“Your execution is set for eleven o’clock tonight, Elena,” Mitchell said, and he said it gently, because there was no gentle way to say it and he had learned it was crueler to pretend otherwise.

“The Governor denied your final clemency petition two hours ago.

I want to help you.

But without new, physical evidence, there is nothing, nothing, that I can do.”

“The evidence exists,” Elena said.

She leaned across the cold steel table as far as her shackles would allow, and she held his eyes, and she did not blink.

“My daughter has it.

She has the victim’s missing personal cell phone.