Rachel knew exactly what she needed: an interview with Scott Blair. Even though the family had already said twice it wouldn’t happen, she decided to put Greg Blair’s generous offer to the test. “Is Scott home? I’d love for him to join us for our chat today,” she said.

“I wish Scott could talk. To you. To the networks. To everyone,” Greg replied. “I really do. Scotty’s good name and reputation have been dragged through the mud. He hasn’t been able to defend himself. In fact, his new attorney has given strict instructions that he can’t talk until after the trial,” Greg said. “I told your producer—Pete, was it?”

Rachel nodded.

“I told Pete that we’d cooperate as much as possible but that an interview with Scott is out of the question. After the trial, it’s a different story,” he said. “What we are really hoping for—and Rachel, your reputation precedes you in this regard—is fairness. We are hoping that your podcast will be fair and balanced even if you can’t talk to Scott until the trial is over.”

Rachel nodded noncommittally as she changed the subject by feigning interest in the long lap pool she could see through a side window. “Is that where Scott swims these days?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Greg, walking her to the window so she could get a better view of the four-lane Olympic-length lap pool with an ocean view. “Scott couldn’t swim at the local pool. The media were staking it out. He had to go through a gauntlet of cameras each morning. Fortunately, we’d put in the lap pool for me. I still swim two, three miles a day. Force of habit. I hate using our family pool. It’s good for parties but bad for serious swimming. So we built the lap pool for me and so that Scott could continue his training.”

“Scott still trains?”

“When he can,” said Greg, his voice tight and bitter. He escorted Rachel back to the living room where he lowered himself onto the white leather sofa and motioned for her to do the same. “Scott hasn’t been allowed to swim competitively for months. For a swimmer of Scott’s caliber, that alone could set back his career permanently. He never did what he’s been accused of doing. His trial hasn’t begun, as you know, but his punishment started right after the accusations were first made. The law says he’s supposed to be presumed innocent. In reality, it’s quite the opposite.”

“Kelly Moore says that Scott raped her,” Rachel said. “If that’s true, then swimming training is the least of his problems.”

“It’s not true. They went skinny dipping and then had consensual sex,” Greg responded. “I don’t know what motivated the girl to make false accusations. Maybe she was looking for fame. Or perhaps revenge, because Scott stupidly rated her, uh, sexual performance poorly in a message to his friend and she saw it. I don’t know her motivation. But I know my son and he didn’t do it. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain other than some pus—” He stopped abruptly.

The last syllable reverberated through the room. He and Rachel both knew what he had been about to say. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“You were going to say ‘pussy’?” Rachel filled in the blank.

“That was uncalled for,” he said without missing a beat. “You have to understand that I haven’t slept in days and we’re all very stressed. But that’s no excuse. I apologize,” he said, rising from the sofa and clapping his hands together as if to suggest that episode was over. “Let me show you something.”

Greg led Rachel into an adjacent room with custom-made mahogany shelves of different lengths arranged in a minimalist asymmetrical design on stark white walls. On each shelf were trophies and medals from swimming competitions.

One shelf displayed awards from when Greg was a champion swimmer. The second had Scott’s awards all lined up: elementary school prizes all the way to state swimming medals and national awards.

Greg held up one of his gold medals. “This medal was from the national championships. I won gold. Broke two national records.” He picked up a silver medal. “I won this in the World Championships. Lost by a tenth of a second. I made the Olympic team and was in the final weeks of preparation when I got pulled with a shoulder injury.”

“It must have been heartbreaking,” Rachel sympathized.

“It was. I had to have major surgery. I was only twenty. Never got my form back. I tried, but I couldn’t return to elite swimming. It meant a lot to me that my son decided to follow in my footsteps. I never pushed him into it. Scott chose swimming all by himself. If anything, I discouraged it. I knew the discipline and focus it required. The agony of disappointment. But it was his passion. It was his dream to make the Olympics. He gave it his all. So many years of hard work.” He sighed.

Greg went into a detailed rundown of Scott’s career, starting from his first win when he was eleven at a state competition. “He barely trained. It was raw talent that won it for him,” said Greg. After that, Scott exploded onto the swimming scene with win after win, at sixteen breaking his own father’s state freestyle record. Later that year, he won the junior national championships in freestyle and backstroke.

“Ask any swimming coach. Any swimming commentator. They will tell you that Scott could be one of the greatest swimmers this country has seen. And then this happens.”

As if to emphasize his point, Greg opened a file on his desk and lifted up a thick pile of newspaper clippings. He held up the top clipping. It was a front page newspaper article with a photo of police officers hauling Scott out of a swimming pool. A second photo showed Scott being handcuffed while dripping wet in his Speedo. “Champion Swimmer Arrested for Raping Teen,” the headline read.

“Why would a teenage girl make these accusations if they were false?” Rachel asked Greg once they were seated by a glass table on the balcony, overlooking the sea.

“I have no idea. And I don’t need to know. What I do know is that he didn’t do it. Scott has so many girls coming after him. He doesn’t need to rape an unwilling teenager when there are plenty of attractive young women who are more than willing. Models. Actresses. It makes no sense,” he said. “It’s as if everyone is out for his blood. They hate his success.”

“Do you really think it’s all a conspiracy to cut him down to size?” Rachel asked skeptically.

“My son didn’t do it!” Greg said firmly. “Scott could spend the next decade or more in jail. Lose the best years of his life. For what? Because a girl changed her mind after the fact? He was a kid himself. Just eighteen. Drunk. Dumb. He should have known better than to get mixed up with a girl like that. With her family connections and all. Her grandfather was the police chief. The police take care of their own.”

He sat back and looked out at the panoramic ocean view while he collected his thoughts.

“Scott didn’t rape that girl. He didn’t. But he’s already being treated like a rapist.”

“In what way?” Rachel asked.

“Well, for one thing, based on this girl’s word alone, he is suspended from competitive swimming. He lost his college scholarship and his sponsorships. My fear is that he will always be known as the swimmer who was accused of rape. That it will be a permanent smear. Doesn’t matter that he didn’t do it,” said Greg. “I just hope the jury sees the truth and acquits Scott so he can still fulfill his potential and win those gold medals that he’s been working so hard for all his life. Scotty’s still young. He has years of swimming ahead of him. If we can only get people to see that he has been wrongly accused.”

He paused as the sliding door opened and a man wearing jeans and a navy shirt joined them on the balcony. His fawn hair was blowing in the wind.

Rachel knew Dale Quinn on sight. He was a rock-star lawyer who’d cut his teeth by successfully defending a husband accused of throwing his wife off their eleventh-floor balcony. Quinn managed to get the husband acquitted by convincing the jury that the woman might have jumped off the balcony after an argument.

“Do you know why I chose Dale to defend Scott?” Greg asked. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that we’re old high school buddies from when Dale lived here in his junior year, while his old man was posted at the marine base out of town.”

“I have no idea.” Rachel asked the question even though she could guess the answer. Juries loved Dale Quinn. He was good-looking, with a boyish charm and a virtuoso talent at playing heartstrings. She’d seen him in action in a courtroom when she was a newspaper reporter. It had been like watching a master class in winning friends and influencing people. Except in Quinn’s case, his specialty was winning over jurors.