I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (bookstand for reading txt) 📗

shift the blame to, away from Lisa. Hannah, on the other hand, was looking at Alicia, but her mind was racing as she thought about her daughter.

The life of a typical teenager had been denied to Lisa because of her prodigious intellectual gifts. Often, when Lisa acted up, Hannah looked the other way, because, fundamentally, she saw Lisa’s extreme intelligence as both a blessing and a curse.

But this time Lisa’s thoughtlessness had caused her to lose her bail. And she had tried to shift the blame to somebody else. Well, Hannah thought angrily, if that was how she wanted to live her life, so be it. But she had acted as if Sydney didn’t even matter.

She didn’t intend for this to happen, Hannah reminded herself, trying to calm herself down. Lisa just wasn’t thinking like a mother. But then again, thought Hannah, if she admitted the truth to herself, Lisa rarely did.

‘I should never have given her the phone,’ said Alicia. ‘This is all my fault.’

Hannah looked at Lisa’s friend helplessly. ‘I wish that were true,’ she said.

TEN

Although it was mid-September, the first day of the trial was sultry and Hannah dressed accordingly. She wore a silky T-shirt over a calf-length skirt and sandals but she carried along a sweater. Marjorie had warned them that the courtroom would be kept chilly, in deference to the judge’s robes, and the fact that the jury needed to be alert through all the testimony.

As she checked herself in the mirror before leaving the house, she noticed that her hair looked limp, and there were dark circles under her eyes. These few weeks had been a form of torture. Visiting Lisa at the county jail had forced all of them to face up to the unthinkable — what the future might hold. Before Lisa’s bail was revoked, and she was still waking up every morning in her childhood bed, it was easier to discount the possibility that this trial might lead to the end of life as they knew it. Of course, they knew that it was possible that Lisa could be convicted. But arriving for a visit at the jail and seeing her emerge in an orange jumpsuit brought that fact home with dreadful clarity.

‘No,’ Hannah said sternly to the mirror. ‘She is innocent, and she is going to be acquitted.’

Adam stuck his head into the room. ‘Are you about ready? We need to drop off Sydney before we go.’

‘Just about,’ said Hannah. Hannah and Adam had taken Sydney to see her mother twice. Sydney had clung to Hannah during the visits, and the last time Hannah suggested they go, Sydney had pitched a fit and refused. Rather than bring a screaming child into that mausoleum where every sound reverberated, Hannah went with Adam or by herself.

At least the trial could begin now. Waiting for it to begin had been terrible.

And there was a hopeful part of Hannah which believed that this prosecution was spurious, that they had nothing substantial against Lisa, beyond that unfortunate check-cashing. It could all be over in no time. ‘Please,’ she thought, closing her eyes and speaking in a whisper. ‘Let it be over quickly. Let my baby come home.’

Chanel Ali Jackson jiggled impatiently as an intern from make-up dabbed at her forehead with a sponge. Chanel smoothed the front of her form-fitting dress.

The intern stepped back and scrutinized the reporter’s hairline. Then she nodded. ‘You look fine.’

Chanel flashed her dimpled smile as another technician handed her a microphone and the cameraman directed her to move five feet to her left. Chanel did as she was directed. The assistant director looked at his stopwatch and then pointed at Chanel. She raised her mike and began her smooth delivery.

‘Adrian,’ she said, addressing the host back in the studio, ‘I’m here at the Lisa Wickes murder trial. Wickes is the young medical student with the genius IQ who is accused of the murder of her former boyfriend, hospital nurse Troy Petty.

‘Petty died in an explosion several months ago in his rented bungalow out near J. Percy Priest Lake. In opening arguments this morning the prosecution said they will prove that the defendant, Lisa Wickes, killed Petty in an argument over money. They stated that they will present videotaped evidence that Lisa Wickes cashed her old boyfriend’s paycheck on the night that he died. The prosecution contends that Wickes knocked Petty unconscious and then used candles and a propane stove to cause an explosion.

‘The defense claims that Lisa Wickes had no part in causing the explosion which killed Troy Petty. They insist that Troy Petty signed over his check to her, and Lisa Wickes cashed it because her boyfriend owed her money. What really happened to Troy Petty? That question will be up to the jury.’

As she was smoothly outlining the schedule of trial testimony, Chanel suddenly spotted a familiar vehicle. As the car turned the corner, she ordered to the cameraman to follow her because she was about to make a move. As she rounded the corner, she saw a couple getting out of the car on the other side of the street.

Chanel bolted across the street without looking, the cameraman immediately in her wake.

‘Excuse me, excuse me. Mr and Mrs Wickes,’ she called out, thrusting her microphone, her whole body, in fact, in the path of the couple who were trying to hurry into the side door of the courthouse. ‘I’m Chanel Ali Jackson, from Channel Six News, Nashville. Can I talk to you for a moment?’

Hannah looked startled. Adam wore a pained expression.

Chanel was not about to let them elude her. She focused her laser-like, sympathetic gaze on Hannah. ‘Mrs Wickes, you heard the opening arguments this morning. Does the prosecution have a strong case, or does it seem to you that their case against your daughter, Lisa, is purely circumstantial?’

‘My daughter