I Swear by Lane Davis Page B

it up in his deposition?”
    Macie smiled at me blankly. “Brings what up?”
    The bathroom door opened. I could hear Brad walking back into the room behind me.
    “You know . . . ,” I began.
    “Hey, babe.” Brad spun Macie to him, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulled her up toward him for a sweet, soft kiss. “Call me later?”
    She nodded and he held her. He looked over her shoulder and winked at me without smiling.
    This was the group hug we’d all shared since ninth grade. We’d been saying good-bye like this for three years now.
    Macie got his arms.
    I got his eyes.
    I wished I knew for sure who had his heart.

14. KATHERINE
    Once a week after school I drove over to Daddy’s office, and usually he handed me a stack of documents to file and we talked about a case. He knew I had my eye on Harvard Law, and we’d been doing this since I was in seventh grade.
    On Wednesday morning I asked Daddy if I could stop by today instead of on Thursday. Macie wanted to see Beth’s deposition as soon as possible.
    “Sho’, princess,” he said. “You really wanna come back for more after the grillin’ Patrick gave y’all yesterday during witness prep?”
    “Oh, yes, sir.” I smiled and winked. “You fixin’ to lose me to Harvard next fall. My hourly rate will be too high to ever work for you again.”
    He laughed, and I was relieved. One more day of laughing, I thought. Just one. Somewhere down inside me I knew that oncethe depositions started, he wouldn’t be laughing anymore.
    Witness preparation had been a joke. We’d all been there together, so claiming we had no idea what was going on worked on some level. None of us was going to crack in front of everybody else. Macie was really good as far as denying everything Patrick threw at her, but she was clearly annoyed around the edges—little things, her foot started bouncing. She still had that news camera smile, but you could tell she was ruffled. She was used to standing up when she was selling something. Sitting down made her fidgety.
    Jillian was a wide-eyed sweetheart, but her face answered every question before she even opened her mouth, and Krista looked shifty, period. Poor Beth was a mess. She started crying on the third question, and Daddy and I had to walk her around in the parking lot to calm her down.
    In a strange way I was the best witness we had. I used Aunt Liza’s poker face. I smiled at the beginning, was serious in the middle, and said thank you at the end.
    “Ladies, that’s the way it’s done,” said Patrick when he turned off the camera. “Nice work, Katherine.”
    When I got to Daddy’s office at about four thirty, I asked him if he’d seen the footage of Beth’s deposition yet. He grabbed the video camera from Patrick’s office and plugged it into my laptop so I could watch, instead of simply handing it over to Macie. Then he headed down the hall to a last-minute meeting with a client over a disputed permitting process.
    The video loaded and popped open in QuickTime. The shot was on Beth—looking down at her hands, biting her lip. I clicked play.
    Beth sat next to Patrick and faced Kellan Dirkson and Lauren Wolinsky, who I remembered meeting at Leslie’s memorial. Kellan’s kind, blue eyes matched his smile as he handed Beth and Patrick bottles of water, then turned to Lauren and asked, “Shall we get started?”
    She nodded and looked to Patrick, who swept his brown bangs off his forehead and flipped open a legal pad, then looked at Beth.
    “Ready?” he asked.
    She looked up at him, then over at Kellan and Lauren, and gave a short nod.
    She was terrified, and watching the scene unfold, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.
    This was over before it even began.
    Lauren started by having Beth raise her hand and solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And somehow Beth did this pleasantly, with a smile, direct eye contact—the whole thing, like Patrick had coached us.
    Then she