“She kept twisting her gold wedding band around her finger, over and over, until the skin on her knuckle was raw.

She told me I had to save Caleb.”

Richard wrote down the detail without looking up, the nib of his fountain pen scratching softly against the paper.

“Did she specify what she wanted you to do?”

“She wanted me to say Caleb was with me in Columbus on Tuesday night,” I said.

“She said he was my brother, and that family holds together.

She tried to give me a velvet jewelry box to make me agree.”