I stood three feet away by the linen closet, hands at my sides, my thumb working over my knuckles.

In the study, the digital recorder kept running, its red LED blinking in the quiet dark as the copy finished with a soft chime.

Clay stayed hunched on the hallway floor in the dark and the silence, no longer able to defend Jaclyn.

By ten the next morning, the gray clouds had broken over the East Tulsa strip mall, leaving puddles standing all over the cracked asphalt lot.

Clay walked half a step behind me into the lobby of the county prosecutor’s branch office.