acci­dent, the injuries would still match those found on Chase Andrews?”
“Yes, that pos­si­bil­i­ty can­not be ruled out.”
“And is it pos­si­ble that Chase Andrews was attempt­ing to back away from something—perhaps an ani­mal or some­one that star­tled him—leading him to acci­den­tal­ly fall through the open grate?”
“That is a plau­si­ble sce­nario.”
“Regard­ing the red cap found in Miss Clark’s res­i­dence, could you con­clude beyond a rea­son­able doubt that Miss Clark was wear­ing the cap on the night of Chase Andrews’s death?”
“There is no direct evi­dence link­ing her wear­ing the cap that night to Mr. Andrews’s death. The pres­ence of her hair in the cap only proves she wore it at some point.”
“So, there’s rea­son­able doubt that Miss Clark played a direct role in Chase Andrews’s death?”
“That would be for the jury to decide, but yes, there are oth­er plau­si­ble expla­na­tions for the evi­dence.”
“Thank you, Dr. Cone.”
The court­room set­tled into a hush as Tom Milton’s ques­tions opened a crack in what seemed like an oth­er­wise shut case. All eyes were on Kya, who hadn’t spo­ken since the tri­al began, her silent fig­ure a mys­tery that some­how tied togeth­er the dis­parate pieces of evidence—the red wool fibers, the miss­ing neck­lace, and the back­ward fall of Chase Andrews.

As the pro­ceed­ings moved on, Kya’s mind drift­ed again, this time to the marsh and the count­less hours she spent alone, observ­ing the nat­ur­al world. She remem­bered the lessons learned from the behav­ior of the crea­tures around her—survival, decep­tion, and the intri­cate dances of courtship. These thoughts pro­vid­ed a stark con­trast to the human com­plex­i­ties unfold­ing in the court­room.

The vivid mem­o­ries served as a stark reminder of the life she once had—a life of free­dom in the wilder­ness, now con­fined with­in the ster­ile walls of the court­room, fight­ing for her free­dom once more.