Just tell the truth—the whole truth. Let it all out. Get it over with— finally, finally over with.

But what about Karim? The truth would send him out into life branded, the man whose mother had killed his father in a case that would be remembered for decades.

So maybe Malik was right after all.

She was a wreck. She had never before taken a tranquilizer, but now she downed Valium more regularly than she ate food. Sleep was a stranger.

She couldn’t go back to the Palm Springs house. She would see the blood- stains by the pool, even if they had disappeared. She took a hotel room for the duration of the legal proceedings. The staff were accustomed to celebrity patrons who expected privacy, and they kept reporters at a distance.

Outside the hotel, Jabr took over, his countenance and the set of his thick shoulders giving pause to even the most determined camera operator or micro- phone-waving broadcast journalist from Eyewitness News. Jackals. She had come to hate them all. Look at the way they had savaged Malik.

Her practice had all but disintegrated. Ironically, her remaining patients now sustained her more than she them. Colleen Dowd offered to fly out and help in whatever way she could; the offer was sincere and, for an agoraphobic, incredibly courageous. Toni Ferrante did fly out. She walked right over Jabr’s initial distrust. Within twenty-four hours, they were all but partners, an improbable but highly effective security team.

Jenna visited Malik daily—he was unfailingly cheerful and optimistic— and Laila, whom Malik had forbidden to come to the courtroom or the jail. She conveyed messages to Farid and the lawyers and did what she could to aid the defense. During the voir dire, she studied prospective jurors closely as they responded to questioning. Body language. Hesitations in speech. A blush. A blink. After each session, she reported to the lawyers.

They were quite a team: one a tiny, tough Donna Karan-suited New Yorker named Rosalie Silber; the other a tall, tanned, white-maned Texan, J.T. Quarles, given to string ties and snakeskin cowboy boots. In their profession, both were superstars. Cordially jealous of each other, they nevertheless worked together like a championship doubles team.

Toward Jenna, their attitude, at first, was one of amiable condescension. They had their own experts for juror analysis—and their own tried-and- proved intuition. But there came a moment when the Texan turned to the New Yorker and said, “You know, Rose, there’s a lot in what Dr. Jenna here says. Maybe we should take another look at number fifty-four.”

“I concur in both statements,” Rosalie replied.