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Chapter 49

JASON TWILLY SAT in the front row of the gallery in Courtroo notes as Connor Hume Campion answered Yuki Castellano’s softball questions Twilly thought Caed treard, stooped, as though Michael’s death was literally killing him

As he looked at the governor and Yuki together, Twilly felt a shift in his thinking, and a new structure for his book appeared in his mind Yuki was Michael Ca; feisty and shrewd and at the saovernor’s celebrity and heartbreak to both move the jury and block the defense

Twilly would start the book with Yuki’s opening statenant overnor, flash forward through the trial and the witnesses Focus on Davis’s er on the vulnerable Junie Moon Then end the book with Yuki’s closing argument The verdict, the vindication, hurrah!

Twilly turned his attention back to the governor

“Mike was born with a conductive defect in his heart,” Caed medically, but of course he could die at any time”

Yuki asked quietly, “And what did Michael know about his life expectancy?”

“Mikey wanted to live He used to say, ‘I want to live, Dad I have plans’ He knew he had to be careful He knew that the longer he lived, the more chance —”

Cahtened and his eyes watered

“Mr Campion, did Michael talk to you about his plans?”

“Oh, yes,” Ca world chess tourna a book about living with a potentially fatal illnessIt would’ve et married someday”

Campion shook his head, looked at the jury, and addressed them directly

“He was such a wonderful boy,” he said “Everyone has seen his pictures, the interviews Everyone kno his sht up the darkness, how brave he was — but not everyone knohat a good soul he had How compassionate he was”

Twilly noted that Diana Davis’s face was pinched, but she didn’t dare object to Ca his son Campion turned and looked squarely at the defendant, spoke directly to her, sadly but not unkindly

“If only I could have been there when Michael died,” Connor Campion said to Junie Moon “If only I could have held him in my arms and comforted him If only he’d been with me, instead of with you”