Rex smiled kindly. “I know this is difficult, Michael. Please know that I’ll do everything I can to get you through this. Plus you have Dani and Diesel. Let’s start at the beginning. Your stepfather, John Brewer, is dead. Your mother accuses you of doing it.”

“But I didn’t!” Michael interrupted. The interpreter’s voice clearly communicated the boy’s dismay.

Rex nodded. “I hear you.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I can’t know that until you tell me everything. I want to believe you, Michael. I know Diesel and Dani already do, and that’s powerful. Okay, so you had a gun hidden under your pillow. Those are basically the facts we have right now. That your mother accuses you doesn’t mean that I think you did it. But it’s a fact that she’s accused you. Do you see the difference?” When Michael nodded, he went on. “I want to note all the facts we have. To do that, I’ll be asking you for your opinions, too. Okay?”

Michael nodded again, suspicion in his eyes. “Okay.”

“Why did your mother accuse you of killing your stepfather?”

Michael swallowed hard. “She knew I hated him.”

“Did you hate him?” Rex pressed.

Michael nodded again, his jaw setting with fury. “I did.”

Rex held the boy’s gaze. “Why?”

“Because he beat me. And . . . did other things. He’d come to my bed and—” Michael pressed a fist to his mouth.

Diesel placed his hand between Michael’s shoulder blades, anchoring him. “Think of it as a mugging,” he signed one-handed. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She said I did.” Michael’s hands shook as he signed. “She said I seduced him.”

Diesel bit back a roar of rage. “I don’t believe you did that. You shouldn’t believe it, either.”

Michael nodded shakily and turned back to Rex. He took a deep breath and signed, “He raped me. And when I told my mother, she said I was lying—at first. But then she found bloodstains on my sheets and got so mad at me. She said I seduced him. That I was the reason he didn’t want her anymore.”

Rex jotted notes on the legal pad in front of him. “What did you say to your mother?”

“That she was wrong.” Michael lifted his chin. “That I’d go to the cops.”

Rex’s smile was gentle. “That was very brave. What did she say then?”