It was, in the end, the most honest object in the entire case.

Everything else in that house had been dressed up, disguised, given a cover story.

The lock could not lie.

It sat there in the evidence, plain and damning, testifying in the only language it had, which was its own orientation: someone had wanted this child kept in, in the dark, against her will.

When the judge saw which side that bolt was on, I watched the last of the defense die, because there is no argument against a fact that obvious.

The lock convicted him.