A forensic nurse is waiting outside to photograph and record it as evidence.” She did not describe it further, and she did not need to; the marks were there for the room to see, and they would become, within the hour, a photograph in a file, which is the only place an injury like that should ever be made to speak.

“Beyond that,” she went on, “we’ve already reviewed the evidence your wife’s father submitted to the district attorney three days ago.

The recording is not the case, Mr.

Beaumont.

The recording is just the last page of it.”

I watched Trent hear his own voice come off those white tile walls, and I understood that I was watching a very particular thing collapse — not just his composure, but his whole theory of reality.

Because Trent had always controlled the story.