The crash had not been an accident.

The soft pedal, the failing curve, the oncoming truck — none of it had been chance.

It had been him.

Something in her went very cold and very still, and it was not, at first, grief.

Grief would come later, in waves, for years.

What arrived first, in that dark room three feet from the man who had done it, was recognition — the specific, professional recognition of a defense attorney who has just watched a suspect’s story fall into place.