And Junia — serious, watchful Junia, who had planted her small body between a police officer and her twin sister in a rain-soaked station and refused to move — stepped forward and put her arms around his neck.

For a moment she didn’t say anything, and neither did he, and the courthouse noise went on around them — lawyers, footsteps, the ordinary business of a building where hard things are sorted out in the light instead of the dark.

Then she leaned close.

“Thank you for listening to me,” she whispered.

Cordell held on a moment, this small girl who had saved her sister’s life because one tired officer at a front counter had done the simplest and rarest thing, which was to believe her.

“Always,” he said.