He had built the case against Elena Cole.

He had believed in it completely, had staked his reputation on it, had told the public and himself that he had put a murderer away.

Every instinct of self-protection, every ordinary human reluctance to discover that you have done a monstrous wrong, was pulling him toward the conclusion that this new evidence was nothing, and pulling hard.

A person does not easily go looking for proof that the proudest achievement of their career is in fact the worst thing they ever did.

He had come to that room hoping, at some level beneath his professional composure, to be able to dismiss what he was about to see, because the alternative was unbearable.