Anne finally got her turn in the bathroom. The light was cosmetic-counter bright, and she studied herself in the mirror. A fat Roman nose with a dark brown freckle that annoyed her. Straw bleached hair held together in a bun with curls at her cheeks. Her tea-stained teeth. The light, the mirror, they magnified the flaws. She looked closer at her skin. Her pores giant, a stipple of dark pinpoints. She had lousy skin. Always freckling, keratoasting in the Texas sun, and sagging into a turkey neck. Like her mother. Too fair, too thin. Like her father. Something unfamiliar descended over everything in the bathroom—the light, the mirror, her face.

Anne came out of the bathroom to an empty hallway. She looked down the corridor in both directions but couldn’t remember which way to turn. Her gut led her left, but she soon realized she was heading the wrong way, back toward the courtroom. Past the door to the judge’s chambers, and then through a service exit, she popped out into the waiting area in front of the court. She spied the main elevator bank, and rather than turn around and walk all the way back, she pushed the button and got on the next car.

As the doors were about to close, the hand of a bailiff held the door back and onto the elevator came Haynes Whiteside and Standing Raleigh.

The bailiff spoke into a walkie-talkie: “Coming down, car four.”

Anne moved to the back of the elevator and tried to disappear behind the shoulder of the bailiff. As the doors closed, everyone stood facing forward, turned away from Anne. Everyone except Reverend Raleigh. In the corner of her eye, Anne sensed he was off to the side, facing her. She glanced over, and their eyes met. In that half second, he just returned the look blankly. Then a moment later, he realized who she was and why he knew her face. And in that recognition he tried to compose himself like he was back in the courtroom—he went stone-faced again. Anne dropped her chin but could still see him. And there were his hands. Fingers folded together at his waist. Waiting, praying, holding each other. Those very hands. She looked back up at Reverend Raleigh, and their eyes met again. He offered a thin smile and the benevolent look of a pastor. Calm, innocent, a disciple.

Anne’s heart was pounding. She looked away once more but could feel Raleigh staring at her. His hands moved to his sides.

The doors opened onto the main floor. A bevy of bailiffs had cordoned off the path to the steps of the courthouse. Whiteside whispered, “Okay, do not pass go. Straight ahead to the car.” Reverend Raleigh and his lawyers stepped off the elevator, heading right toward the press gauntlet waiting for them behind the glass double doors.