 
## **Contents**

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Grain of Truth

Innocence Unit, Book One

by V. J. Chambers
GRAIN OF TRUTH

© copyright 2017 by V. J. Chambers

http://vjchambers.com

Punk Rawk Books

CHAPTER ONE

When Elke Lawrence was called in to the office of her boss, the district attorney of Gathopolis, she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that it wasn't good news.

The way things had been going for Elke lately, she wasn't sure if she was ever going to get good news again. She was the laughingstock of the entire community, and she didn't know how she was going to overcome the stigma when she tried to convince jurors to convict in her next case. It wasn't going to be easy.

But she'd do it. She'd been a prosecuting attorney for her entire career, and she wasn't going to stop now. She couldn't stop now. She didn't know anything else.

Everything else in her life, everything that she'd held dear, was crumbling around her. Her career was the one thing that she had left. She needed it. So, she would make it work. But that didn't mean when she got the summons to go see Bernadette, that she didn't start to feel queasy.

Bernadette Lane was the district attorney. She and Elke were friendly enough to call each other by their first names. They'd been working together for nearly a decade. But that didn't mean that Elke would necessarily call Bernadette a friend. She didn't socialize with her after hours. She wasn't friends with her on social media.

She didn't call Bernadette after she found out the truth about Felix. No, that honor had been reserved for her longtime best friend from undergrad, Lily, who now lived on the other side of the country and had three kids. Despite the time difference and her obvious exhaustion, Lily had stayed on the phone with her for three hours, bless her. Elke had sobbed and raged and wondered how she would ever keep going.

She hadn't figured out how to move forward, but it was happening anyway. At least, the world was going ahead, like a gigantic push broom, and Elke was caught up in it with the rest of the dust and trash.

Elke walked down the hallway towards Bernadette's office, and she tried to calm herself down.

Maybe it's nothing, she said to herself. Maybe she's just going to express sympathy.

Maybe. Or maybe Bernadette was going to tell Elke to take some time off. Without pay. She'd say it in a sympathetic way, like she was just looking out for the other woman, but it would be devastating. Elke needed this job.

She squared her shoulders. She wouldn't let Bernadette take her job. She'd fight for it. She'd bargain. She'd beg. If it came to that, she would do whatever it took to keep it.

And now she'd reached the end of the hallway. There was a large window in front of her. It looked out on James Street in town. Cars were driving by at the staid pace demanded by the speed limits downtown. Silver cars. Blue cars. Green cars.

Elke looked out the window and chewed on her bottom lip.

She had almost gotten a silver car. She liked the way they looked. Apparently, a lot of people did, because there were a lot of silver cars out there. She noticed that after she had almost purchased one. Well, the thing was, it hadn't actually been her purchasing the car. Felix would have done it for her, because Felix always handled all the big purchases, and her salary was just there for extra niceties.

But now...

She let out a breath and it came out shaky.

Oh, hell.

She couldn't be thinking about this right now. She was wanted in Bernadette's office. The office was just there. To the right. All Elke needed to do was to turn and raise her hand and knock on the door.

Stop looking out the window and thinking about Felix, she told herself. Stop it.

Obediently, she turned away from the window and surveyed the door to Bernadette's office. It was dark-stained wood with a brass nameplate on the door. The door knob was polished bronze.

But thoughts of Felix didn't quite leave her. They never did. All she seemed to be able to think about these days was Felix. How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she not have seen the truth? What was wrong with her?

She swallowed, struggling to get herself under control. She was almost on the brink of tears, and she couldn't go into Bernadette's office crying. That was out of the question. No, if that was going to happen, better to run off and claim something else, even something embarrassing like the stomach flu.

Of course, if she did run off, then this meeting would simply be hanging over her head. She'd never know what it was about or why she'd been called in. That would be torture. She couldn't handle that.

She sucked in a breath through her nose, somehow clearing her mind by sheer force of will. And she knocked on the door. Two quick raps that sounded almost casual.

