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  "You are in serious trouble, Danny," I interrupt. "Die, you bastard? Really?"

  He shrugs. "That's what she told me. She testified under oath."

  "Here's what I know: You spoke to your sister and you knew damn well Edward had never said anything even remotely like that. So you intentionally allowed perjured testimony into the grand jury proceeding. You may think a high-profile case like this will get you the conservative vote and settle you back into office before your chair even gets cold, but most people in this county prefer knowing that their attorney is honest and upright, not a weasel who's willing to twist the law in order to gain a political advantage."

  "The girl came to me," Boyle says. "Not the other way around. I'm not the one to blame here if she's an outright liar."

  I take a step toward him and poke him in the chest, even though I'm a full head shorter than he is. "Did you ever hear of due diligence, Danny? Did you speak to any of Luke Warren's doctors to find out whether Cara really understood her father's prognosis? Did you ask anyone else who was in the hospital room--anyone who isn't a blood relative of yours, that is--if there was intent or malice? Or did you just choose to believe a seventeen-year-old kid who's distraught and desperate to keep her father alive?"

  Taking my phone out of my pocket, I hold it up between us. "I've got the Union Leader on speed dial, and you're going to be above the fold tomorrow morning unless you do something right now." Then I sit down in his office chair. "In fact, I'm going to wait right here until I know you've done it."

  He gives me a dirty look and then crosses to his desk, pressing the speakerphone button before dialing one of his contacts. To my surprise, though, the voice on the other end of the line is not that of the editor of the biggest newspaper in New Hampshire but one I recognize. "Cara," Boyle says when she answers her cell phone, "it's Daniel Boyle."

  "Is something wrong?" she replies.

  "No . . . I just have a really important question to ask you."

  There's a beat of silence. "Um. Okay."

  "Did you lie to the grand jury?"

  Her voice comes back in a flood of words. "You told me I needed to make them believe it was premeditated and that Edward intended to kill my father and that there was malice, too, so I did what I needed to do. I didn't lie, I just said what you told me to say."

  Boyle's face goes white. It's a beautiful thing, really.

  "I didn't tell you to say anything. You swore under oath--"

  "Well, technically I didn't. My right arm's in a sling."

  "Are you admitting, Cara, that your brother never actually said, Die, you bastard, in your father's hospital room?"

  She is quiet for a heartbeat. "If he didn't say it," she finally mutters, "I know he was thinking it."

  I lean back in Boyle's chair and put my feet up on his desk.

  "You fight all the time for people you don't even know; this is my father's life we're talking about," Cara adds. "Imagine how I felt? I didn't have any choice."

  Boyle briefly closes his eyes. "This is a real problem, Cara. This indictment came about under false circumstances. I never have participated and never will participate in any fraud . . . and I would never support perjury," he grandstands. "You misunderstood me. I realize you're upset right now, and you probably weren't thinking straight, but I'm going to make this indictment go away before either one of us suffers any greater embarrassment."

  "Wait!" Cara cries. "What am I supposed to do about my father?"

  "That's a civil matter," Boyle says, and he hangs up the phone.

  I swing my legs down. "Since you're in the middle of a deposition, I'll let you send me a cell phone photo of the dismissal form you're going to file in court before the end of the day. Oh, and Danny?" I walk past him, smiling broadly. "That assault charge against my client is going to disappear, too."

  When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."

  Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay."

  After that, she made herself scarce whenever I visited Georgie or came to take her mother out on a date. When Georgie and I decided to get married, though, I knew that I had to connect with Cara somehow. So one morning, I presented Georgie with a surprise trip to a day spa, and then I straightened up her kitchen and started cooking the Cambodian food my mother used to make for me.

  Let's just say if you haven't experienced prahok in your lifetime, you might want to keep it that way. It's a staple in the Cambodian diet, one of those you-wouldn't-understand-unless-you-grew-up-with-it foods, like Marmite or gefilte fish. My mother used it at every meal as a dipping sauce, but that morning, I was frying it in banana leaves as a main dish.

  It didn't take long before Cara stumbled into the kitchen in her pajamas, her hair a mess and her eyes still swollen with sleep. "Did something die in here?" she asked.

  "This," I announced, "is a good home-cooked Cambodian meal, for your information."

  She raised a brow. "Well, it smells like butt."

  "Actually, what you're smelling is fermented fish paste. On the other hand, durian smells like butt," I said. "It's a fruit Cambodians eat. I wonder if they sell them at Whole Foods . . ."

  Cara shuddered. "Yeah. Next to the rotten whale meat, probably."

  "Some things," I told her, "are an acquired taste."

  I had been talking about the prahok but also about me. As a stepfather, as a partner for her mother--maybe I was an addition to the family that would grow on her.

  "Just try it," I urged.

  "I'd rather die," Cara told me.

  "I was afraid you might say that," I replied. "Which is why I made this, too." I opened up a wok and used tongs to serve her some mee kola, a noodle dish that I'd never seen a kid turn away from.

  She picked at the crushed peanuts on top, and stuck her finger into the sauce. "This," she conceded, "is decent." And she proceeded to eat three full bowls, while I sat down across from her with the dreaded prahok. While we ate, I asked her questions--gently, the way I approached traumatized witnesses. Cara told me that some kids in her class only wanted to be her friend because her father was famous on television, and that it was easier to be alone than to try to guess someone's motivations for sharing their Thin Mint cookies with you at lunch. She talked about a teacher who had made a mistake on an answer grid for a test, and how unfair it was that she still marked students wrong. She said she desperately wanted a cell phone but her mom thought she was still too young. She said she secretly thought the Jonas Brothers had been sent by aliens to judge the reactions of humankind. She told me that she could take or leave ice cream, but that if she were told she would never be able to eat another Twizzler in her life, she would probably kill herself.

  Cara left the kitchen thinking she'd had breakfast. But as I rinsed the dishes and pots and pans, I knew that what she'd really had was a conversation.

  After Georgie and I got married and moved into our house, I'd get up on Sunday morning and I'd start cooking. Amok trei, ka tieu. I'd make desserts like sankya lapov and ansom chek. Georgie would sleep in, but Cara would get up and pad into the kitchen. We'd talk while she worked beside me, cutting up papaya or gingerroot or cucumbers. Then we'd sit at the kitchen table and devour our creations. As she grew older, our discussions changed. Sometimes she complained to me about a punishment Georgie had lobbed at her, hoping I would intercede. Sometimes she turne