“Did you know where the baby was?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember taking it anywhere?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember waking up with the baby in your arms at any time?”

“No. After I woke up, he was already gone.”

Ellie nodded. “Did you plan to get rid of the baby?”

“No.”

“Did you want to get rid of the baby?”

“Not once I’d seen him,” Katie said softly.

Ellie was now standing only a foot away. Katie waited for her question, waited to speak the words she had come here to say. But with a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, Ellie turned to the jury. “Thank you,” she said. “Nothing further.”

Frankly, George was baffled. He’d expected more flashes of brilliance from Ellie Hathaway in a direct examination of her client, but she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. More importantly, neither had the witness. Katie Fisher had said what anyone would expect her to say-none of which added up to Ellie’s disclaimer in chambers this morning.

He smiled at Katie. “Good morning, Ms. Fisher.”

“You can call me Katie.”

“Katie, then. Let’s pick up where you just left off. You fell asleep holding the baby, and when you woke up, he was gone. You were the only eyewitness that night. So tell us-what happened to that baby?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, a tear leaking from one corner. “I killed him.”

George stopped in his tracks. The gallery erupted in confusion, and the judge rapped her gavel for quiet. Turning to Ellie, George lifted his palms in question. She was sitting at the defense table, looking almost bored, and he realized this had not been a surprise to her. Meeting his gaze, she shrugged.

“You killed your baby?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He stared at the girl on the stand, looking powerfully beaten as she curled into herself in misery. “How did you do it?”

Katie shook her head.

“You must answer the question.”

She clenched her hands around her middle. “I just want to make my things right.”

“Hang on now. You just confessed to killing your baby. Now I’m asking you to tell us how you killed him.”

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I can’t.”

George turned to Judge Ledbetter. “Approach?”

The judge nodded, and Ellie walked up beside him to the bench. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“Ms. Hathaway?”

Ellie raised a brow. “Ever hear of the Fifth Amendment, George?”

“It’s a little late,” the prosecutor said. “She’s already incriminated herself.”

“Not necessarily,” Ellie said coolly, although she and George both realized she was lying through her teeth.

“Mr. Callahan, you know very well that the witness can take the Fifth whenever she chooses.” The judge turned to Ellie. “However, she needs to ask for it by name.”

Ellie glanced at Katie. “She doesn’t know what it’s called, Your Honor. She just knows she doesn’t want to say anything else about this.”

“Your Honor, Ms. Hathaway can’t speak for the witness. If I don’t hear the defendant officially plead the Fifth, I’m not buying it.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “May I have a moment with my client?” She walked to the witness stand. Katie was shaking like a leaf, and with no small degree of shame Ellie realized that was partly because she expected a tirade. “Katie,” she said quietly. “If you don’t want to talk about the crime, all you have to do is say in English, ‘I take the Fifth.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s part of the Constitution. It means you have the right to remain silent, even though you’re on the stand, so that your words can’t be used against you. Understand?”

Katie nodded, and Ellie walked back to the defense table to sit down.

“Please tell us how you killed your baby,” George repeated.

Katie darted a glance at Ellie. “I take the Fifth,” she said haltingly.

“What a surprise,” George muttered. “All right, then. Let’s go back to the beginning. You lied to your father so that you could see your brother at college. You did this from the time you were twelve?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re eighteen now.”

“Yes, I am.”

“In six years’ time did your father ever find out you were visiting your brother?”

“No.”

“You would have just kept lying, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t lie,” Katie said. “He never asked.”

“In six years, he never asked how your weekend with your aunt went?”

“My father doesn’t speak of my aunt.”

“How lucky. Then, you lied to your brother about sleeping with his roommate?”

“He-”

“No, let me guess. He never asked, right?”

Confused, Katie shook her head. “No, he didn’t.”

“You never told Adam Sinclair he’d fathered a child?”

“He’d gone overseas.”

“You never told your mother about your pregnancy, or anyone else for that matter?”

“No.”

“And when the police came the morning after you gave birth, you lied to them as well.”

“I wasn’t sure it had actually happened,” Katie said, her voice small.

“Oh, please. You’re eighteen years old. You’d had sex. You knew you were pregnant, even if you didn’t want to admit it. You’ve seen countless women in your community have babies. Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know what had happened to you that night?”

Katie was crying silently again. “I can’t explain how my head was, except that it wasn’t working like normal. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t want to believe that it might not have been a dream.” She twisted the edge of her apron in her fists. “I know I’ve done something wrong. I know that it’s time for me to take responsibility for what happened.”

George leaned so close his words fell into her lap. “Then tell us how you did it.”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Ah. That’s right. Just like you figured that if you didn’t talk about your pregnancy, it would disappear. And like you didn’t tell people you murdered your baby, assuming they’d never find out. But that’s not the way things work, is it, Katie? Even if you don’t tell us how you killed your baby, he’s still dead, isn’t he?”

“Objection,” Ellie called out. “He’s badgering the witness.”

Katie hunched in the chair, sobbing openly. George’s eyes flickered over her once; then he turned dismissively. “Withdrawn. I’m through here.”

Judge Ledbetter sighed. “Let’s take fifteen. Ms. Hathaway, why don’t you take your client somewhere to compose herself?”

“Of course,” Ellie said, wondering how to help Katie pull herself together when she herself was falling apart.

The conference room was dark and dingy, with nonfunctioning fluorescent bulbs that spit and hissed and emitted no viable source of light. Ellie sat at an ugly wooden table, tracing a coffee stain that was likely as old as Katie. As for her client, she was standing near the chalkboard in the front of the room, weeping.

“I’d like to have some sympathy for you, Katie, but you asked for this.” Ellie pushed away from the table and turned her back. Maybe if she didn’t look at Katie, the sobs wouldn’t be quite so loud. Or upsetting.

“I wanted it to be over,” Katie stammered, her face swollen and red. “But it wasn’t like I expected.”

“Oh, no? What were you expecting-some movie-of-the-week where you break down and the jury breaks down right along with you?”

“I just wanted to be forgiven.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen right now. You just kissed your freedom good-bye, sweetheart. Forget about forgiveness from your church. Forget about seeing your parents, or having a relationship with Adam.”

“Samuel asked me to marry him,” Katie whispered miserably.

Ellie snorted. “You might want to let him know that conjugal visits are hard to come by in the state correctional facility.”

“I don’t want conjugal visits. I don’t want to have another baby. What if I-” Katie broke off suddenly and turned away.

“What if you what?” Ellie shot back. “Smother it in a moment of weakness?”