The sound of electric clippers reached me before I saw my daughter.

At 7:30 AM on Friday, Tessa Ward met us at the courthouse steps.

She wore a dark charcoal suit, her silver hair pulled back into a severe bun, and carried two heavy leather briefcases that looked like they contained ammunition rather than legal briefs.

“Vivian arrived twenty minutes ago,” Tessa said as we cleared security. “She brought three ladies from the church altar guild and her lawyer, Arthur Pendergast. Pendergast is eighty if he’s a day; he spends half his court time asking people to repeat themselves and the other half leaning on his walking cane. Vivian hired him because he was friends with Judge Harlan’s father fifty years ago.”

“Did she see you?” I asked.

“She saw me,” Tessa said, a predatory smile touching her thin lips. “She told me she hoped we were prepared to settle this ‘unfortunate family misunderstanding’ in chambers so Eleanor wouldn't have to suffer through a public hearing. I told her Eleanor was already here, and that the only thing getting settled today was her criminal liability.”

We took the elevator up to the third floor. The hallway outside Courtroom B was lined with dark wood paneling and illuminated by tall, narrow windows that looked out over the courthouse square.

Vivian sat on the middle wooden bench.

She was dressed in a pale lavender church dress, a white cardigan draped over her shoulders, and her silver hair set in soft, immaculately sprayed curls. She held a leather-bound King James Bible in her lap, her hands folded primly over the gilt-edged pages. Next to her sat Arthur Pendergast, dozing lightly with his hands clasped over a battered leather briefcase.

When the elevator doors opened and Ellie and I stepped out, Vivian’s head turned.

She didn't look at my face. She looked directly at our heads.

For three seconds, her mask slipped. Her mouth opened slightly, her pale eyes widening as she took in the identical buzz cuts—mine and Ellie’s—neat, stark, and uncompromising under the fluorescent lights.

The clippers had been her weapon of humiliation; by shaving my own head, I had turned that weapon into a badge of war.

She recovered quickly, her face hardening into that familiar expression of tragic, wounded piety. She stood up, smoothing down her skirt, and took two steps toward us.

“Eleanor,” she said, her voice dripping with tremulous concern. “My poor, sweet girl. What has she done to you now?”

Ellie didn't shrink back. She didn't drop her gaze. She stepped out from behind me, standing tall in her denim jacket and clean white sneakers, her hazel eyes fixed on her grandmother’s face with a cold, terrifying clarity.

“You know what was done,” Ellie said, her voice echoing clearly down the long marble hallway. “You’re the one who held the blades.”

Several people on the nearby benches turned to look. Arthur Pendergast woke with a small snort, blinking through his thick bifocals.

Vivian’s cheeks flushed a dark, mottled red beneath her powder. “Mara, you are poisoning this child’s mind. You have paraded her around like a circus animal just to spite me! I have given my life to this family—”

“Save it for the judge, Vivian,” I said, walking past her without breaking stride. “You’re going to need every story you’ve got.”

The heavy oak doors of Courtroom B swung open, and the bailiff stepped into the threshold.