“Mr. Knox, can you tell me how you met Scott?” Quinn asked.

“It was a good three years ago, around the time I moved to Neapolis. I was at the surf beach south of town when a family got in trouble in the water. Tourists,” the witness said, as if that explained it. “They were pulled out to sea by crosscurrents. I swam in. Managed to pull one kid to shore. I tried to help the mother. She was fighting. Scratched and kicked me. Wanted me to leave her and get her other kid who was drifting further out and panicking. Worst thing you can do! If I’d left her, she would have drowned for sure. I didn’t know what to do. Next thing, a teenage boy swam out to the kid thrashing in the water. He grabbed the kid and brought him to shore while I helped the mother.”

“Is the teenager who rescued the drowning child here in the courtroom?” asked Quinn.

“Yes,” said the witness.

“Can you point him out for the court, Mr. Knox?” Quinn pushed, trying to hide his frustration with his own character witness, who needed to be prompted for every detail.

“He’s sitting over there,” the witness, whose full name, Rachel gathered from when he was sworn in, was Vince Knox, nodded toward the defense table, looking directly at Scott Blair.

“Is it your testimony that Scott was a hero? That he bravely risked his life to save the life of a drowning child?” Quinn prompted again.

“… He won a bravery award, so I suppose that makes him a hero,” Knox said after a prolonged hesitation. “Not too many people have the guts to risk their life for a stranger. Got to give credit where credit’s due,” he added in a flat voice that hardly sounded enthusiastic. His faint praise of Scott’s brave act struck Rachel as strange, but she supposed it fitted in with his gruff manner.

Quinn was visibly annoyed by his own witness’s terse answers. He’d obviously hoped for a far more enthusiastic account of Scott Blair’s courageous feat, diving into treacherous seas and risking his life to save a child from almost certain death. Quinn wrapped up questioning quickly. He’d elicited enough testimony to paint Scott Blair as a hero, a virtual Boy Scout who’d shown great courage by diving into the sea to save a drowning stranger.

Alkins opted not to cross-examine Vince Knox, though he reserved the right to recall him to the stand. Rachel figured that Alkins saw no upside in rehashing the defense witness’s testimony about Scott Blair’s bravery.

As Vince Knox left court, Rachel left her seat and followed him out of the courthouse, even though it meant missing Quinn’s next witness. Knox went down the steps and crossed the southern lawn. Rachel did so, too, holding back so that nobody would notice that she was following him. There was something about Knox’s testimony that bothered Rachel, and she wanted to ask him a few questions once he’d left the vicinity of the courthouse.

Knox turned a corner, putting him out of Rachel’s line of sight as she straggled behind him. She sped up so as not to lose him. When she turned onto the street where he’d disappeared, she immediately saw him standing by the curb, talking to a man in a black Lincoln. The car window was all the way down, and the engine was running.

The two men’s voices were slightly raised, as if arguing. The man in the car passed something to Vince Knox, which the latter stared at for a moment and then almost reluctantly stuffed into his pocket. The electric car window slid shut and the car drove off. Rachel glimpsed the driver through the windshield glass as his car slowed to turn at a traffic sign near where she was standing.

He had thick light gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Rachel had seen him before, but she couldn’t recall exactly where until she reached the courthouse and remembered that she’d seen him walking with the Blair family from their car, across the plaza, to the courthouse stairs on the first day of the trial. He’d been in a sort of security detail to protect the family from protesters. Rachel was certain that the man in the Lincoln was on the Blair family’s payroll.

When Rachel reached the courtroom, the enormous polished doors were firmly shut. She was loath to annoy Judge Shaw by walking into court during witness testimony for a second time that afternoon. She settled herself on a bench by a window overlooking the plaza and texted Pete to ask him to pull information on Vince Knox. Then she read Hannah’s email again.

42

Hannah

I’m sitting here on the jetty at Morrison’s Point. My feet are hanging over the edge. The water is rough. The wind is wild. The light is fading. I can’t believe that it’s been twenty-five years since Jenny died. I’ve been throwing daisies picked from the field near where our old house used to be into the waves to mark Jenny’s death. She would have liked that.

As I look out at the familiar coastal landscape of my childhood, I find it hard to believe that I am sitting here on the creaking timber of this old jetty, a grown woman, while my big sister will be a teenager for eternity. I’ve tried to live my life for both of us. Not always wisely. A trail of broken relationships. I’ve had issues with prescription medication. And alcohol. I never came close to fulfilling the potential they said I had when I won first place in a national award for promising young artists and was given a full scholarship to art school in Paris. There were such high expectations.

I tend to run away from success. It’s guilt, I think, if I were to self-diagnose. I live my life plagued by guilt. Jenny never had the chances that I’ve had in life. She never had the chance to love or to be loved, to find her way in this world. To discover her talents and passions. To travel. She never ventured beyond Neapolis. I find it impossible not to blame myself for what happened.

I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had a blessed life, thanks to my adoptive family. Kitty is in a wheelchair now. Her health is failing. She’s always been devoted to me even though I haven’t been the best or most attentive of daughters. When Kitty first took me in, I was resentful. She did everything she could to try to bring me around.

One time, she took me to see a movie. As the opening credits flashed on the screen, I pushed past her and rushed out of the theater. Kitty found me in tears in the lobby. No amount of candy or popcorn could get me to return.

Kitty assumed I’d panicked when the lights were dimmed. The next day, she bought me a night-light. She told me that lots of children were afraid of the dark. I pretended to be grateful. I didn’t tell her that my terror had nothing to do with the dark. I didn’t tell her what happened when I’d last been in a movie theater.

Mom had asked Jenny to take me to the movies on her next day off from work. It was supposed to be a special treat to make up for the long, boring days that I’d spent alone while Mom rested and Jenny worked at the supermarket. We took the lunchtime bus into town. We went to the drugstore first to get Mom’s prescriptions, and then walked two streets over to the theater to purchase our tickets.

The Neapolis movie theater had old-fashioned upholstered chairs and a burgundy carpet covered with soda stains so deep they’d become part of the pattern. There was a traditional wood-polished box office and a glass-cased snack bar in the lobby. In the theater itself was a velvet brocade curtain with gold thread that opened to reveal the movie screen at the start of the show.

Jenny gave me our ticket stubs and told me to stand in line by the doors while she bought popcorn. I was shifting from one foot to the other, restlessly waiting for her to join me, when I heard a commotion. Everyone turned to look. A girl with long hair from Jenny’s school was standing next to the counter, calling Jenny horrible names.

“Take it back,” shouted Jenny. The girl shook her head. “I said, take it back!”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Slut.” The girl shoved Jenny, making her popcorn spill across the floor like confetti. Jenny walked back to me, holding the half-empty box of popcorn under her arm. Her face was scarlet. Her lips trembled. Everyone was staring. Whispering. Jenny kept her head up and her eyes straight ahead until an usher showed us to our seats. When the lights dimmed, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

When the lights dimmed, Jenny wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. As the opening credits appeared on the screen, something soft hit me in the face. It was popcorn. Pretty soon we were being pelted by a combination of popcorn and ice shards from soda cups. Others joined in until it felt as if we were being attacked from all directions.

“Stop,” I called out. Jenny tried to shush me. “Don’t say anything. Otherwise it’ll get worse,” she said. I was overcome with anger—at the kids taunting us, but mostly I was angry at Jenny for being so passive, for allowing us to be treated this way.