“Buy yourself a meal, Ashley,” she said.
“The commissary takes cash.”
Behind me, forty people let out one long breath.
Ashley opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
The deputy led her down the corridor, heels clicking, her fingers curled around the twenty like a child holding something she didn’t understand.
She did not look back.
The rest arrived in pieces, over a long, wet summer.
Ashley Rourke pleaded guilty to forg*ry, tampering with medical records, and th*ft by taking.
She received seven years.
Dana lost her notary commission and testified against her uncle.
Frank Rourke resigned from the foundation a week before the state auditor arrived with a truck.
My mother came to Pine Hollow on the first Sunday of June.
She stood in the gravel lot in her good shoes with her handbag held in front of her like a shield.
Emily met her on the porch.
