Chapter 21: What He Wants

Nate's POV

On Tuesday at noon the judge called a recess, and Simone Mercier walked out of the witness box with her chin up and her hands empty.

She had refused to answer eleven questions in a row, and the judge had counted them aloud.

Carter's young lawyer had asked for a moment, then another, and then he had asked to withdraw from the case.

The judge had taken the second request under advisement and smiled with no warmth at all.

I sat in the gallery with my hands on my knees and watched it happen.

Then Libby stood up from the table, and I stopped watching anything else.

She came down the aisle toward me with her coat over her arm.

My sister was in the corridor with Charlie, getting a bottle ready from the bag.

"Walk with me," Libby said.

We went down the stairs to the courthouse atrium, where it was cold and bright, and there were vending machines along one wall.

She stopped in front of the one with the crackers and didn't buy anything.

"I'm shaking," she said.

"You won."

"I haven't won. The judge hasn't said it."

"She will."

"You can't know that."

"I watched her put her pen down when the video played," I said. "She's made up her mind. She's deciding how long to take over the words."

Libby laughed, once, and pressed the heel of her hand under her eye.

"Two weeks ago I couldn't have gotten through a sentence in that room."

"You got through a whole day of testimony yesterday, with him ten feet away."