Chapter 10 - The Job in Seattle
The next discovery was not criminal either.
Valerie had applied for a senior operations role in Seattle.
Four months before the attack.
She reached final interviews.
Told nobody.
The company offered her the job.
She declined the first start date.
Then asked whether the position could remain open through summer.
Why hide it?
Because leaving meant confronting custody.
Dad.
Leo.
Me.
The marriage.
Her recruiter’s notes, later produced voluntarily after legal process, contained one comment:
Candidate says family situation may change significantly and relocation timing depends on resolving caregiving responsibilities.
Not:
I have no children.
No fraud.
Just avoidance.
Valerie had been thinking about leaving.
At the same time, she was stripping away home-care support.
The prosecutor did not claim the job application caused the attack.
It did not.
But psychologically, a picture emerged.
Valerie had created a fantasy of escape.
Then every therapy session, crying episode, and accommodation felt like proof she was trapped before she could leave.
She could have told Dad:
I cannot do this.
May you like
Instead she treated Leo as the thing preventing freedom.
That difference mattered.
