"That's right."
"And that as you drove to the courthouse for this man's arraignment, which-as you said-would start the clock ticking ... at that point, you had no plans to kill Father Szyszynski?"
"No, I didn't."
"Ah." Quentin paces past the front of the witness stand. "I guess it came to you in a flash of inspiration when you were driving to the gun store."
"Actually, no."
"Was it when you asked Moe to load the semiautomatic weapon for you?"
"No."
"So I suppose when you skirted the metal detector, back at the courthouse, killing Father Szyszynski was still not part of your plan?"
"It wasn't."
"When you walked into the courtroom, Mrs. Frost, and took up a position that would give you the best vantage point to kill Glen Szyszynski without harming anyone else in the room . . . even that, at that moment, you had no plans to kill the man?"
Her nostrils flare. "No, Mr. Brown, I didn't."
"What about at the moment you pulled the gun out of your pocket-book and shoved it up to Glen Szyszynski's temple? Did you still have no plans to kill him then?"
Nina's lips draw tight as a purse. "You need to give an answer," Judge Neal says.
"I told the court earlier I wasn't thinking at all at that moment."
Quentin's drawn first blood, he knows it. "Mrs. Frost, isn't it true that you've handled over two hundred child molestation cases in your seven years with the district attorney's office?"
"Yes."
"Of those two hundred cases, twenty went to trial?"
"Yes."
"And of those, twelve were convictions."
"That's true."
"In those twelve cases," Quentin asks, "were the children able to testify?"
"Yes."
"In fact, in several of those cases, there was no corroborating physical evidence, as there was in the case of your son, isn't that right?"
"Yes."
"As a prosecutor, as someone with access to child psychiatrists and social workers and an intimate knowledge of the legal process, don't you think you would have been able to prepare Nathaniel to come to court better than just about any other mother?"
She narrows her eyes. "You can have every resource in the world at your fingertips, and still never be able to prepare a child for that. The reality, as you know, is that the rules in court are not written to protect children, but to protect defendants."
"How fortunate for you, Mrs. Frost," Quentin says dryly. "Would you say you were a dedicated prosecutor?"
She hesitates. "I would say ... I was too dedicated a prosecutor."
"Would you say you worked hard with the children you put on the stand to testify?"
"Yes."
