PART 2 — The Boy Who Was Never Supposed to Be There

Audrey knew Leo’s footsteps.

She knew the way he hesitated at the top of a staircase when he needed water but did not want to interrupt.

She knew the scratch of his little sneakers in the hallway when he raced toward the kitchen after school.

The boy entering Judge Norris’s courtroom moved differently, each step small and uncertain, as though one wrong decision might send him somewhere he could never find his way back from.

“Leo?” Audrey whispered again.