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  "How does that make you feel?"

  Once again, she saw that tiny comma of a body lying between her legs, slick with her own blood. "Bad," she whispered.

  "You know that the evidence against you is strong."

  With a glance at the jury, Katie nodded. "I've been trying to follow what's been said. I'm not sure I understand it all."

  "What don't you understand?"

  "The way you English do things is very different than what I'm used to."

  "How so?"

  She thought about this for a minute. The confession, that was the same, or she wouldn't be sitting up here now. But the English judged a person so that they'd be justified in casting her out. The Amish judged a person so that they'd be justified in welcoming her back. "Where I'm from, if someone is accused of sinning, it's not so that others can place blame. It's so that the person can make amends and move on."

  "Did you sin when you conceived your child?"

  Instinctively, Katie adopted a humble demeanor. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I wasn't married."

  "Did you love the man?"

  From beneath lowered lashes, Katie scanned the gallery to find Adam. He was sitting on the edge of his seat with his head bowed, as if this was his confession as well. "Very much," Katie murmured.

  "Were you accused of that sin by your community?"

  "Yes. The deacon and the bishop, they came and asked me to make a kneeling confession at church."

  "After you confessed to conceiving a child out of wedlock, what happened?"

  "I was put in the bann for a time, to think about what I'd done. After six weeks, I went back and promised to work with the church." She smiled. "They took me back."

  "Katie, did the deacon and minister ask you to confess to killing your child?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Katie folded her hands in her lap. "That charge wasn't laid against me."

  "So the people in your own community did not believe you guilty of the sin of murder?" Katie shrugged. "I need a verbal response," Ellie said.

  "No, they didn't."

  Ellie walked back to the defense table, her heels clicking on the parquet floor. "Do you remember what happened the night you gave birth, Katie?"

  "Bits and pieces. It comes back a little at a time."

  "Why is that?"

  "Dr. Cooper says it's because my mind can't take too much too soon." She worried her bottom lip. "I kind of shut down after it happened."

  "After what happened?"

  "After the baby came."

  Ellie nodded. "We've heard from a number of different people, but I think the jury would like to hear you tell us about that night. Did you know you were pregnant?"

  Katie suddenly felt herself tumble backward in her mind, until she could feel beneath her palms the hard, small swell of the baby inside. "I couldn't believe I was," she said softly. "I didn't believe it, until I had to move the pins on my apron because I was getting bigger."

  "Did you tell anyone?"

  "No. I pushed it out of my head, and concentrated on other things."

  "Why?"

  "I was scared. I didn't want my parents to know what had happened." She took a deep breath. "I prayed that maybe I'd guessed wrong."

  "Do you remember delivering the baby?"

  Katie cradled her hands around her abdomen, reliving the burning pains that burst from her back to her belly. "Some of it," she said. "The pain, and the way the hay pricked the skin on my back ... but there are blocks of time I can't picture anything at all."

  "How did you feel at the time?"

  "Scared," she whispered. "Real scared."

  "Do you remember the baby?" Ellie asked.

  This was the part she knew so well, it might have been engraved on the backs of her eyelids. That small, sweet body, not much bigger than her own hand, kicking and coughing and reaching out for her. "He was beautiful. I picked him up. Held him. I rubbed his back. He had ... the tiniest bones inside. His heart, it beat against my hand."

  "What were you planning to do with him?"

  "I don't know. I would have taken him to my mother, I guess; found something to wrap him in and keep him warm ... but I fell asleep before I could."

  "You passed out."

  Ja.

  "Were you still holding the baby?"

  "Oh, yes," Katie said.

  "What happened after that?"

  "I woke up. And the baby was gone."

  Ellie raised her brows. "Gone? What did you think?"

  Katie wrung her hands together. "That this had been a dream," she admitted.

  "Was there evidence to the contrary?"

  "There was blood on my nightgown, and a little in the hay."

  "What did you do?"

  "I went to the pond and washed off," Katie said. "Then I went back to my room."

  "Why didn't you wake anyone up, or go to a doctor, or try to find that baby?"

  Her eyes brightened with tears. "I don't know. I should have. I know that now."

  "When you woke up the next morning, what happened?"

  She wiped her hand across her eyes. "It was like nothing had changed," she said brokenly. "If everyone had looked a little different; if I'd felt poorly, maybe I wouldn't have ..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked away. "I thought that maybe I'd made it all up, that nothing had happened to me. I wanted to believe that, because then I wouldn't have to wonder about where the baby was."

  "Did you know where the baby was?"

  "No."

  "You don't remember taking it anywhere?"

  "No."

  "You don't remember waking up with the baby in your arms at any time?"

  "No. After I woke up, he was already gone."

  Ellie nodded. "Did you plan to get rid of the baby?"

  "No."

  "Did you want to get rid of the baby?"

  "Not once I'd seen him," Katie said softly.

  Ellie was now standing only a foot away. Katie waited for her question, waited to speak the words she had come here to say. But with a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, Ellie turned to the jury. "Thank you," she said. "Nothing further."

  Frankly, George was baffled. He'd expected more flashes of brilliance from Ellie Hathaway in a direct examination of her client, but she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. More importantly, neither had the witness. Katie Fisher had said what anyone would expect her to say--none of which added up to Ellie's disclaimer in chambers this morning.

  He smiled at Katie. "Good morning, Ms. Fisher."

  "You can call me Katie."

  "Katie, then. Let's pick up where you just left off. You fell asleep holding the baby, and when you woke up, he was gone. You were the only eyewitness that night. So tell us--what happened to that baby?"

  She squeezed her eyes shut, a tear leaking from one corner. "I killed him."

  George stopped in his tracks. The gallery erupted in confusion, and the judge rapped her gavel for quiet. Turning to Ellie, George lifted his palms in question. She was sitting at the defense table, looking almost bored, and he realized this had not been a surprise to her. Meeting his gaze, she shrugged.

  "You killed your baby?"

  "Yes," she murmured.

  He stared at the girl on the stand, looking powerfully beaten as she curled into herself in misery. "How did you do it?"

  Katie shook her head.

  "You must answer the question."

  She clenched her hands around her middle. "I just want to make my things right."

  "Hang on now. You just confessed to killing your baby. Now I'm asking you to tell us how you killed him."

  "I'm sorry," she choked out. "I can't."

  George turned to Judge Ledbetter. "Approach?"

  The judge nodded, and Ellie walked up beside him to the bench. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded.

  "Ms. Hathaway?"

  Ellie raised a brow. "Ever hear of the Fifth Amendment, George?"

  "It's a lit