hers, the Trevor twins, a double dose of pretty and mean. Call me Tuck, he always said but she couldn’t do it.
He walked her back to his office and told her to please sit, and before he’d even settled into his own chair behind his desk he said, “I don’t know where to begin, Audrey. All you’ve been through. Your friend Caroline. And now your father. I have to say I’m surprised to see you up and about at all.”
On the wall behind him was a framed photograph of the Trevor twins in their high school graduation caps and gowns, their white smiles. They’d gone to a school out east, some big-deal college where they could go on being pretty and mean together.
“He told me to come see you, if this happened,” she said.
“Yes, he told me the same thing—to make sure you came to see me, that is. He wasn’t a man who liked to leave things to chance, was he.”
She watched him—did he know? Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. What did it matter now anyway?
She said, “I guess you know about what he did then.”
“I know what they say he did. News travels fast along certain channels. And if there’s a bigger group of gossips you’d have to prove it to me.”
She looked down at the water bottle the woman had given her. She twisted the cap to break the plastic seal but did not remove it.
“As a father,” the lawyer said, and when he didn’t go on she looked up. Trevor sitting there, not quite looking at her. “As a father, under the same circumstances, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. Not that I expect that to console you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
Trevor adjusted his glasses. He cleared his throat. “It may be a poor time to ask,” he said, “but have you heard anything more about the investigation?”
She told him about the sheriff coming to see her at the house and showing her the pictures.
“He brought you a photo array?”
“Yes.”
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
Trevor frowned, watching her. “And was he there?”
“Sorry?”
“The boy who attacked you. Was he in the photo array.”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t say. They all looked like the same boy to me.”
“Well, don’t you worry about that. It doesn’t do anybody any good if you’re not one hundred percent certain.”
She looked at him, her heart suddenly thudding. “Like Dad was?” she said.
Trevor sat watching her. “How do you know he wasn’t certain?”
“Because he didn’t find evidence. Hard evidence. He found some boy with scratches on his face.”
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “But how do you know that boy didn’t say something to your father? Didn’t admit to it?”
“At gunpoint?”
Trevor almost smiled. Then he looked off toward a bookshelf that ran floor to ceiling, each shelf jammed tight with law books.
“A professor of mine used to say Justice is blind,” he said, “but she also can’t see worth a shit.” He turned back to her. Adjusted his glasses again.
“I guess I’m not sure what that means,” she said.
“It means,” he began, and stopped. Looking at her more keenly. “It means your dad loved nothing more in this world than you, Audrey. And he knew as well as anyone how the system works, and how it doesn’t work. And the clock was ticking, as you know. The clock was ticking.” He shook his head. “I believe he believed he was doing the best thing he could do as a man. As a father. And in my opinion that’s the only thing you need to remember about that. All right?”
She watched him. Then she nodded. “All right.”
“Good,” he said. “Now let’s get to what you came here for.”
He read it aloud, glancing up to meet her eye from time to time, and when he was finished he folded his hands on top of it and sat looking at her.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to say, or do.
“I don’t think he had any savings,” she said. “I think he used everything to pay the hospital bills.”
“Yes, I suspect you’re right about that.”
“And there’s about ten unopened letters from the bank at home. I think about the mortgage.”
Trevor looked down at his desk and nodded. “There’s just nothing like illness to take everything a man’s got right out from under him. Illness and injury. No one is as ready for it as they think they are, and most aren’t even close to ready.” He looked up again. “Be that as