“Will you—” My voice cracks. “Will you make sure Elise is okay?” I can still see her standing in the downpour, gun to her temple. She needs help I can’t give.

“I will,” she says. Vera is the one I trust. She’ll know what to do. “Can I?” she asks, reaching a hand forward, and I nod, letting her squeeze my wrist.

For a while we just sit together quietly, uncertainty hanging in the air between us.

“What do you think I should do?” I finally ask.

“Do you want to know what I think as a friend or what I think as your lawyer?” she says.

“Both.”

She lays out the options. There’s obvious risk to recanting my entire interview. Not only could I be charged with obstruction of justice, but footage of everything I said exists and will be admissible as evidence, making it, again, difficult to prosecute. Another risk is that I could be charged as an accessory to the crime itself for my part after it happened—the lies I told at the station.

“As your lawyer, I’m not sure I’d advise changing your statement now. But there are downsides to staying silent too. If the police recover more evidence and decide to go forward with charges against Elise, you’ll almost certainly be charged as well. Now that they have the murder weapon, it could change things,” she says.

“What do you think I should do?” I ask again, my voice so, so small.

“I think you should let me talk to Detective Ward and the DA first. I can’t say with certainty what they’ll do, but I think they’ll be interested in making a deal in exchange for your testimony.”

“What will happen to Elise?” I ask.

Vera begins to answer but pauses. “I think you already know,” she says. “I think what you’re really asking me is if she’ll be okay.”

I nod.

“I will do everything in my power to get her the help she needs. But no one can say if Elise will be okay or not,” she tells me. “But I know you feel bad. I know you feel like you weren’t able to help her.” All of this is true. That guilt comes and goes. That guilt may never be completely eradicated. “But I have to say, Remy, that I agree with Detective Ward for once. It wasn’t your fault.” Even though I know it too, it’s hard for me to accept it. “A lot of people in Elise’s life failed her. Her parents, her caseworker after she was hospitalized. She needed counseling. She needed things that you couldn’t give her.”

I let Vera’s words sink in, try to process them. She stays a little while longer but eventually the pain in my shoulder becomes too strong for me to think straight. She leaves, promising to come back soon.

A nurse comes in to change my bandages, and after he leaves I click the remote attached to the infusion pump containing my pain meds and slip into a fitful but dreamless sleep.