Page 205 of Maksym

“By whom?”

“My brother.”

Her voice cracked on those two words. Only those.

“Bronc Baucaum?”

“Yes.” She looked toward the gallery. This time she did not resist it. Bronc stood like a mountain under storm light, and when his sister’s eyes found him, his face changed with such naked tenderness that the chamber had the decency to look less hungry for one breath. “He got me off the altar.”

“And after that?”

Maddie looked back at me.

The tears still had not fallen. I suspected they would not, not in this room. Some women saved tears for places that had earned them.

“And that’s how it ended,” she said.

I crossed from the lectern to the witness stand.

I rested my hand briefly over hers. Not long enough to be indulgent. Long enough to be human, whatever else I had become.

“Thank you, Maddie.”

Her fingers turned under mine for the smallest squeeze.

I stepped back.

“No further questions.”

The chamber breathed again.

The Magistrate turned his gaze toward the prosecution. “Cross-examination?”

The prosecution counsel rose slowly.

He had lost the smoothness he began with, but not all of it. Men like him rarely abandoned polish.

“Yes, Honored Magistrate.”

He approached the lectern, arranging his papers, though there was no need. His eyes moved over Maddie with professional caution. He had watched her testimony. He knew she was not the easy witness his theory required.

“Miss Baucaum,” he began, “you drove yourself to Ironwood territory, correct?”

“Yes.”

“No one forced you into the car?”

“No.”

“No one held a weapon to you and made you cross the boundary?”

“No.”

“You attended voluntarily.”

“I attended the moonlight run voluntarily.”

A slight pause.