will have had access to all the prosecution's documents and evidence, and transcripts of all the interviews in advance of the trial."

"Is that fair?"

"The court system protects the rights of the accused, so it is fair in that it the accused gets a fair trial. It is not about what is fair for the victim. That is where the civil suit can have a role."

"But first I need to win the criminal case."

"Not you, Isabella. The prosecutor—the people—need to win. You are only a witness, remember."

"But I am the victim! Do I have no rights?"

"You have the right to see justice done. But, as you can see, the odds of a conviction are going to be pretty slim. The cross examination will try to create doubt in the minds of the jury that you led him on, that you teased him, that you wanted him—he is, after all, successful, gorgeous, rich—so they would have the jury believe that there is a motive on your part to discredit him. They will show that you made contact with him after the original proposition, so you had time to think it through. They will show that you conspired with Mariana, his bitter ex-fiancee, to set him up, to get him back. And Mariana won't make a very credible witness, given that she chose to have sex with him again, knowing his alleged history of abuse."

It is clear to Isabella that the trial process is designed to benefit the accused, which she always figured was something to be proud of, a sign of fair and just legal system. But now, she is sees it from a different perspective, through the eyes of a victim.

Isabella thinks back to her high school, to when she took a course in Law in the eleventh grade. They went on a field trip to the courthouse in Rochester where they watched a trial of a man accused of committing a series of burglaries. The evidence was solid and there was little chance that he would get off. But she did remember the cross examination part of the trial. What struck her was how the defence attorney kept asking the prosecution's only witness, an elderly lady, what seemed to be irrelevant questions about past events, trying to show how she had difficulty remembering things that happened a long time before. The old woman, by the end, was flustered and upset. Isabella remembers how the poor lady was never given the chance to redeem herself. It ended with, "no more questions, your honor." Now, she would be the woman on the stand, with no chance for redemption.

Amelia continues to explain that in the United States, only two percent of rape cases ever lead to a conviction. Off the top, over two thirds of sexual assaults are not even reported and of the the one third that is reported, only seven percent lead to an arrest, with more than half of those dropped before they even go to trial. Isabella realizes that as bizarre and disturbing as her story is, she falls in with the majority of sex crime cases: unreported, and the perpetrators get to walk free, unpunished. And who is left carrying the burden of guilt? The victim, usually the woman, who not only must try to overcome the trauma of assault, very often she is still living with the man who assaulted her and is left shouldering with the blame because she was asking for it, she dressed provocatively, she wanted it, or she agreed to it, or she married him. And the system—the legal system, the church, social institutions—all seem to propagate this culture.

Isabella now knows that she will not be reporting this to the police.

"So Amelia, if it is unlikely that we would be successful in getting a conviction, might it be better to consider a civil suit then?"

"It is worth considering, but you need to realize that the defendant's team of lawyers will still base Angelo's defence around trying to show your promiscuous nature. You will still be made out to be the slut who used her sex appeal to tempt the virtuous man. They will try to establish that you had ulterior motives, that once Angelo realized that he was being taken by the conniving temptress, he dumps you. Then you, the poor-broken hearted little girl, cries sexual harassment, and sues him for his millions. Are you prepared to play that role?"

"Wow, Amelia, you sure know how to knock a girl down."

"I'm sorry, but you need to know that this will be messy, and will take a very long time. If we were to represent you, you need to know that we would, of course, try to prove the opposite and expose Angelo for who he is and what he has done. Maybe there are other women who would come forward, and this might even become a class action suit against Alpha. There may be grounds for a claim here, but you need to be aware of what it will cost you, on an emotional and personal level."

"But at the end of it, would Angelo be stopped, would other women be spared his abuse, would he be made to account for his actions?"

Amelia pushes her chair back and stands. She takes a few paces, as if she needs to stretch. Isabella senses that she has asked her a question for which Amelia regrets having to answer. But Isabella trusts that her answer will be truthful.

"Don't get me wrong Isabella, I would love to take on this claim. But, realistically, what will likely happen is that once the original media storm that this claim would generate quells, and the proceedings drag on for years, Alpha will negotiate an out of court settlement to make this go away, and life goes on. Sorry to be so pessimistic about it, but we need to be realistic."

"Do you think it will stop Angelo?"

"That really depends on how Alpha deals with it internally. They might choose to make some changes at the top, to show that they take these allegations seriously and do everything they can to keep this out of the spotlight. Or they could choose to deny all allegations of wrongdoing and take the position that any regime change could be seen as an admission of liability. I would hope that either way, Angelo would learn his lesson, but it will be a high price for you to pay. Not in terms of lawyer fees, we would work those into the settlement, but it will take a toll on you. Your reputation, your career, your time. This will be the defining act of your professional life. You will be known hereafter as the woman who attempted to take on Alpha Incorporated and take down Angelo Lord. You need to be sure that you are committed to that role."

Isabella suddenly feels the weight of the room on her. It is like the lights, above, are pushing into her. The walls are closing in, the floor begins to press upwards. She wants out. She wants to be home, with her mother. She wants mom to be downstairs baking apple crisp, and she wants the smell to be wafting into her bedroom. She wants to look out her bedroom window onto the lawn, she wants to see their two Collie-German Shepherd crosses running after a stick. She wants the sun to be shining and summer to be here. She wants to go outside and play with Molly. She wants to be Isabella, then.

A hand touches her shoulder and Isabella looks up at Amelia, standing above her. "It's okay. I know you have had a tough couple of days and you have a lot to think about. Nothing needs to be decided this minute."

Isabella feels better and when Amelia opens the door, she feels the freshness of new air. She breathes deeply. "Yes, I feel overwhelmed. I need some time to sort through all of this. It is almost like the world I once knew no longer exists, that I need to question the things that I once believed to be true."

"I think it is called growing up," Amelia laughs as she motions Isabella to stand. "But don't let it get you down, don't lose sight of the good things in this world."

"Like what?"

Amelia holds the door for Isabella and points down the hall, to the waiting room. "Like the man in the next room, waiting to cook you dinner tonight."