Her sworn statement was careful and complete, and it corroborated the timeline the forensic work had already built — not because she wanted to help me, but because she had finally understood that the only way out of a lie that large is straight through the middle of it, into the daylight, no matter what it costs you when you arrive.

It cost her nearly everything.

But I have come to believe she told the truth at the end not for leniency but because she could no longer stand to be one more person keeping his secret.

On that, and only that, she and I were the same.

Chapter 21 — My Brother

The hardest wreckage was my brother’s.