Chapter 3

"Claire? You're the plaintiff? Your friend's daughter is the one making accusations?"

Ethan's brow creased the instant he saw me across the courtroom.

So that's what it was.

The men who murdered my daughter—those were the innocent boys he was defending. And Lily, my dead child, was the liar. The accuser.

I laughed. It came out sharp and ugly.

"Do you believe her, or do you believe me?"

Ethan hesitated. Just a beat.

"Maybe your friend misled you. These things aren't always what they seem."

He said everything by saying nothing.

The case went exactly as I expected.

Ethan Whitmore—the Ethan Whitmore, the defense attorney every prosecutor in the state feared. I knew better than anyone what he could do in a courtroom. There wasn't a case he couldn't win.

The lawyer I'd hired at triple rate didn't survive a single round of cross-examination. Every piece of evidence I'd spent three sleepless days collecting, Ethan dismantled with surgical precision, calling it circumstantial, insufficient, unreliable.

He hadn't read the victim's file. Hadn't looked at the name on the report. He'd taken Mia's word—just Mia's word—and built his entire defense around it.

And he won.

Not guilty. All six released.

The men who held my daughter's head underwater walked out of that courtroom free.

I drove home in silence. Went straight to Lily's room—half-packed boxes everywhere—and lay on her bed. The smell of her shampoo still clung to the pillow. Lavender and vanilla.

The dam broke.

I don't know how long I cried before the overhead light snapped on.

Ethan. Home already. Holding a pink box.

"Why are you sleeping in Lily's room?" He barely glanced around. Didn't notice the half-empty shelves.

"After court, Vanessa wanted to thank me for helping Mia—took me to dinner. She thought you might be upset about losing, so she sent this." He held up the box. "Strawberry cake. Her and Mia's favorite. They insisted."

He pushed it toward me.

I didn't take it.

When Lily was five, she ate strawberries laced with residual pesticide. Went into anaphylactic shock. Nearly died on the way to the hospital.

After that, strawberry was banned from this house. I'd told him a hundred times.

He remembered every one of Vanessa's preferences. Never once remembered ours.

When I didn't move, Ethan raised an eyebrow.

"Still upset about the trial? Look—Mia explained everything. Those boys were innocent. The girl was—she had a reputation. Slept around. Probably negotiated a price and things went sideways—"

The slap cracked through the room before I knew my hand had moved.

He stumbled. Touched his cheek. Stared at me.

"Do you have any idea," my voice shook so badly the words barely held together, "that the girl you just called a slut is—"

"Enough." His tone was still level. Still reasonable. Still that calm, authoritative voice he used to shut down arguments. "Fine. I cost you the case. I'll take responsibility for that. But don't—"

I looked at him and felt every drop of fury drain out of me at once, replaced by something vast and empty.

"You're right. You think what you want. I need to go out—move aside."

Lily's school still had her belongings. I needed them back.

Ethan shifted, then paused. Scanned the room for the first time. Something flickered across his face.

"Where's Lily? Haven't seen her in a few days."

Three days. It took him three days to notice his daughter was missing.

Three days during which he'd argued in court that she deserved what happened to her.

"She's out."

"Hm."

He didn't ask where. I didn't offer.

I was reaching for my shoes when he spoke again.

"Oh—Claire, Vanessa and Mia are coming over tonight. Pick up some lobster on your way back, would you? She loves it."

She loves it.

I'm allergic to shellfish.

"Sure."

Twenty-seven hours until my flight.

I was done fighting.