“I don’t care what foolish thing she did.

I only want my sweet girl home safe.” It was a performance of extraordinary skill, and within two hours, half the town had swung behind her.

She had gotten ahead of the truth, the way a lie always can, because a lie does not have to wait to be discovered before it starts running.

That is the terrible, unfair advantage a lie holds over the truth, and Delilah understood it perfectly, and used it with real mastery.

The truth is patient, but it is also passive; it simply sits there, being true, and waits to be found.