Lester shakes her head in disgust.

The prosecution’s theory was that Danny and Charlotte were at a house party and Charlotte told him she was pregnant and they had a fight. Danny then got really drunk and sometime after the party the two of them got into it again, and he pushed her and she fell, suffering a fatal head trauma. Danny then panicked and moved her body to the creek in a wheelbarrow, and smashed her skull in with a large rock, a big bloody mess. But there was no blood on his clothes, no DNA, no physical evidence of any kind. Not one trace. Does that sound like the work of a staggering drunk teenager? And then we found out that the prosecutor had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.…

CHAPTER 4

MATT PINE

The cinder-block room in the prison smelled of bleach. Matt studied Agent Keller, who sat quietly across from him. She was a woman of few words. But she exuded a confidence that was comforting. Even in a maximum-security prison amid murderers, rapists, and the worst society had to offer—with the faint howls of those damned souls just outside the door—she was calm and composed.

“Taking a while,” Matt said, just to break the silence. They’d been in the room a good half hour.

Keller nodded.

“I haven’t seen him since we were kids,” Matt continued, nervous talking. He’d never visited Danny in prison. Dad always said that Danny wanted it that way. His brother refused to let his siblings see him locked up like an animal.

So Danny was frozen in time in Matt’s mind. The archetype of a small-town football star. Danny was no Tom Brady, but in Adair, Nebraska—where Friday-night lights were second only to the enclaves of Texas—his brother had been a big deal.

“How old were you when he went away?” Keller asked, as if fighting a disdain for small talk.

“Fourteen.”

Another nod. “Were you close? I mean, before…”

“Yeah,” Matt lied. When they were small, they used to play together for hours, building forts, climbing trees, playing LEGOs, but when Danny made it to high school and became a local celebrity, Matt was no longer part of his universe. Plus, the relationship between his father and Danny sucked out all the air from the room. His father just didn’t see Matt.

Then beautiful Charlotte was murdered. Last seen at a high school house party, she’d been bludgeoned to death somewhere unknown, her body dumped by the creek near their house. Police found blood in a wheelbarrow hidden in the overgrown shrubs along the path that crossed the Pines’ property. No one ever understood why Charlotte’s body had been moved. Or why her skull had been crushed with a huge rock postmortem. They’d been sure of only one thing: the perpetrator was her boyfriend, Danny Pine.

From that point on, nothing was the same. It was Year Zero for the Pines. There was before Charlotte, and after. Now Matt had a new Year Zero.

“So you haven’t seen him since…” Keller didn’t finish the sentence.

“My parents kept us away from the trial. We’ve talked on the phone, but yeah.”

The last time Matt had seen Danny free was the night Charlotte was killed. That night had otherwise been momentous for Matt. Jessica Wheeler had asked him to sneak out to meet her. It was before he’d had a phone, and she’d slipped him a note in ninth-grade science class, the culmination of weeks of flirting. Jessica had folded the note in a square and tied it with a red string, like a miniature package. Matt remembered pulling at the bow, his heart fluttering as he read the note.

MEET ME AT THE KNOLL AT 3 A.M. TONIGHT?

YES OR NO

CIRCLE ONE

The Knoll was a famous make-out spot at the top of a secluded hill near the creek. A place for stargazing and bad decisions. He of course circled yes. And he’d been shocked that she was actually there: holding a flashlight, wearing her pj’s and slippers. On their backs in the cold grass, they stared at the stars dotting the ink-black sky, the clouds blowing past the moon.

“This reminds me of the stargazing scene from A Walk to Remember,” Matt said. “You ever see that movie?”

She shook her head.

“It’s old and not very good. Not many Nicholas Sparks adaptations are. But the scene was solid.”

“Have you always loved movies so much? I mean, like, you always compare things to stuff in movies.”

Matt smiled. “Sorry. It drives my family crazy.”

“I think it’s cute.”

