“Summer,” she said with a bright smile. “At last, we can speak without prison bars between us.”
We took our seats, and she placed a blue folder on the table before me.
“Before we discuss this,” Samantha said, “I want to know how you’ve been.”
I trusted her almost immediately because she treated me with genuine kindness. I told her everything—the conversation behind the door, the rubbing alcohol, my emptied bedroom, the forty dollars, and the house deed that had been transferred. Samantha listened without interrupting, then tightened her jaw.
“Your family never deserved your silence,” she said.
“My silence was the final gift I gave them,” I answered.
She opened the folder.
“My father and I investigated your case,” Samantha explained. “We know the story never made sense. We know you accepted the bl@me because your family pressured you.”
A chill ran through my body.
“How did you find that out?” I asked.
