Three shots in the back. Sometimes Jenna could almost hear the jurors counting.

But now, Rosalie Silber of Manhattan and J.T. Quarles of Houston had their turn. They called a few of Malik’s employees—Farid, Jabr, a maid, a horse trainer, a pilot—to establish that Malik had not been expecting Ali, and indeed had not expected to be at home that fateful afternoon.

Jordan Chiles’s cross-examination could have come from the daily papers. At every turn, he pounded the theme that Malik was an obscenely rich inter- national scoundrel who took what he wanted—including lives. Objection after objection from the defense was sustained, but the jury could not have missed the message.

Jenna was not brought to the stand, nor would she be. Malik had ordered Rosalie and J.T. not to call her for the defense, and the district attorney’s office had decided that she was worse than useless: she had not seen the shooting and could only create sympathy for the defendant.

The key witness for the defense—the only witness who really mattered— was Malik himself. It was necessary for him to testify because no one else could put his version of events on the record.

He performed impressively. The empty sleeve was eloquent in itself, and when Malik explained the reason for it and why he carried a gun, two male jurors nodded in unconscious agreement. Later, under cross-examination, Malik never lost control or let himself be pulled into a discussion of his past: he simply waited for his attorneys’ objections to be sustained.

Yet, something was wrong. Jenna could feel it. In a business deal or a social situation, Malik could throw up a smoke screen of charm, jokes, mock anger, even tears—whatever was needed to carry him through. But this was a court- room, and as good as Malik was at deception, he wasn’t really good at plain lying. Jenna knew the signs. She could see them on his face, hear them in his voice. Could the jury recognize them, too?

In the postmortem that evening, J.T. and Rosalie seemed worried. Unspoken signals that Jenna couldn’t decipher shot back and forth between them.

“They’ll be done with our client tomorrow morning,’’ J.T. told Jenna. “We’ll have a little redirect, then rest. Judge’ll probably adjourn for the day. Then summation shouldn’t take more than another day, wouldn’t you think, Rose?”

“Better make it two,” said Rosalie. “Chiles is going to be on a soapbox.” “Yeah, make it two. Then it’s in the hands of twelve ordinary citizens, good and true.”

“What if—” said Jenna. She stopped. “What if what?” asked Rosalie. “What if I testified?”

The two lawyers glanced at each other.

“Testified to what?” said Rosalie.

“If I just testified for my—for Malik.”