You don't get to sit in that chair and be worried about her. I'm not worried about her. Preston said, "I'm telling you what will happen. I know these people, Clare. They're my people.

I hired most of them. If that child's name goes in a filing, there will be a very good firm on it inside of 90 minutes. And they will go at her father, not her, him. They will find 11 false warranty claims on company paperwork and they will put it on a screen and they will say this is a man who lies on documents for sympathetic reasons and a jury will believe it because it's true. Claire's hand was on the door.

You want to protect that little girl. Preston Marsh said then don't hand her to me. I will use her. Not because I want to, because I'll be in a room where it's the only thing left on the table and I'll be 67 and I'll do it. At 5:03, Clareire Bennett said, "Then I won't put her in a filing."

Good. I'll do something worse. Do something. At 6:20 that evening, Marcus's front door opened and Clare Bennett walked into his house and Marcus Williams was standing in his own living room and he did not say hello. Where were you, Marcus?

Where were you, Claire? You know where I was. Say it. I went to Preston Marsh's office at 6:21. Marcus Williams said, "There was a man outside my sister's house.

Claire's bag hit the floor." "What? 4:00 parked watching my child in a yard." "Marcus, while you were in his daddy's office," Marcus said. There was a car outside my sister's house.

Claire had gone white to the lips. Is she? She's fine. She's with Renee. Rene's got a friend sitting in the driveway with a folding chair and a Louisville slugger, which I want you to picture because that's my life now.

Marcus, I didn't know. I know you didn't know. And it came out of him at last. All of it. All 40 hours of it.

And it took the whole room. That's the problem, Claire. You don't know. You have never once known. You didn't know what it looked like when you knocked on my door.

You didn't know what it looked like when you talked to that cop in my driveway. You didn't know he had a father. You didn't know he had 11 women before you. And you turned your phone off. I turned it off so I wouldn't.

You turned your phone off, Marcus said. And I called you four times and it went straight to voicemail and I sat in a hot truck and I thought that's how it happens. That's exactly how it happens. Somebody's fine and then a phone's off. At 6:24, Clareire Bennett said, "I turned it off so I wouldn't call you and ask permission."

Marcus stopped. "Say that again. Say that. I turned it off so I wouldn't call you." Clare said, "Because I knew that if I heard your voice, I'd ask you if I should go and you'd have said no."

And I'd have said, "Okay." And Marcus, I have spent four years asking a man if I was sure. And I got in the elevator and I thought if I ask this one and he says no and I stop then I never actually got out. I just changed who's holding it. The room went very quiet.

That's not fair to you. She said you'd have said no for good reasons. He said no for bad ones. It doesn't matter. It's still me standing in a hallway waiting to be told.

At 6:27 Marcus Williams sat down. Claire, he said, that's the best reason anybody's ever given me for the worst thing anybody's ever done to me. I know. Don't ever do it again. I won't.

That's four, Marcus said. And Clare Bennett laughed. And then she was crying and she sat down on the floor with her back against the door and said, "He offered me $500,000." At 6:29, Marcus said, "Say that again." 11 women, Marcus, I'm the 12th.

He's been paying them off since Ethan was 19. He said everything in your folder is legal. And he was right. And he said the only thing I can't survive is the little girl. And he was right about that, too.

Clare. And then he told me not to put her in it. Clare said, "And Marcus, that's the part. That's the part I drove 40 minutes with. He told me not to put her in it because he would use her."

He said it out loud. He said, "Don't hand her to me. I'll use her. I'll be in a room and it'll be the only thing left and I'll do it. Marcus put his hands over his face.

So, we've got nothing, he said. No, Clare said. We've got everything. We've just been holding it upside down. At 6:33, Clare Bennett stood up off the floor.

Marcus, what's the one thing that man cannot survive? Lily. No. She was already pulling the folder out of her bag. Lily is just the photograph.

Think why is a photograph the only thing he can't survive. Everything else is legal. The taxes are legal. The options are legal. Ben Harrove saying the assessments do the work is legal.

He told me he said put it on the front page and 300 people call wanting to invest. So why does a man in a backyard end him? Because it's ugly. because it's specific, Clare said, because it's a person, Marcus. Nobody in this city is going to riot about a tax assessment. But you put a face on it and it's over.

And he knows that. And that's why he spent 11 years making sure there's never a face because he pays for the faces. 11 checks. 11 faces bought. Marcus lowered his hands.

Clare. He can survive anything except a person nobody paid. Clare said at 6:36, Marcus Williams stood up. Ruthie Coleman. Ruthie Coleman.

Clare. She signed an option. An option is not a sale. Clare said an option is a promise to sit down in January. Marcus, that's not a deed.

That woman still owns her house. She owns it right now today. And she has until January. And there is not one lawyer in this state who can make her sign in January if she doesn't want to. She can't pay $9,400.

No, Clare said. She can't. And she looked at him. At 638, Marcus Williams said, "No, Marcus." "No, Claire.

I know what your face is doing." "No, it's 400,000 after taxes." "No, Marcus. It's nine houses. It's his money."

Marcus shouted. And then he pulled it down hard because it was 638 and there was no child in the house. And he shouted anyway and it scared him how good it felt. It's his money, Clare. You take his money and your number 12.

You're a woman who called Christmas. I'm not signing anything. He'll make you sign. He can't. Clare said, "That's the whole thing.

That's what I figured out in the elevator. He can't make me sign because he doesn't have anything to make me sign with. He's already taken the project. He's already taken my career. It's gone.

Marcus, it went Tuesday. I just hadn't finished understanding it. There is not one thing that man can threaten me with because he already spent it all before I ever walked in the door. At 6:41, Marcus said, "He'll come at me. He already did.

He'll come at Lily." Marcus. Clare's voice dropped. He's coming at Lily right now. There was a car outside your sister's house at 4:00 this afternoon and I was sitting in a chair 45 mi away and I want you to hear this.

That happened while I was doing nothing. That happened while we were being quiet. Quiet didn't buy you one single day. Marcus stood in the middle of his living room with both hands on the back of his own neck. Deacon Hollis, he said.

What? Deacon Hollis put a compressor in my yard at 6:00 in the morning and wouldn't take a dollar. Marcus said, "And I spent 3 years turning it into a bill." Ruthie told me this morning, "She's the one who called him. She's been watching me pay a debt that was never a debt for 3 years because I couldn't stand to just be given something."

"Marcus, and now here you come," Marcus said with $400,000. And I'm standing here doing it again. At 6:44, Clareire Bennett said very quietly, "It's not for you." Marcus's head came up. It's not for you, she said again.

That's what I keep trying to say. Marcus, I'm not paying your power bill. I'm paying an 81-year-old woman's taxes so she can say no in January and you don't get a vote in that because it isn't your house and it isn't your debt and it is not your turn. The house hummed. Now sit down, Clare said, and help me figure out the other eight.