We walk back out into the world only an hour later, me in the worn jeans and sweater I arrived in, he in a wool gabardine suit and silk tie. If Lander’s tired, he shows no sign of it. He strides confidently into the sun like he’s Icarus with a tougher set of wings. But me? For the first time in years I feel timid. How long have I allowed anger to extinguish any uncertainty that dared to spark?

But although the lion’s share of my heart still belongs to anger, a small sliver of it belongs to something—or someone—else. That sliver is weakening me and now uncertainty has a fighting chance.

Lander kisses me gently before jumping into a cab, pressing into my palm enough money so I can take one too. I have to get back to my apartment and change before rushing to take my place at Jessica’s side. Well . . . perhaps not rush. She expects me at ten a.m., but it’s unlikely she’ll even look at a clock before ten thirty. It usually takes her at least that long to recover from whatever ordeal her husband and children have put her through on their way out the door.

I actually relish the cab ride home. It gives me time to think, which I desperately need. As my car bumps along I consider the facts.

Fact: My mother didn’t shoot Nick Foley.

Her fingerprints weren’t even on the damn gun! Of course, the prosecutor explained that away by positing that there were no fingerprints because someone wiped it down. But if my mother had had the presence of mind to do that, then why didn’t she also refrain from prostrating herself over Nick’s dead body? When she called the police, she had his blood all over her shirt. And really, if she was trying to cover her tracks, why would she bother calling the police at all? No one was on the street that night. I was the only one who saw her enter that house. She was the housekeeper, so even if they found a few of her hairs around the room, it wouldn’t have been damning. Why didn’t she just leave?

Of course, the answer is that she didn’t leave because it didn’t occur to her that she might be considered a suspect. It’s not the kind of thing that occurs to innocent people in a moment of grief. It’s a shame I didn’t think all that through when I was ten, but it’s a travesty that her public defender didn’t think it through either.

Fact: Jessica Gable is a liar.