Chapter 22: Under Oath

Knox walked down the side aisle with his hands at his sides.

The dean swore him in, and his left hand came up beside his right.

He did not look at me, and he did not look at the camera.

"Mr. Holloway," Yvonne said, with her fingertips together. "For two years you wrote to a sophomore under a false name."

"Yes."

"You let her believe the notes came from my son."

"I let her believe it. I did not say it. My brother said it."

"You wrote to a girl of twenty, in secret, about her private work, for two years."

"Yes."

"And last week you took her into your attic."

"She came to the attic as a tenant. A week later she chose me, and I said yes."

"She'll tell you the order of it herself," Knox said. His voice was steady.

Yvonne smiled at the room.

"The board might call that a pattern."

"Call it what you like," Knox said. "I call it cowardice, and I'll carry it."

"Now I'd like to answer for your conduct as well as mine."

"You will limit yourself to the question," Yvonne said.

"You asked me what I did. I'm telling you what you did."

The retired judge lifted one finger.

"Let him."

Knox turned toward the trustees.

"Everything I'm about to say, my stepmother has already heard from me in her study."

"She answered it with a threat."

"She said she would call my notes grooming if I testified."

"That is a lie from a bitter man," Yvonne said.

"It's true," said Mr. Marlow.

He stood in the front row, large and gray, with a folded paper in his hand.

"She wrote to me in January that my daughter would win. Here is the email." He held it up.

"This week I was offered my wife's name on a wing if I stood with her."

"I'd like that on the record."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Northern Wind Couldn't Keep Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.