Chapter Three

10 years ago

Raymond Holcombe’s head was hurting. He flinched as he tried to move, finding it was impossible. It was dark. No, his eyes were closed. It hurt to breathe. Suddenly, his hearing came back, and he could hear traffic, sirens, and mechanical equipment drowning out voices that were talking in hurried tones.

He opened one eye, and something pulling on the lashes caused him to tear up. He was in a car or what was once a car. He tried turning his head to look for his father, William. Where were they? Raymond blinked. More pulling on his eyes, he moved his right hand, pulling his arm out from under the remnants of an airbag.

“Are you okay?” The voice sounded far away and loud all at once. Raymond flinched and wiped his eyes. 

His voice broke.

“I don’t know.”

__________________________________________________________________

Raymond woke again to loud sounds of machinery. 

“Hey buddy,” a friendly voice said somewhere behind him, “My name is Chris; I am a paramedic and here to help you.”

Raymond could feel their hands gently touch his head. 

“I am going to check you for bleeding, okay? Do not move.”

Holcombe was able to see more, and light from outside the vehicle illuminated the area around him. The front of his dad's truck was crumpled up in front of him, bent metal and plastic obscuring the view through the shattered windshield. He shifted his eyes left, not moving his head. The area between him and the driver seat was obliterated, with what look pieces of the dashboard having been pushed by the engine block almost into the back seat. 

There was a large canvas top blocking this view of the driver's seat.

“Okay, listen to me. What’s your name? This disembodied voice came from behind him. 

“Ray.” 

“Okay, Ray, stay with me. Here is what we are doing: we have to cut you out of the truck. You were in a really bad car accident. I am going to put a collar on you, and then I am going to get a tarp over us. My buddies are going to cut out the windshield, and then we are going to pop the door and get you out of here.”

Raymond could feel movement behind him and then something hard and plastic wrapped around his neck. He moved his lips to talk, finding it hard with his chin suddenly being strapped to the plastic collar.

“Where’s my Dad?”

“Next to you. There are other guys helping him, so I need you to focus on yourself. Listen, can you wiggle your toes for me?”

Raymond concentrated. “Yes, maybe. I am not sure.”

“That’s okay. You’re going to feel me hold your hands. I need you to squeeze them.” Holcombe felt the paramedic's hands squeeze him slightly. He squeezed back. 

“That’s good!” The paramedic said with praise in his voice. “Good. Good. Okay, they are going to put the tarp over us, and it is going to be really loud.”

It took more than 20 minutes to cut Raymond out of the truck. He remembered the lights and random people moving him and carrying him. He was strapped to a hard board. More voices explained things that were happening. 

He was in the back of an ambulance; a paramedic had just put a needle in his arm and was talking about “fluids” or something. 

“Excuse me, can I talk to him?” a voice came from the door at the rear of the ambulance.

“Sure, come on in.” the paramedic shuffled to the head of the stretcher. 

“Oh, can you turn the lights down?” the voice turned into a figure that was on Raymond's left. The man was dressed in a shirt and tie, with a windbreaker that said “Houston Police” in bright yellow letters. Raymond struggled to make everything out in his peripheral vision.

“Are you Raymond William Holcombe?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“My name is Michael Bronson. I am a detective with the Houston Police Department. You were in a very serious car accident. Was your father, William Holcombe, driving in the car with you tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Raymond,” the man shifted and leaned over him. “I am sorry to tell you this, but your father did not survive the accident. He is dead.”

Raymond didn’t hear anything else after that. 

The next few hours were a blur of activity. The ambulance trip to the emergency room. X-rays. More needles. People were over-explaining everything, and then their voices turned somber as word spread among the medical staff about who he was. 

He was the son of William Eustice Holcombe.

William Holcombe was one of the few well-known attorneys in Houston who did not have a nickname attached to their practice. During his first year out of law school, William would drive all over Houston,  peppering employee parking lots at refineries with flyers promoting his standalone law practice. After a couple of minor cases for wrongful terminations, employee compensation, and various other torts, William was handed the case of a lifetime. 

A refinery explosion in Baytown caused the deaths of three workers, one of which William had just helped with a will the year before. Since the family already had a relationship with the one-man Holcombe practice, William was able to convince them and the families of the other workers to sue. 

After two years of litigation, the refinery was found guilty of multiple counts of negligence, violations of environmental and safety laws, fraud, and obstruction. The payout, which was $1.2 billion, was the largest to date in Texas. 

William Holcombe became an overnight legal celebrity, appearing on cable news shows. Hundreds of requests for legal representation flooded his bespoke practice, causing him to quickly find and acquire a new law firm, change the name, and begin a steady practice of taking on corporate wrongdoings. He made massive donations of his newfound fortune to schools for scholarships, political campaigns, homeless non-profits, and art museums, all equally, thus cementing himself deeper into the elite societies of Houston. 

Ray, of course, was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. A few months ago, he graduated from law school and passed the bar on his first try. While studying, he worked as a paralegal at his father's firm. It didn’t matter if he was the founder's son; he had to earn his dues to be respected as a competent attorney. 

That evening, Ray returned from dinner with his father and two partners from Holcombe & Graham. They discussed strategies for significant cases whose court dates were expected to start in the next few months. For the first time, Ray was being brought in to help prepare the case for trial, and it would be the first time he would get to practice law.

That night changed everything for Raymond Holcombe, but not in the way he ever expected. 
_______________________________________________________

Ray was moved out of the Emergency Department and into surgery. As he moved around the hospital, time became a blur, and most of his view was just the ceiling tiles. At some point, the detective came back.

“Raymond,” he said quietly. “I just wanted to know we arrested the driver of the vehicle that forced your father off the road. It was a few hours after the arrest. He was drunk and didn’t even remember it. We have video from a TranStar camera that confirms it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Raymond said, his voice dry. It hurt to talk. 

“Call me Mike. Look, the next few days are going to be intense for you. A lot of people, including different lawyers, are going to be asking your questions. I heard you just graduated from law school, so you probably know a lot about this stuff.”

“Not really. I haven’t even passed the bar.”

“I understand. Look, I know a lot has happened to you. You lost your father, and now you are alone. As I said, a lot of attorneys are going to be coming in here to ask you questions, but for no reason; I just want you to tell me whatever you are comfortable with about that night. You tell me the story of what happened.”

Raymond swallowed carefully. “Why is that important?”

“Because, Raymond, you are the victim, and every story matters.”