Her father called regularly. He spoke to Nat and to her mom. Her parents agreed that Andrew would relieve Allana for four days, so she could go home to her family—her good family, not her screwed-up disaster family in New York. Sharing the small space with her dad was awkward, intense, but ultimately therapeutic. And getting to know her father again proved a good distraction from the fact that she’d been charged with murder. But her alleged crime was always there, hanging over all of them.

And then, just over three weeks after their initial meeting at the law firm, Natalie and Allana were summoned again. In a different boardroom, with the same decorative associates, Hawley began his spiel.

“We’ve gone through the prosecution’s discovery, and we now have the details of their case against you.”

Nat heard her mother’s intake of breath, felt her grip Nat’s hand.

Matthew opened the file on the concrete table, began to read from it. “Ballistics tests confirm that the nine-millimeter Beretta they found near the scene is the murder weapon. Your prints are on it, and it was wrapped in a T-shirt they’ve established to be yours through DNA and hair samples.”

Fuck.

“A necklace belonging to you was found at the scene. A witness saw a young woman matching your description in the vicinity, the night of the murder. The bartender at the sports bar remembers you, but no one at the nightclub can verify you were there. We’ve checked with the cab companies but none of the drivers can recall taking you home. Unfortunately, you have no alibi for the time of the murder.”

Allana’s hand was crushing Nat’s, their palms getting sweaty and clammy. But Nat couldn’t let go. She felt she was holding on to her mother for dear life. If Allana released her, Nat would drift away, fall, tumble into a deep, dark void from which she would never return.

Hawley wasn’t done. “Phone records show hundreds of calls and texts to Gabe Turnmill’s phone.” He looked up from the file briefly. “You threatened to kill him several times.”

“I was upset,” tears of fear, regret, and hopelessness, welled up in Nat’s eyes. “I didn’t mean it.”

“We have a few things on our side.” The man’s prominent nose was back in the file. “The witness who saw you on the Upper East Side is a shut-in in his eighties, probably not reliable. There was no GSR on your hands, and we can explain Turnmill’s DNA under your fingernails due to the fight you had near the High Line.” He looked up at her then. “And the rookie cop who found your T-shirt with the gun thought it was covered in blood. Turns out, it was cranberry juice.”

“What?”

“The lab tested it. The red stains were from cranberry juice.”

Nat’s pulse hammered so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear her own words. “It’s the wrong shirt,” she said. “I kept the gun wrapped in a plain white T-shirt, hidden in a shoe box. The juice stains came from Violet’s graduation party. Her girlfriend was jealous. She threw a drink at me.”