This time the spectators make no sound at all. In fact, they are so silent that I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. My father has just admitted malpractice on the stand. And I am certain he is about to make it worse.

“No?” Quentin asks, as though shocked. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. Her answer had stunned me, but I was also enraged by what I’d heard about the gang rape. I couldn’t bring myself to try to save the man who had done that. I heard a siren. An ambulance my staff had called arrived outside. After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up the syringe Viola had used and hid it in a drawer.”

Dad falls silent, as though replaying the incident in his mind is all that he can handle.

“And then . . . ?” Quentin prompts him.

“Then I watched Frank Knox die.”

“Dear God,” someone whispers behind me.

“Stop the trial,” I whisper. “You can’t let this go on.” But of course Quentin’s too far away to hear me.

“It didn’t take very long,” Dad says. “Maybe fifteen seconds.”

“Why did you do that, Dr. Cage?”

“Because I didn’t think he deserved to live.”

I glance to my right. Shad Johnson’s mouth is hanging almost slack with awe.

“What about your Hippocratic oath?” Quentin asks.

“I broke it,” Dad says flatly.

“Do you regret that?”

“I can’t say that I do. If I could live that situation over again, I’d probably do the same thing.”

Quentin draws in a deep breath, then expels it in a long sigh. “So,” he says in a conclusive tone, “Viola Turner murdered Frank Knox in your office?”

“Yes.”

“Out of a desire for revenge?”

“I suppose so. I tend to think of it as a sort of delayed self-defense. Also an effort to prevent what had happened to her from happening to others.”

“That sounds like a rationalization, Dr. Cage.”

“It may be.”

“Frank Knox was defenseless when Viola killed him, was he not?”

“As defenseless as she was when five men raped her.”

“Just answer the questions, Doctor,” Quentin says irritably. “And you stood by while he died. And then helped to conceal her crime?”

“Yes.”

Oh, Jesus, I think, my heart threatening to go to full-blown tachycardia.

Quentin lets the awestruck silence stretch for a long time. The only sound I hear is Shad’s pen scratching away on a legal pad.

“Was Frank Knox’s death ever recognized as a murder?” Quentin asks.

“Not by the medical examiner. Some of Mr. Knox’s confederates had suspicions, but nothing ever came of them.”

“Why do you think they suspected that?”

“Because they kidnapped Viola the next day.”

And with that Dad has the crowd again. The spectators behind me wouldn’t give up their seats now if BATF agents came in yelling about another bomb threat.

“How did you learn that?” Quentin asks.