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“My way is more permanent, son.”

A corner of Liam’s lip tips up at Dad’s words.. Dad winks at him. Not a fun, amused wink. It’s more of an ‘I’ve got your back’ wink. Dad frightens me a bit just then.

Mom finds her voice. “What can we do to help?”

I look at Skye and the boys. “There’s nothing else to do but wait. We have a few girls who came forward and tied him to the place and time of their attack. We have video evidence as well. We think we may have some DNA evidence, but he was careful to cover his tracks. There are no witnesses.”

“How did you find out?” Mom asks me.

Liam speaks for the first time. “We overheard a conversation. Something he said to someone.”

Liam can feel my discomfort. “Maybe I can tell you what he said another time.”

Dad nods at Liam. He can feel my discomfort as well.

“Logan, I don’t know if either of my daughters ever told you this, but I was a lawyer a long time ago, before I got bewitched by this lovely lady sitting next to me and decided to be a farmer.” This makes me smile. Dad sometimes calls Mom a witch, but it’s always in the most loving of ways, his special nickname for her.

“Now, if I remember well, this boy”—venom drips at the word boy. Dad is refusing to address Jon by his name—“has a rich father and friends in high places.”

“That’s true, sir, but we hope the DNA evidence is a match and it will be enough to get him behind bars for a long time and—”

Dad interrupts Logan. “You know, on my first day of college, I was a very green eighteen-year-old. On that day I met my roommate, and we went on being roommates for the next four years and then another four when we went to law school together. That man would turn into a best friend of over thirty years.”

I’m wondering where Dad is going with this.

“You know the name of that man, son?”

Logan looks confused. “I don’t think so . . .”

“I bet you do. His name is George Lafayette.”

Logan smiles. Mom smiles. I look at Liam and Skye, and they are just as confused as I am.

“Dad? What about Uncle George? What does he have to do with anything?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Dad says. “Except that George is a state’s attorney.”

“Is that like a district attorney?” Skye asks.

“Yep.”

“River, did you know that?”

“No. I haven’t seen Uncle George since we started college.”

“Does this mean what I think it means?” It’s Liam turn to speak.

Logan’s smile is even bigger now.

“River, if there’s one other person, besides your boyfriend here, who would help me dig that hole, no questions asked, it’s your uncle George.”

“I’m feeling really dumb right now and maybe I should have paid more attention in Social Studies class or watched more CSI, but what can Uncle George do to help us?”

“Oh, he can bring in the heavy guns, so to speak, make sure we have the best prosecutors, put a lot of pressure on whoever takes up that piece of shit’s defense, make him pay for everything he did to you, those other girls, and more.”