Chapter 1
The interrogation room smells of nervous sweat and cigarettes. Hands cuffed behind my back, I squirm in my seat, waiting for my lawyer to return.
My lawyer.
My gut turns at the phrase; I haven’t had to think it in a long time, not since Mom and Dad… since the accident. What I wouldn’t give to talk to them right now — they would know what to do. Instead, my fate is in the hands of an overworked public defender who barely looks older than me.
At least she seems to care.
It was self-defense. There shouldn’t be a trial at all, her words echo in my mind.I’m going to recommend the charges be dropped.
It feels like an eternity I’ve been watching the clock in the corner of the room. When the door finally opens, I’m expecting my lawyer back with good news, but it’s a man instead.
Old and pale, skin hangs loosely from his jaw. A sterile, hospital sanitation scent fills the room as he regards me with wide, sunken eyes. Dark red suspenders squeeze a pair of gray slacks and a white, button-down shirt against his scrawny frame. He’s short enough that if I stood up, I’d probably be taller — his thin, black briefcase looks comically large against his matchstick legs.
“What?” I say. “Where’s Annie?”
The man straightens his yellow bow tie as he pulls out the empty chair facing me; its legs scrape loudly against the cement floor, raking my senses. His happy smile makes my hair stand on end.
Setting the briefcase down on the table, he snaps it open and pulls out a manila folder. “Quinn Harris,” he says, reading from the file. His eyes light up as they move down the page. “Carnegie Mellon! A wonderful school. How are your grades?”
“I graduated summa cum laude,” I reply. “A month ago.” That was when my life was supposed to start. I was all packed up, ready to leave Pittsburgh and move to Philly, where I had a job lined up. Instead, I’ve been here ever since that night. “Excuse me, but who are you? And where’s my lawyer?”
He clears his throat. “Apologies. I’m Jonah Jefferson; I asked Annie if I could have a look at your file. She’s got so many cases right now, and this one requires some extra care.”
“Are you a public defender too?” I ask. He must be at least seventy — he seems too old to be on the bottom rung.
Jefferson must think so too, since he laughs, a mirthful sound, though it quickly dies in his throat. “A long, long time ago. I’ve been a lawyer for nearly fifty years — and a judge for half that.”
A judge? Is this how things are supposed to work?
“I’m confused. Are you my lawyer or not?”
He shakes his head, then pulls out a few items from my file. He sets them in front of me so I can see them: there’s crime scene photographs, a pair of witness statements, the 9-1-1 transcript… and the medical report, including the doctor’s prognosis. “Ms. Harris, in my professional expertise, your case is not as simple as Annie believed. A jury might not buy it was self-defense, or an accident, as you’ve indicated.”
My fists clench, long nails digging into my palms. “Why wouldn’t they believe me?”
Jefferson sighs. “Lance Prescott is the son of-”
“I know who he is.”
Always use the present tense when talking about Lance, Annie once told me.Always “is.” Never “was.” As far as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is concerned, he’s still alive.
The judge nods. “Did you know who he was at the time?”
“No. I found out later.” It’s the truth. I’d like to think, even if I did know, that I wouldn’t have done anything different. But maybe I would’ve — maybe I’d have been afraid to defend myself.
“In your opinion, is there anything else you could have done to avoid the situation from escalating?”
My blood ices and I glare at Judge Jonah Jefferson. A part of me believes he’s only asking this as a professional assessing the situation, but the question is laden with accusation, and I’ve dealt with enoughimplicationandconjecture. “Sure,” I snarl. “I could have not attended a college graduation party at all and spent the night praying.”
Jefferson clasps his hands together on the table in front of me. “Ms. Harris, you’ve just demonstrated why I’m here, in a nutshell. When I speak to you, I don’t detect a strong sense of remorse for what you did. That’s something a prosecutor will exploit, and turn a jury against you, should this go to trial.”
I glower at the old man, though he’s probably right. Annie picked up on that too.
“Does that matter? There shouldn’t be any trial, because there shouldn’t be any charges.”
“That may be true, Quinn, but there’s going to be. Believe me, I know how these things work. To say you’ve been very unlucky doesn’t even begin to describe your situation. I hate to offer bad news, but you have to accept the reality that you will go to trial and there’s a plausible chance you could be convicted. Any lawyer will tell you that cases are unpredictable — there’s no guarantees that things will go your way, no matter the circumstances.”