I knew the death penalty existed in America – Jenna and I had watched Dead Man Walking – but weren’t those Southern states, bigoted, racist?

‘Nevertheless, it has the death penalty, and executions have been taking place since the seventies, after a brief hiatus.’

‘But – what do you get the death penalty for?’

He reeled off a few examples. ‘Multiple murders. Exceptionally wicked murders. The murder of a child – that will likely come under the guidance.’

All right. The world made no sense, and I just had to try to understand it.

Focus, Casey. You’ll wake up from this soon.

‘But I didn’t do it. I had no blood on me, did I? Except my feet?’

They’d told me, and I had seen for myself, that Abby’s throat had been cut. I couldn’t have done that without getting blood on my skimpy vest top and skirt, could I?

‘They’ll find a way to spin that. You changed your clothes, maybe.’

‘But I didn’t!’

‘It was all over your feet – walked throughout the house.’

‘I stepped in it!’

The horror of it hit me again, and I began to shake. I reached down to brush at my ankles in their nasty prison socks, although I had showered several times since walking in Abby’s blood. I wondered would it ever leave me. Her blood. She was dead. David. Madison. All dead. I would never see or talk to them again. The shock of it was moving slowly through me, numbing me. Dead. All except Carson. I had saved Carson. That was the only thing I had to hold on to, a ray of light in the darkness.

He sighed. ‘You have to understand, Casey, the evidence is against you. No one else went into the house. There’s no other prints, or hairs, or DNA – only yours.’

‘I lived in the house – of course my DNA was there. Anyway, you mean no one saw them go in. They might have – the front door was open when I came back.’

‘So you claim. But we can’t prove that. And the public mood, with a dead child . . . well. And you’re not from here. It looks bad.’

I gaped at him. I suppose this was my privilege, a young white girl, never expecting to be judged by appearances. I didn’t know it was happening right at the moment, my photo circulating on the internet and on TV news and in the papers. A nickname was even being coined: Racy Casey. One that would haunt me.

‘They don’t give women the death penalty, surely?’

Garrett Cooper pinched his nose, as if dealing with me was giving him a migraine. I would later learn that California in fact has the most women on Death Row of any American state.