Chapter 4

When I woke again, I was back in the county jail's infirmary.

My father's things sat on the nightstand: one old coat, and the cracked flip phone he'd carried for years.

I grabbed the nurse.

"Where's my dad? I want to see him!"

She looked away from me, shaking her head with something like regret.

"His body's already been sent to the funeral home. Lawyer Stevens said it would be handled after the case is over."

Heels clicked in the hallway.

Kate Pope walked in carrying a cake, a fresh set of house keys swinging from her hand. When she saw the wretched state of me lying in the bed, she couldn't hold back a laugh.

"Don't blame Denys," she said. "He was in a hard spot too. Can you really fault him? Your uncle's surgery had such low odds, that fifty thousand could've been thrown away for nothing. But me, I'm different. Give the money to me, and a house lasts a lifetime."

I stared at those keys. She leaned in close to the bed, dropping her voice.

"Gabriella, wouldn't it have been easier if your father had just accepted his lot? Why did he have to fight me, until Denys had to put out the word: anyone who takes your case can forget about ever working with his firm again."

"Your dad ran all over the city and couldn't find a single lawyer brave enough to take you on. In the end he had to sell the old house and go to the next city over. Such a shame. He'd just found the repair shop, he was that close to overturning your conviction, and then he collapsed right there at the door and died."

"Gabriella, don't you think you're just unlucky?"

She set the cake down and stroked her own cheek, pleased with herself.

"Then again, Denys gave up his own child for me. What's the life of your father next to that?"

She kept baiting me, and I couldn't take it anymore. I lunged at her and clamped both hands around her throat.

"You bitch, give me back my father!"

She screamed and staggered backward. Denys pushed the door open at that exact moment and yanked me off her.

My lower back slammed into the edge of the bed, and the wound started bleeding again.

Kate shrank into his arms.

"Denys, she said she wants to kill me! She lost her father and now she's blaming everything on me. I'm scared!"

Denys shielded her and looked at me coldly.

"Your father ran off on his own and missed his treatment. What does that have to do with Kate? Stop making trouble!"

"Making trouble!"

I looked at the man in front of me, so familiar and so much a stranger, and the fury inside me erupted like flame.

"Before, you used the baby to force me to confess. The baby's gone, so you used my father. Everything I cared about is gone now. What's left for you to force me with?"

Something like panic flickered in his eyes, but he still produced a new confession.

"No one is forcing you. You brought all of this on yourself! I'll give you one more chance. Court is tomorrow. Confess on the stand, and I'll argue for leniency, and I'll let you see your father one last time."

I looked at him.

"And if I don't confess?"

"Then be ready to rot in there for good! The evidence is a closed loop. Even if you tell the truth now, no one will believe you."

With that, he gave me one cold look and turned to leave.

"I'm handling your father's arrangements. The day you cooperate is the day you get his ashes."

The next day, I stood in the courtroom in handcuffs.

The prosecutor read out my confession. Denys sat at the defense table and confirmed to the judge:

"The defendant confessed while clearheaded and of her own will, under no coercion whatsoever."

The judge asked whether I pleaded guilty.

Denys looked at me and murmured a reminder.

"Think about your father."

Kate sat in the gallery, a confident smile fixed on her face.

The baby was gone, my father was gone. They had nothing left to threaten me with.

I raised my head.

"I'm recanting."

Denys shot to his feet.

"Gabriella, think about what you're doing!"

"The one who drove the car and hit that person was Kate Pope. Denys Stevens coached me to confess and faked the materials to fool the investigation! I didn't do anything. They forced me to take the fall!"

The courtroom broke into an uproar. The judge brought down the gavel.

"What evidence do you have?"

I watched the color drain from Denys's face, and I said it one word at a time.

"There's no way I drove that car and hit anyone, because I don't even have a driver's license!"