I had documented my own injuries with a professional’s cold hands.

But I was still a person those injuries had happened to.

And when Detective Miller said airtight, some part of me that had been holding its breath since the hallway finally, quietly, exhaled.

Chapter 13 — The Warrant

At half past five that evening, two uniformed officers executed the arrest warrant at the Sterling family estate.

I was not there, and I did not need to be, but I heard about it afterward, the way one hears about these things: that they took Wendy Sterling into custody in front of a small gathering of her country-club friends, and that she was led out to the patrol car in handcuffs, and that she spent the entire walk shrieking about her social standing, about who she was, about the mistake everyone was making, as though a title and a membership could unmake a felony.

They could not.