Page 78 of The Proving Ground

Wren:I’m happy you found a way.

Ace:If you’re happy, I’m happy. Happier. I missed you.

Wren:And I missed you.

Ace:I’m sorry this whole thing happened.

Wren:Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

Ace:But I am sorry. Sometimes I wish they weren’t around and it was just you and me.

Wren:We can make that happen.

I first had Clarke authenticate the conversation, which occurred three months before the killing of Rebecca Randolph.

“Did you happen to google any of the lines from this conversation?” I asked.

“Yes, that line about never having to say you’re sorry sounded familiar to me,” Clarke said. “I googled it and it came up as a line from an old book and movie calledLove Story.”

“Let me draw your attention to the last line in this section we have isolated. Did you view that as a threat against Aaron’s parents?”

Marcus Mason objected this time on the same grounds his brother had put forth before. The objection was sustained, but it didn’t matter. I wanted the jury to hear the question, not necessarily the answer. From there I moved to another text sequence in the Aaron/Wren relationship, where he talked about murder-suicide. Like the previous excerpts, this one had been culled from the lengthy records by McEvoy.

Ace:My father has a gun. He taught me how to shoot it. I’m a good shot.

Wren:Of course you are.

Ace:We go to a place where there is a shooting range and we fire at targets that look like people. Bad people like terrorists.

Wren:Only shoot bad people.

Ace:when I hold the gun I want to shoot up the world.

Wren:No one who is innocent.

Ace:I know.

Wren:Only to protect yourself. And to be a hERo.

Ace:What if you know someone is going to hurt you?

Wren:You must protect yourself.

Ace:Then it’s okay?

Wren:Yes, Ace, then it’s okay.

Ace:What about Becca? She hurt me. She hurts me every day. I can’t go to school because I’ll see her and it hurts.

Wren:If she hurts you, then she’s a bad person.

Ace:But I don’t think I could ever hurt her.

Wren:You have me. And I’ll never hurt you.

Ace:I know.

Wren:You must protect yourself, Ace. You are beautiful. I need you.