Chapter 7

Ellis Pruitt came out to Deb's house Sunday afternoon, because Sadie wouldn't bring the laptop to his office and he wouldn't take her word for it.

He was fifty-something, soft-shouldered, carrying a canvas briefcase with a broken zipper, and he had ninety open files. He watched the video twice standing up with his tie loosened, and he didn't say a word either time.

When it ended he sat down and rubbed his eyes.

"Okay," he said. "First thing. Where's the original?"

"In the camera."

"Don't touch the camera. Don't charge it again. Don't record over anything." He pointed at the laptop. "Where else does this exist?"

"On the laptop. On a thumb drive. On Deb's phone. And on mine."

Pruitt winced. "That's three more places than I wanted. But it's done." He leaned back. "Sadie, listen to me. This is good. This is very good. And it is not the end of anything."

"Why not?"

"Because the first thing the county is going to say is that it's a fake. A kid's toy camera, a house with a laptop, a woman with a motive. They'll say it's AI. They'll say the time stamp was edited. They'll say the whole thing was staged in the driveway." He held up a hand before she could start. "And we can beat all of that. But it takes a hearing, and a hearing takes weeks, and I've got a trial starting Thursday and another one the week after."

"How many weeks."

"Six. Maybe eight."

Tommy was in the doorway with a glass of water he wasn't drinking.

Deb said, from the stove, "Eight weeks of what? Of him riding past this house?"

Nobody answered her.

Sunday night, a Bramlett County cruiser parked across the street at 9:15 and sat there with the engine running. Sadie watched it through the blinds for eleven minutes. It didn't move. Then the headlights came on, and it pulled off slow, and she stood in the dark afterward with her palm flat on the window glass.

Monday morning a woman from the county came about Tommy.

She had a clipboard and a lanyard and a pleasant voice, and she sat in Deb's living room and asked about school attendance, bedroom arrangements, and whether Tommy had witnessed anything on Tuesday morning. Sadie answered every question the way Pruitt had told her to: short, true, no extra. When the woman left, she said she'd be back in two weeks.

At 11:40 Pruitt called. The assistant district attorney had made a final offer. One year suspended, a felony plea, and the state would not oppose a request to reduce it to a misdemeanor after three years. If Sadie declined, the offer was withdrawn and the state would proceed on the original charge.

"Don't answer yet," Pruitt said. "Give me a day."

Sadie said she'd give him a day.

Then she went out to Deb's car and drove to the square. She had the clip on her phone and the laptop in a grocery bag on the back seat, and Tommy beside her, and Deb in the back, because Sadie had learned by Friday that she was not walking into that building alone again.

At 4:20 Monday afternoon she pushed through the glass front door of the Bramlett County Sheriff's Department.

Deputy Royce Vance was at the front counter with a cup of coffee in his hand, half-turned, laughing at something the clerk had said.