The machinery of the law, the whole solemn apparatus meant to protect the innocent, had been turned against an innocent woman by a man clever enough to feed it just what it wanted to eat.

The prosecutor put his face in his hands.

Somewhere in the building, a woman he had helped condemn was sitting in a cell counting down the hours, and he had, at last, the rest of his life to reckon with what he had almost done.

In the days that followed, the prosecutor would have to decide what kind of man to be in the aftermath of the worst discovery of his life, and it is to his credit, though credit sits strangely on him, that he did not choose the easy path.

He could have minimized.