Chapter 10: The Scar

Mom pressed a tissue to her eyes.

Amelie reached over and squeezed Griffin's hand, and he squeezed back.

He sat back, looking thoroughly spent and noble.

"Thank you, Mr. Upton," the chair said. "Mr. Langstaff?"

Bo sat in the witness chair.

He swore the oath and walked them through the folder.

The family's lawyer stood up when he was done.

"Mr. Langstaff, your sister is the victim here."

"Yes."

"And you'd do anything to see someone punished for it."

"I'd do anything to see the right person punished for it."

"Are you in a romantic relationship with Emery Tilden?"

Bo looked at me across the room.

I knew what he was going to do. He hates liars.

"As of about eleven last night," he said. "Yes."

Mom made a small, satisfied sound.

The lawyer turned to the board with his palms up.

"So the alibi is her boyfriend. The crew are her dormmates. The captain is her professor."

"And the log shows where a boat was, not where a girl was."

He pointed at my mother.

"Mrs. Tilden picked her daughter up at the station. Mr. Upton spoke to her backstage. Her own twin saw her there."

The chair looked down at her notes.

The two faculty members looked at each other.

I watched the room tip toward the family that cried the best.

The note in my pocket said Griffin would lie under oath.

It had the year wrong and the man right. I'd known he would since the first of September.

I'd worn a skirt for this.

I stood up.

"May I show the board something?"

The lawyer said, "Objection," and the chair said, "This isn't a court," in the same breath.

"Go ahead, Ms. Tilden."

I walked to the evidence officer's laptop. My legs were steady. It surprised me.

"Could you play the footage, please? Stop it when she crouches."

He played it.

The hall. The chair. The bottle with the yellow sticker.

The girl in the short white dress, red hair loose, looking both ways.

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