My husband pushed me down the stairs, and as I lay shattered at the bottom, my mother-in-law called my father and said, “Come get your worthless daughter and take her back.” Dad gave her only one warning: “If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.” They laughed at him because they had absolutely no idea who my father truly was.

I did not respond.

A week later, a cousin called to say Celeste had told everyone that my father was using old government connections to ruin Martin.

The accusation almost made me laugh.

Dad had spent more time in the vegetable garden than anywhere else.

Gabriel and investigators had done their own work, through ordinary procedures.

“Your father must know the prosecutor,” the cousin insisted.

“He knows what evidence looks like,” I said.