“I want to make movies one day. NYU has this amazing film school. My grandpa, before he got sick, he said that movies are the poetry of our time.”

She turned and faced him.

“Nicholas Sparks … You ever see The Notebook?”

“Of course. The critics hated it, but it’s a cult classic. The kissing in the rain scene is considered—”

Jessica put a finger over his lips. She removed it, and her mouth softly touched his. It put Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams to shame.

Matt touched his lips involuntarily, remembering the electricity slicing through every part of him, when the door jutted open.

“Matty?”

Matt stood, taken aback at the prisoner before him. The teenage football star was a grown man. He still had the good looks, the blond hair, the square jaw. But Matt saw a hardness in his brother’s once clear blue eyes. And by Danny’s steely gaze, he obviously wasn’t happy to see Matt.

“What are you doing here?” Danny said. “I told Dad that I didn’t want—” Danny stopped, eyed Keller. “Who are you?”

Matt said, “Why don’t you sit down.”

When Danny didn’t take the seat, the guard pulled out a chair. “Sit down, Dan,” he said. It was stern but had an undercurrent of concern, as if the guard knew what was coming.

Danny sat, his eyes locked on Matt’s.

Keller said, “Let’s give them a moment.”

The guard seemed to welcome the opportunity to escape the room. Yeah, he definitely knew what was coming.

“What the hell’s going on, Matty?”

Matt swallowed, fighting the welling in his eyes, the fist in his throat. “There’s been an accident.”

“Accident?” Danny said. “What accident? What are you—”

“Dad and Mom. Maggie and Tommy. They were in Mexico for spring break. They’re gone, Danny.”

“Gone?” Danny’s voice was laced with fear and disbelief.

“They think it was a gas leak. At their vacation rental,” Matt continued.

Danny placed his palms flat on the table and leaned back, as if he were distancing himself from Matt’s words. The muscle in his brother’s jaw pulsed. He started to speak, but it was as if the words had been ripped out of his throat.

For the next ten minutes Matt watched as his older brother shattered into a million pieces, just as Matt had that morning.

Eventually someone knocked on the door. The guard poked his head in.

“We’ve gotta get you back,” the guard said. “Say your goodbyes.” The guard was about to shut the door again when he gave Danny a pointed look. “And get yourself straight.”

Danny wiped the tears away with his shirt. Matt realized that the guard was telling Danny to collect himself. It wasn’t the kind of place to show weakness.

“I’ll call you when I know more,” Matt said.

Danny made no reply.

Matt sat there, not knowing what else to say. What else could he say? Their parents and siblings were gone. And they barely knew each other.

The guard returned, and ushered Danny to the door.

Before leaving the room, Danny turned to Matt and said, “Don’t come back here, Matty.” Danny swallowed. “They wasted too much of their lives on me. Don’t waste yours.”

And then he was gone.

Keller was at the doorway and had witnessed their goodbye. “You okay?” she asked.

Matt didn’t respond. He was pissed she’d made him do this.

Another guard arrived to escort them out of the facility. He led them along a yellow line painted on the cement floor. Matt could feel the eyes of prisoners in the rafters above them. Waiting for a security door to buzz them through, Matt surveyed the dreary facility. At the far end, he saw the guard marshaling Danny to his cell.

His brother still walked with the swagger of a small-town football star. Maybe it was a show for the other prisoners. But even after all these years, he still had the same cocksure stride.

Matt’s mind went back to that night with Jessica Wheeler. His own skip in his step after he’d walked her home. Nearly four in the morning, and his smile so bright that it was probably visible on the black footpath. The path near the house where he saw the dark silhouette of his brother—in the letterman jacket and with that swagger—pushing a wheelbarrow toward the creek.

CHAPTER 5

Matt rode with his head resting on the back window of the Suburban. Rainwater pulsed along the glass.

Keller sat in the front passenger seat, cell phone pressed to her ear. For whatever reason, they didn’t take the chopper back to the city. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been driving. An hour? Two?