The prosecutor played the recording for the jury, and I made myself watch their faces while Flynn’s laughing voice filled the room, and I saw the exact moment each of them understood that the polished young man at the defense table had rehearsed the drowning of his own wife the way other men rehearse a toast.

After that, the defense had nothing.

You cannot cross-examine a woman about whether she imagined a conspiracy she has on tape.

The facts did the work; I only had to survive being in the room with them one more time, and I found, to my surprise, that I could.

“Flynn Beckett.

On the counts of attempted murder in the first degree, conspiracy to commit murder, and attempted grand larceny, I sentence you to forty-five years in federal prison, without the possibility of parole.” Flynn folded forward over the table, and a sound came out of him that I felt no need to name.

“Aidan Beckett.