“I was spending the night at my best friend’s house,” I said at last. “Juliana Howe. Thomas was her older brother. The last few times I’d been over, he’d made some comments. If we were alone in a room together, he stood too close, made me feel uncomfortable. But I was sixteen. Boys, particularly older boys, made me uncomfortable.”

“Then why’d you spend the night?” D.D. wanted to know.

“Juliana was my best friend,” I said quietly, and in that moment I felt it all again. The terror. Her tears. My loss.

“You brought a gun,” the detective continued.

“My father gave me the gun,” I corrected. “I’d gotten a job in the food court at the mall. I often worked till eleven, then had to walk out to my car in the dark. He wanted me to have some protection.”

“So he gave you a gun?” D.D. sounded incredulous.

I smiled. “You’d have to know my father. Picking me up in person would have meant getting involved. Handing me a twenty-two semiauto I had no idea how to use, on the other hand, got him off the hook. So that’s what he did.”

“Describe that night.” Bobby spoke up quietly.

“I went to Juliana’s house. Her brother was out; I was happy. We made popcorn and had a Molly Ringwald movie marathon—Sixteen Candles, followed by Breakfast Club. I fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke up all the lights were off and someone had put a blanket over me. I assumed Juliana had headed up to bed. I was just going to follow when her brother walked through the front door. Thomas was drunk. He spotted me. He …”

Both detectives and my lawyer waited.

“I tried to get around him,” I said finally. “He cornered me against the sofa, pressed me down into it. He was bigger, stronger. I was sixteen. He was nineteen. What could I do?”

My voice trailed off again. I swallowed.

“May I have some water?” I asked.

My lawyer found the pitcher bedside, poured me a glass. My hand was shaking when I raised the plastic cup. I figured they couldn’t blame me for the show of nerves. I drank the whole cup, then set it down again. Given how long it had been since I’d last given a statement, I had to think this through. Consistency was everything, and I couldn’t afford a mistake this late in the game.

Three pairs of eyes waited for me.

I took another deep breath. Gripped the blue button and thought about life, the patterns we made, the cycles we couldn’t escape.

Sacrifice judiciously.