“The only thing that’s ever helped me is to do my job. For a while—three and a half years—I decided to be a police officer. I thought arresting the evil in this world would help me ease the pain, but I knew my real talent was in the courtroom, and only as the district attorney general could I see to it that perps like the man who raped me would be given the maximum punishment under the law.”

Bo nodded, more to himself it seemed. “You’re only at peace when you’re working a case.” He glanced up at her. “I get that.”

She squeezed his hand. “I know you do.”

The room was so quiet now that Helen could hear the faint sound of phones ringing, even from outside the block walls.

“General, what did you do after you learned you were pregnant?” Bo asked.

She sighed. “By that time, I’d agreed to marry Butch. When I came back to Knoxville, he was waiting on my doorstep with a ring. I was so flustered and felt so guilty—can you believe that? I felt guilty that I was raped?—that I agreed to his proposal.” She hung her head. “I guess I wanted to feel normal again.”

“Did you tell Butch about the pregnancy?”

She choked back a sob and stood from her chair. “Yes.”

“When?”

“A week before Christmas, 1977.”

“What did you tell him?”

She folded her arms so tight against her chest that it was difficult to breathe. “That I had been pregnant . . .” She trailed off, unable to finish.

“Had been?”

Helen nodded, and let out a short, choppy breath.

“Did you tell him anything else?”

She turned and looked at Bo, seeing the horror plastered to his face. “That I had aborted our child.”

Now it was Bo who needed to stretch his legs, and he paced around the small room with his hands in his pockets. “You let him think that the baby was his?” There was a challenge in his voice that Helen didn’t like.

She set her jaw and let her arms fall to her sides. “Yes, I did.”

He didn’t say anything, continuing to walk back and forth across the room.

She took his silence as an accusation. “I suppose you think it would have been better if I had borne all to him and told him the truth.”

Bo stopped and looked at her. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” He paused. “And we’ve drifted a long way from the events of April 1, 2015. We should get back on point.”

“The prosecution is going to use the abortion as the motive for murder, right? That’s what you said when you stormed in here and demanded to know every detail about it.”

He continued to peer at her.

“Well, are they going to try to use it or not?”

Bo nodded.

“Then you need to know the deal.”