When Sachs had gone into the cell to give Garrett The Miniature World she’d watched the boy’s happy face as he’d taken the book from her. A moment or two passed and, almost as if someone else were forcing her to, she’d reached through the bars, taken the boy by the shoulders. Flustered, he’d looked away. “No, look at me,” she’d instructed. “Look.”

Finally he had. She’d studied his blotched face, his twitching mouth, the dark pits of eyes, the thick brows. “Garrett, I need to know the truth. This is only between you and me. Tell me—did you kill Billy Stail?”

“I swear I didn’t. I swear! It was that man—the one in the tan overalls. He killed Billy. That’s the truth!”

“It’s not what the facts show, Garrett.”

“But people can see the same thing different,” he’d responded in a calm voice. “Like, the way we can look at the same thing a fly sees but it doesn’t look the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“We see something moving—just a blur when somebody’s hand’s trying to swat the fly. But the way a fly’s eyes work is he sees a hand stopping in midair a hundred times on its way down. Like a bunch of still pictures. It’s the same hand, same motion, but the fly and us see it way different. And colors…. We look at something that’s just solid red to us but some insects see a dozen different types of red.”

The evidence suggests he’s guilty, Rhyme. It doesn’t prove it. Evidence can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

“And Lydia,” Sachs had persisted, gripping the boy even more firmly, “why’d you kidnap her?”

“I told everybody why…. ’Cause she was in danger too. Blackwater Landing … it’s a dangerous place. People die there. People disappear. I was just protecting her.”

Of course it’s a dangerous place, she’d thought. But is it dangerous because of you?

Sachs had then said, “She said you were going to rape her.”

“No, no, no…. She jumped into the water and her uniform got wet and torn. I saw her, you know, on top. Her chest. And I got kind of … turned on. But that’s all.”

“And Mary Beth. Did you hurt her, rape her?”

“No, no, no! I told you! She hit her head and I cleaned it off with that tissue. I’d never do that, not to Mary Beth.”

Sachs had stared at him a moment longer. Blackwater Landing… it’s a dangerous place.

Finally she’d asked, “If I get you out of here will you take me to Mary Beth?”

Garrett had frowned. “I do that, then you’d bring her back to Tanner’s Corner. And she might get hurt.”