She couldn’t shake the sadness that seemed to sink into her bones as she showered, wrapped her wet hair in a fresh towel, and cocooned herself in a soft terry bathrobe. She kept thinking about Griff’s tiny quarters, stuck into what must have been a repurposed storage room, and she found herself liking him, even though he was a complicated man. There was so much she didn’t know about him, like how a man with so much family could be so completely alone, if not lonely. She respected him as a lawyer and admired the energy he was putting into Zachary’s case, and she could forgive him his occasional crankiness, especially after what she had seen.

Marcus was always in the back of her mind, too, and Christine kept checking her phone to see if he had called or texted, but he hadn’t. She’d held out hope that he would appear at the hotel, having reconsidered his position, but she knew that she was in denial. Marcus wasn’t that kind of man, and this rift went too deep to be repaired quickly. She guessed that if he hadn’t called yet, he probably wasn’t going to; she glanced at the digital clock on the night table, which read 9:45.

Christine’s gaze traveled from the clock to the ultrasound photo of the baby, which she’d left on the night table, and she picked it up and eased into a sitting position on the bed, eyeing the image. She felt a surge of the overwhelming protectiveness and love that she’d felt the first time she’d seen the image and every time she’d looked at it thereafter. She remembered the fragile heart she’d seen beating on the monitor, and her loving eyes took in the grayish figure eight of the baby’s body, growing inside her. The sight of the baby renewed her strength and resolve. She had to stay strong and accomplish what she came for. She had come this far and she hadn’t been wrong yet. If she could keep going, she had a chance of exonerating Zachary and putting her marriage back together.

Christine set the ultrasound photo aside, fetched the envelope Griff had given her, and climbed into bed with it. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bedspread, opened the old-fashioned brass brad, and peeked inside to see a bunch of photos, which she shook out onto the bed. The top one landed faceup, and just one glance made Christine’s gut wrench. She swallowed hard and picked it up, to see it more closely in the low light.

It was a photo of Zachary that the police must have taken after his arrest, the night of Gail Robinbrecht’s murder. It appeared to be taken in a home setting, evidently at the crime scene, though an unusually bright light shone on Zachary and illuminated him in a clinical way, probably for evidentiary purposes. It showed clearly the blood that was spattered on his face, dotting his cheeks and forehead, obliterating his handsome features. There was even blood in the front of his hair, darkening and stiffening his tawny bangs. His round blue eyes looked directly at the camera, in mute shock. His lips were parted, and there was blood on his upper lip.

Christine sighed, and it only got worse as her gaze traveled downward in the photo. Blood covered Zachary’s upper chest in his Ralph Lauren polo shirt, which must have been white before it was covered with gruesome crimson blotches, radiating from the center as if he had been shot in the chest. His hands hung at his sides but they were covered with blood, and there was blood on his forearms, too; some in droplets and others in smears, as if it had been rubbed or wiped. He was wearing khaki pants, and blood dripped down them in teardrop shapes. His shoes were brown loafers, but she didn’t see any blood on them. She looked more closely, but still didn’t see any blood on the upper of his shoes.

She set the photo down and picked up the others, counting them quickly. There were eight photos, and out of habit, she set them out on the bed, four in the top row and four in the bottom, the way she did at school, when she used flashcards for sight vocabulary with her younger students. Then she sorted the photos according to setting; there were four photos taken in the home setting, so she put them on the top row, and there were four photos taken in an institutional setting, probably the police station, with a bright white background, fluorescent lighting, and a gray-white counter and cubicles in the background.

Christine started with the top photos, which were front, back, and views of Zachary from both sides, showing the blood spatter that was all over his face, body, clothes, and skin. But not on the uppers of his shoes, and she didn’t know if it was meaningful or chance. She examined each photo carefully, trying to look at it in an objective way but failing. Maybe it was her current mood or maybe it was the fact that she was just a teacher from suburban Connecticut, but she couldn’t get over the horror of what she was seeing. She wanted to believe that Zachary wasn’t guilty, but it was hard to do with so much blood on him, and she couldn’t find a way to justify it to herself. His expression in each of the top four photos was basically the same; his eyes unfocused and oddly opaque, without any of the warmth she had seen at the prison or any of the connection she had felt there.

She picked up the second set of four photos, which were also front, back, right, and left views, and she experienced the same sensation of horror, mixed with despair. The bright institutional lighting made the blood shine cruelly and brought up its rich vermilion color, even though it had started to dry at the edges of most of the bloodstains, where it must have been thinner. Christine could see how it made stiff splotches on Zachary’s polo shirt and pants, and it had even begun to clump his bangs together.

She scrutinized each photo, then set them down, so that all eight were looking back at her, and eight sets of blue eyes seemed to see through her, to her very heart. She thought of her baby’s beating heart, so fragile and delicate in its gossamer ultrasound, and it sickened her to think that this was her baby’s father. She looked at Zachary’s eyes and she wondered if she would see them someday, looking back at her in the flesh, the eyes of her own little boy or girl. And even as she hoped that the genetics counselor was right, Christine couldn’t help but wonder if Marcus was right, too, and a propensity toward violence of this deranged degree was somehow carried in the very DNA of her child, who would turn out to be a murderer, the same way that athletic skill, ability with numbers, and even a knack for languages were inherited.

Christine prayed that Zachary wasn’t guilty, but even so, it was a nightmare to imagine that he was in this very situation, covered with the blood of an innocent young nurse who didn’t deserve to die. Gail Robinbrecht had dedicated her life to the care of others, to saving lives, only to meet a horrific end in a random hookup with a deviant, even as she was trying to come to terms with the loss of another man she had loved and lost to the war.