step down.
As Harris stumbled off the stand, red-faced and trembling with a combination of fear and sheer relief, Rachel could tell the jurors were divided over his testimony. Several jurors sat with their arms crossed. They wouldn’t look his way. It was obvious to Rachel that they simply didn’t believe Harris. A few others, mostly the older women in the jury, watched him with some sympathy as he left the stand. It was clear that his life was in shambles from the consequences of that night.
Rachel had spoken briefly to Harris’s dad, Bill, before court that morning. He’d said that they’d lost their house because he couldn’t cover the mortgage payments and pay the lawyers representing his son when he was fired from his job. His boss, a cousin of Dan Moore, had retrenched Bill after Harris was charged, claiming it was part of a restructuring. The family was now living with Bill’s parents an hour’s drive from Neapolis while Bill looked for a new job.
When court adjourned for lunch, Rachel watched through the hall window as Harris’s dad walked across the southern courthouse lawn to his car, his hand on his son’s left shoulder to comfort him. The lawn bore no sign it had been the scene of live news broadcasts across the country other than a few muddy indents in the grass in the shape of broadcast-van wheels.
After Harris and his dad were out of sight, Rachel stood for a moment watching people scatter across the plaza for the lunch recess. There was a line forming outside a food truck across the road. Others headed to cafes down side streets or sat on benches to eat packed lunches.
Rachel spent the lunch recess working on a bench in the hall outside the courtroom. She’d packed a sandwich but didn’t have a chance to eat it as she typed up the notes from that morning’s testimony. When she was done, she posted the notes on the website and closed her laptop as people started filing back into court for the afternoon session.
Rachel used the remaining time to slip into the ladies’ restroom. When she came out of the stall and approached the sink to wash her hands, she saw a small envelope propped against a hand soap dispenser. It had her name on it. The restroom door swung backward and forward as if someone had just left.
26
Hannah
I heard your message for me at the end of the podcast, Rachel. You want to meet me. I get it. I want to meet you, too. I’ve been a fan for a long time. But trust me, right now is not the best time. One day, you’ll understand. It really is in your own best interests. What’s that expression? “Plausible deniability”?
That doesn’t mean we haven’t met, incidentally. If you can call two strangers passing by each other in a crowded courthouse plaza a meeting. Among other places where we’ve virtually rubbed shoulders.
In fact, you looked right at me this morning when I was in court today. I came in just before the guard closed the doors for the morning session. The only seat available was in the last row. I was stuck staring at the balding head of the man in the row in front of me, listening to Harris Wilson recount his role in Kelly Moore’s rape. Harris tried to sound unwitting. I didn’t buy it. He knew what he was doing when he followed Kelly from the party that night.
Still, I thought Harris’s testimony was damaging. I bet Scott Blair never imagined his loyal wingman would turn on him once the prosecutors offered him a plea deal.
I didn’t stay for long. I found the testimony too upsetting. Nothing has changed. Everyone is still up to their same tricks. I was so disgusted that I came out and scribbled this note for you instead.
Yesterday I went back to see our house. Of course, it no longer exists. Stupid me to have imagined that it was still there just as I remembered it. I’m sure the locals were happy to see it gone. The last trace of the Stills family erased.
We moved to Neapolis when Jenny was eight. I was a toddler. Too young to remember our momentous arrival in a brown station wagon where we had to sleep for weeks until the house was habitable. Mom’s grandfather hadn’t cleaned the house in the fourteen years since his wife died. Her name was Hannah, too. Mom never talked about her grandfather, but she