“Listen, I know we’re on opposite sides and what your situation is, and I just want to let you know that I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but I’m still going to do my job.” He stands firm with perfect posture, his presence giving no hint of the sympathy he is trying to exude with his words.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, D.A. Peters.”

“Good. Are you ready?”

“Actually, I’d like to speak with you about the plea deal.”

“Sure.” He widens his stance and puts one of his hands on his hip. The open posture is supposed to signal an inviting tone as he waits to hear my offer. I have to give it to him, he has all the nuances down to a tee.

“Can we take the death penalty off the table and go for life in prison for a not guilty plea? You know just as well as I do, juries have a hard time coming up with a conviction when the death penalty is involved, and there’s a third set of DNA. We don’t even know who it belongs to.” I hold my hands out, palms face up as if offering a physical item to him.

“The evidence is stacked against Adam with or without that DNA. You know that, Sarah.” He re-crosses his arms and closes his stance as if to say, deal time is over.

“I know,” I say feeling defeated. He’s right. That DNA doesn’t really matter if we don’t know who it belongs to. Kelly was found dead in our home, and Adam was the last person to see her alive, plus his DNA is all over her.

“And Adam failed his lie detector test,” D.A. Peters adds.

“Yeah, and so did Scott. You know as much as I do polygraphs are a bunch of pseudoscience bullshit.” I narrow my eyes at him.

“Fine. I’ll tell you what. If he pleads guilty, I’ll reduce the sentence from twenty-five years to twenty years without parole. But that offer expires in five minutes.”

“I’ll go talk to my client. Thank you.”

Adam is still standing handcuffed in front of the doors of the courtroom. Eleanor is deep in conversation with him. Nothing good can come of that. The guard is near him but inattentive, and Anne is sitting on a bench alone, looking around aimlessly.

“Hey,” I say interrupting Eleanor and Adam.

Anne quickly gets up and joins us.

“Are you okay?” Anne and Adam both speak at the same time. I tell them I am.

“Maybe we should have someone else stand in for you.” Eleanor looks me up and down.

“I said I’m fine and I renegotiated the plea deal.”

“What is it?” Adam asks.