Page 63 of The Better Sister

“Let me just say this,” Olivia said. “I hoped the lack of witnesses, the lack of physical evidence, the lack of a confession, would all be enough to make it obvious there’s reasonable doubt here. But we’ve had some setbacks. Remember that promise I made after the very first court appearance?”

I nodded. She had promised to tell us when she thought we were losing.

“Okay, we’re at that moment. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I felt my throat tighten and my eyes begin to water. I heard Nicky suck in her breath.

“Reasonable doubt alone may not be enough at this point. It would help if we could give the jury an alternative explanation, another story to believe. To be honest, if you didn’t have a rock-solid alibi, I’d be arguing thatyouhad at least as strong of a motive to kill Adam as Ethan.”

“That’s just great,” I said dryly.

“Ethan did a good job explaining how he found those things in his bedroom in the city. I think the jury will follow along once I get to closing. But we still have the problem of broken glass being in the wrong places, and the security system being disarmed before the murder. If it wasn’t Ethan—and we don’t think it’s Ethan, right?”

“Of course not,” I said, hoping I sounded sincere.

“Okay, so then the most sensible explanation is that Adam had gone to bed and then got up and disarmed the alarm for an unexpected visitor, perhaps someone he knew—or maybe not? There was a fight. It escalated. Then afterward, the person staged the scene. But who’s the person?”

I finally saw the path she was trying to lead me to. “His name’s Jake Summer.”

“At Adam’s law firm,” she said, recognizing the name. “The one quoted in the article you gave me about Gentry’s problems.”

I nodded.

“How long had you been seeing him?”

I closed my eyes, trying to place the beginning of our affair. Standing closer than we needed to when he helped me squeeze more limes for margaritas at our Memorial Day croquet party. Brushing against him in the law firm suite at the Yankee game. Then an invitation to “grab lunch” when he happened to take a staycation at his house while I was taking a week-long writer’s retreat alone.

“Right after Labor Day last year.”

“So about eight months before Adam was killed?”

“Yes, but Jake didn’t—”

Nicky didn’t need me to finish the thought to disagree. “That’s not what matters, Chloe. She’s not going to have him arrested or anything. She just needs to give the jury something to chew on. It’s confusion, chaos, distraction. If they don’t know at the end of the day who did it, they have to acquit. And you just heard her. She kept her promise. We’re going to lose Ethan forever if we don’t do something.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it chaos,” Olivia said, “but, like I said, it’s about creating doubt.”

I looked up at the ceiling, hoping that some brilliant solution would fall from the sky. Instead I saw Olivia, upside down, standing over me behind the sofa.

“I’ll be honest, Chloe. I’ve tried more than two hundred felony cases, including thirteen homicides. Right now, I think Ethan will be convicted if we don’t raise an alternative theory. I can go with EED, but that still means manslaughter. He’d get at least three years, but it would probably be more like ten. Or I can call Nunzio and start talking about a plea deal. Or we can talk more about Jake Summer. Those are the options. No other doors I can see.”

I wiped my face with my hands. I didn’t have a choice. “Is it too late to let Nicky take the fall?”

Nicky pressed her palms against her heart. “Hey, I’ve been ready and willing this whole time.”

“Not gonna fly,” Olivia said, adding a wink in Nicky’s direction. “So let’s talk about Jake.”

I told her everything I knew about the man I had hoped would be the rest of my future, if I ever got there.

We were halfway home to East Hampton when he called my cell. I looked at Nicky and steeled myself before I answered.

“Hey.”

“I’ve been sitting by the phone, not knowing whether I should call.”

“It’s been a long day.”

“Chloe, I read the trial coverage. Is that true? What Ethan said?”

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