The Better Sister by Alafair Burke

Author:Alafair Burke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

I could still hear the judge’s words ringing in my ears when we walked out of the courtroom. The press was waiting for us and started yelling questions the moment they saw me emerge into the hallway. Is it true you lied to the police? Do you think Ethan killed your husband? And some of the questions were obviously about Nicky. Is that your sister? Are you his actual mother?

Olivia shuffled us through the crowd and down the hall to an unused jury room she had arranged for just this purpose. Once the door was closed, Nicky and I were talking at once. How do we appeal? When will Ethan get home? What if we offer to hire private security to watch Ethan around the clock?

Olivia tried to calm us down by telling us that Ethan would be housed with other juveniles, not in county jail, and that this was only the beginning of the process.

Nicky slapped the table. Hard. “Stop fucking saying that. It’s the beginning of a shit show, but it’s the end of everything that was good for him. The only question is how bad it’s going to be from now on.”

Olivia took a deep breath and nodded. “Fair enough. I just wanted you to know how many people do get cases dismissed prior to trial. Or get acquitted. Or reach some agreement that involves far less serious charges. You haven’t lost him. You’re not going to lose him.”

I was still trying to recover from what I’d heard in the courtroom. “I don’t understand. Why would he take those things from the house?”

“I’m sorry, but I have attorney-client privilege with Ethan, not you.”

“So he told you why he had those things in his closet?”

She pressed her lips together. “What if, hypothetically, he just got confused. Maybe in the chaos of carrying items back and forth between your two houses, it’s hard to keep track of what gets left where. And maybe you were also both still in shock when the police asked you to do the walk-through so soon after Adam died.”

“So he said he was confused? But then why didn’t he have his backpack with him the first half of the night with Kevin?”

“It’s not for us to explain their evidence, or even to take it at face value. You have no idea how much pressure they put on his friend to get him to say what they wanted.”

But Olivia didn’t know what I knew about the backpack being empty that first night back in the city. And the police had discovered the items on the top shelf of his closet. It didn’t take camera footage to conclude that Ethan had removed the things from his bag and put them there. No jury in the world would buy some story about his being in shock while he did it. And I knew for a fact that Ethan never put anything away.

When Adam and I decided to get married, I swore to myself that I would never treat Ethan as anything less than my own son.

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