"I'm not following you."
"You know the way the DNA report says that the chances of randomly selecting an unrelated individual who matches this genetic material are one in six billion?"
Quentin nods.
"Well," Frankie explains, "you just found the one."
It costs approximately two thousand dollars of taxpayer money to exhume a body. "No," Ted Poulin says flatly. As the attorney general of Maine, and Quentin's boss, that ought to be that. But Quentin isn't going to give up without a fight, not this time.
He grips the receiver of the phone. "The DNA scientist at the state lab says we can do the test on tooth pulp."
"Quentin, it doesn't matter for the prosecution. She killed him. Period."
"She killed a guy who molested her son. I have to change him from a sexual predator into a victim, Ted, and this is the way to do it."
There is a long silence on the other end. Quentin runs his fingertips along the grain of wood on Nina Frost's desk. He does this over and over, as if he is rubbing an amulet.
"There's no family to fight it?"
"The mother gave consent already."
Ted sighs. "The publicity is going to be outrageous."
Leaning back in his chair, Quentin grins. "Let me take care of it," he offers.
Fisher storms into the district attorney's office, uncharacteristically flustered. He has been there before, of course, but who knows where the hell they've ensconced Quentin Brown while he's prosecuting Nina's case. He has just opened up his mouth to ask the secretary when Brown himself walks out of the small kitchen area, carrying a cup of coffee. "Mr. Carrington," he says pleasantly. "Looking for me?"
Fisher withdraws the paperwork he's received that morning from his breast pocket. The Motion to Exhume. "What is this?"
Quentin shrugs. "You must know. You're the one who asked for the DNA records to be rushed over, after all."
Fisher has no idea why, in fact. The DNA records were rushed over at Nina's behest, but he'll be damned if he lets Brown know this. "What are you trying to do, counselor?"
"A simple test that proves the priest your client killed wasn't the same guy who abused her kid."
Fisher steels his gaze. "I'll see you in court tomorrow morning," he says, and by the time he gets into his car to drive to Nina's home, he has begun to understand how an ordinary human might become frustrated enough to kill.
"Fisher!" I say, and I'm actually delighted to see the man. This amazes me-either I have truly bedded down with the Enemy, or I've been under house arrest too long. I throw open the door to let him in, and realize that he is furious. "You knew," he says, his voice calm and that much more frightening for all its control. He hands me a motion filed by the assistant attorney general.
My insides begin to quiver; I feel absolutely sick. With tremendous effort I swallow and meet Fisher's eye-better to come clean eventually, than to not come clean at all. "I didn't know if I should tell you. I didn't know if the information was going to be important to my case."
"That's my job!" Fisher explodes. "You are paying me for a reason, Nina, and it's because you know on some level, although apparently not a conscious one, that I am qualified to get you acquitted. In fact, I'm more qualified to do that than any other attorney in Maine . . . including you."
I look away. At heart, I am a prosecutor, and prosecutors don't tell defense attorneys everything. They dance around each other, but the prosecutor is always the one who leads, leaving the other lawyer to find his footing.
Always.
"I don't trust you," I say finally.
Fisher fields this like a blow. "Well, then. We're even."
We stare at each other, two great dogs with their teeth bared. Fisher turns away, angry, and in that moment I see my face in the reflection of the window. The truth is, I'm not a prosecutor anymore. I'm not capable of defending myself. I'm not sure I even want to.
"Fisher," I call out when he is halfway out the door. "How badly will this hurt me?"
"I don't know, Nina. It doesn't make you look any less crazy, but it's also going to strip you of public sympathy. You're not a hero anymore, killing a pedophile. You're a hothead who knocked off an innocent man-spriest, no less." He shakes his head. "You're the prime example of why we have laws in the first place."
In his eyes, I see what's coming-the fact that I am no longer a mother doing what she had to for her child, but simply a reckless woman who thought she knew better than anyone else. I wonder if camera flashes feel different on your skin when they capture you as a criminal, instead of a victim. I wonder if parents who once fathomed my actions-even if they disagreed with them-will look at me now and cross the street, just in case faulty judgment is contagious.
