“Can you lend me the money? I would put in my $2,300, and maybe you could put in the rest?”

“I don’t know.” Christine fumbled, off-balance.

“I would pay you back. When you finish the book and sell it, then you could just take it out of whatever you’re going to give me. You were going to give something, weren’t you, like a consultant?”

“I have to think about it.”

Zachary turned to Lauren. “Could you put in some? I’ll pay you back out of the book sales, I swear to you. Right now, there’s nothing I can do, there’s no way I can make money to pay for my defense.”

“I don’t think so, Zachary.” Lauren shifted in the chair, and Christine felt guilty for having gotten her into this spot.

“Zachary, Lauren is only helping me as an assistant, she’s not even getting paid. If it’s going to come from anybody, it should come from me.”

“So can you?”

“As I said, I have to think about it. I’ll go home and think about it.”

“Then you’ll let me know?”

“Yes, I’ll let you know.” Christine had to move on. “Let’s table the money discussion for now because there’s one more important thing I have to tell you, and it came directly from Griff. He said that this should be our last meeting. He doesn’t want you to be discussing your case with anybody except him.”

“Why?” Zachary asked, his eyebrows sloping down unhappily.

“He said that all these conversations are admissible and so are my notes.” Christine gestured at her pad, for effect. She’d practiced this part of the conversation in her mind.

“We’re not supposed to meet anymore?” Zachary’s lips parted in disappointment.

“No, this is it.” Christine knew he was disappointed but couldn’t let it show.

“What about your book?”

“He said it will have to wait, and I understand that, I really want what’s best for you.” Christine wasn’t lying about that part.

“But I like talking to you. I like you.” Zachary turned to Lauren and back to Christine. “I like you, too. It’s nice to have somebody to talk to, somebody normal.”

“I like talking to you, too.” Christine kept her emotions in check. She had a purpose for being here, she was on a mission. “It was so interesting yesterday, to get to know you better, to hear your life story. But I couldn’t live with myself if your defense was compromised because I want to write about you. That wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t sleep at night.”

“I appreciate that,” Zachary said, blinking. “That’s unselfish of you.”

“Thanks.” Christine kept her expression impassive, though she felt a twinge of guilt. “He also said you shouldn’t meet with anybody else, no one from the press, none of the other reporters or book people.”

“Even the movie people?” Zachary frowned. “They were from Los Angeles. They said they’re coming back.”

“Not even them.”

“But one of them knows somebody who knows J. J. Abrams. They know really famous people.”

“I understand, but Griff would say no.”

“They would totally have the money for a lawyer. They wanted to option my story for a movie. They said they would get me an agent and everything.”

“Ask Griff when you see him.” Christine hesitated. “Anyway, Griff said I could meet with you this one last time, and I was allowed to talk to you only about your background, but not about the case. That’s all I was really interested in anyway, I really wanted this to be more about you.”

“That’s cool.” Zachary brightened.

“We better get started.” Christine picked up her golf pencil. “First, let me say that we were both very moved by your story about your sister. We don’t have to go over that again, because I don’t want you to have to relive that.”

“Okay. I appreciate that.”

“We were both amazed that, given the circumstances, you managed to get yourself to college, graduating with honors.”

“Don’t forget it was magna cum laude.”

Lauren interjected, “I graduated magna cum laude, but my father always said it was magna cum loudly.”

They all laughed, and Christine could see that Zachary eased back in his chair on the other side of the Plexiglas.

“Now, Zachary, you said you always wanted to go to medical school. Why?” Christine held her golf pencil poised over her pad, ready to take fake-notes.

“I want to help people, to help society. I thought it would be rewarding, to cure something.”

“So I guess we could say that you’re unselfish, too.”

“Right.” Zachary’s bright blue eyes met Christine’s with warmth, and again, she couldn’t deny the connection she felt with him, wanted or no.

“What was your favorite subject in school?”

“Hmm,” Zachary smiled, tilting his head in thought. “You know, I would have loved gross anatomy. My girlfriend took it first year, and I used to help her study. There’s a lot of memorization, and I used to quiz her. She even took me to lab with her once though she wasn’t supposed to.”

“Lab?” Christine didn’t understand the turn that the conversation was taking.

“Anatomy lab. I loved it, even though it’s the hardest because you spend so much time in lab, dissecting and learning the structures you dissect. My girlfriend showed me how they started on the cadaver’s back, then flipped the body over, then you can see the face. That makes the experience seem even more real.” Zachary paused, but his expression didn’t change, almost pleasant. “She told me they dissected the thorax, upper extremities, lower extremities, then the abdomen, then sawed off the leg—”

Lauren blurted out, “She sawed off a leg?”

Christine felt troubled by his lack of emotionality but didn’t let her judgment show since Zachary was lowering his guard.

“You have to, to dissect the pelvis, then the face, which had a bunch of tiny sets of dissections. Eyes, nasal cavity, ear canal, and a bunch of nerve structures run through the face, especially the facial nerve and all its branches.” Zachary paused, reflecting. “She told me it took forever. Then she sawed off the skull with a bone saw and removed the brain. She used the brains and brainstems in neuroanatomy in the spring semester.”