“I tried to find out what the situation was at the jail where he is being held but I couldn’t get any details,” I say.

“Exactly! So it might be a waste of your time.”

“It might be but I have to try,” I say. “What else can I do?”

“You can do what Nicholas’ lawyer told you to do. Just not interfere with anything.”

I clench my fists.

I went to speak to Nancy Leider, Nicholas’ lawyer, and she acted just about as cool toward me as Conner Keenan.

She barely wanted to listen to what Robert Bortham and Ricky Trundell told me and I had to practically force her to write down their names and contact information so that she or someone at her office could follow up on those leads.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking about using her, but she must be working for the prosecution. She doesn’t give a fuck about Nicholas,” I say through my teeth.

Sydney sits down on the bed next to me. She has, of course, heard all of this before.

“I just wish I could get a chance to see him,” I mumble through the tears. “He’s back here but they won’t let me talk to him.”

Sydney wraps her arms around me.

“Why won’t they? Isn’t he entitled to visitors? What are they trying to hide?”

These questions are rhetorical, of course, because I already know the answers.

Nancy Leider told me that they are holding him in solitary confinement and it’s policy to not let prisoners in that situation have visitors.

“They said that he was badly attacked when he was with everyone else,” Sydney says. “This is probably for his own good.”

“But some inmates are in there for years. Do they never get visitors?” I ask.

“I think that’s after they are convicted and there may be different rules for them, I don’t know.”

I take a deep quick breath and wipe my tears with the back of my hand.

I don’t like thinking about this for long, otherwise I feel too helpless and overwhelmed.

“You see, this is exactly why I need to go to California and do this. If we can find out for sure if Owen is a match then it will make all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together.”

“But you still don’t know if Robert and Ricky will testify about what they saw,” Sydney points out.

It’s a long shot, I know. The district attorney wants Nicholas’ head on a spike to make his career.

The two witnesses are more than a little bit reluctant because they have committed crimes of their own that they don't really want to get in trouble for.

And even if they were to come forward, it’s unclear whether the jury will even believe them.