Least of all Amanda’s beautiful, white face, her beautiful dark eyes fixed upon the detective, her beautiful red mouth and the words it had just moved to speak. Words she could not have said and yet had said. “Amanda …” Even Serena’s voice sounded unreal to her own ears. It stopped as if it had met a hard and concrete wall. Something then became real. Jem walked across to her and stood beside her. That was real. Jem and his solid body and his voice. “Sutton, did you hear what Amanda said? Tell them that it isn’t true.” Sutton was very pale. He looked down at the table, adjusted his yellow scarf with worried fingers and cleared his throat. “Well, yes. I heard.” He cleared his throat nervously again. “I thought you knew. Amanda has told me all along.” Although she made no perceptible motion, a kind of strength seemed to renew itself in Amanda. She didn’t shift her gaze, she didn’t appear to take a deeper breath or in any slight way show it, yet it was as if a strong pulse began to flow again through her lovely, tall body.
