A more direct challenge arrived late in January when Harlon's public relations consultant gave an interview to a regional business newsletter. He described the lawsuit as a painful misunderstanding arising from a grieving daughter's difficulty accepting her father's final wishes. He praised Grant's legacy, said Harlon had only ever wanted to preserve jobs, and suggested that outside influences were taking advantage of Willa's vulnerability. The piece did not accuse Northern Shields by name, but the implication was plain enough that customers began forwarding it to Reese.
Reese asked Callum whether the shop needed to respond. Callum advised a brief factual statement confirming that Willa was a paid employee, that the garage had no ownership interest in the disputed business, and that the litigation belonged to Willa and the court. Reese issued exactly that statement. He had lived too long to believe that every accusation deserved a long answer. The less the club performed outrage for the internet, the more the case remained about documents and conduct.
Willa wanted to do more. She drafted an angry letter describing her father's hospital bed, the pain medication, and the way Harlon had spoken to her in the office after the funeral. She wrote until midnight, filling four pages with words she had been carrying since the day she left West Haven. Then she read it again, folded it, and put it in her notebook rather than sending it. The letter was true to her feelings. It was not the best evidence she had.
The next morning she told Fig about the letter while they waited for a customer to arrive. He asked whether writing it had helped. Willa admitted that it had. "Then keep it," he said.
"Not everything you write has to be for an audience. Some things are for knowing where your own head was on a particular day." She looked at the notebook in her hand, surprised by how closely his words matched the reason she had been writing in it since she was sixteen.
Near the end of February, Callum arranged for Willa to give a formal statement. He prepared her for the possibility that Harlon's lawyers would question her memory, her motives, and her decision to use the name Hart. He did not tell her to become tougher or less emotional. He told her to answer what was asked, pause when she needed to think, and say when she did not know. Her credibility did not depend on pretending she had been calm through the worst year of her life.
During the questioning, one of the attorneys asked whether she had left West Haven because she was embarrassed by the failure of her challenge. Willa answered that she had left because she was unable to find stable work and no longer felt safe after the unexplained entry into her apartment. When asked whether she could prove Harlon had arranged that entry, she said no. When asked whether her father had ever discussed the possibility of transferring the business entirely to Harlon, she said he had discussed business continuity but had specifically told her he wanted her interest protected.