"Yes?" called Bernadette from within.

"It's Elke," she said.

"Oh, come in."

Elke pushed the door open.

Bernadette's office was not large, although it was larger than Elke's. It was probably the largest office on the floor, a long and narrow room with one window. They were housed in a building put up in the 1700s, and all the rooms were small. The ceilings were low. The halls were narrow. Elke liked working there, because it felt like she was in touch with the history of her town. She liked to imagine people going up and down the hallways in powdered wigs, liked to think of the drama of the American Revolution and the Civil War raging outside while this building stood tall. It had been a symbol of justice for hundreds of years.

Bernadette sat in a desk that nearly spanned the width of the room. She looked up at Elke and motioned for her to sit down in front of her.

Elke did. She tried a smile and then wondered if she oughtn't have smiled. Maybe this was a serious meeting.

"How are you?" said Bernadette.

"Good," said Elke.

"I mean, under the circumstances..."

Elke flinched.

"Sorry," said Bernadette.

"No, don't be," said Elke.

It was quiet.

Bernadette leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. "I'm just going to come right out with it, I think. No reason to keep you in suspense. You're being transferred."

"Transferred?" said Elke.

"Just let me finish," said Bernadette. "It's a bit of a promotion, actually. You'll be heading up the Conviction Review Unit in Haven Hills."

"Haven Hills? But I work for you. I work here."

"Well, you couldn't very well head up a CRU here. You'd be reviewing your own convictions," said Bernadette. "That would be impossible for you. You couldn't be objective."

Elke was confused. She'd heard of Conviction Review Units, or Conviction Integrity Units, as they were sometimes called. They were units made up of lawyers and police officers who examined cases for the possibility of mistakes. They set people free who'd been wrongly convicted of crimes. "I didn't think Haven Hills had one of those units."

"It's new," said Bernadette. "In the wake of that television documentary all about the case there, they feel the need to do some damage control. They think a CRU is the kind of thing that will help rehabilitate their image, rebuild trust with the people of the community."

Elke had seen the documentary too. It was about a man who'd been in prison for nearly twenty years. He had supposedly raped a woman, but DNA evidence was found that exonerated him, and so he'd been freed. The documentary had painted the entire justice department at Haven Hills as bumbling and inefficient. She licked her lips. "So, it's a publicity stunt, then? I'm supposed to head up a publicity stunt?"

"It's not that way at all," said Bernadette. "Listen, obviously, no one who works at the DA's office in Haven Hills can be a part of the unit, considering the inability to be objective and all of that. So Arthur called me and asked if any of my employees might be a good fit. And I thought of you immediately."

Elke's lips parted. "You did?"

"Yes," said Bernadette.

Elke felt the word burst out of her. "Why?"

Bernadette sat back in her chair. "Well, I thought it would be obvious after what happened with Felix."

Elke's face twisted. She wouldn't dare say that. That was cruel, a sick irony. Maybe she'd fought to clear Felix's name, but it wasn't the same. Not at all.

Bernadette cleared her throat. "I'm sorry if I upset you. I know that your efforts were... misguided, but your technique was quite inspired, and perhaps you'd like to try your hand at using it for someone who deserves it." The minute the last words were out of her mouth, she cringed. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm very sorry."

Elke decided to ignore all of that. She couldn't even begin to respond. Instead, she said, quietly, "You want to get rid of me."

"No, of course not. This is a good opportunity for you."

"I'm an embarrassment to you. To the entire department."

"That is not it at all." A pause. Bernadette sighed. "All right, well, you must have considered that this wouldn't go over well in the courtroom. You ask a jury to believe you that the accused is guilty, but you no longer seem as if you're the best judge of character."

Elke's face fell.

"I'm sorry." Another pause. Bernadette's voice softened. "I can't seem to stop sticking my foot in my mouth. I truly don't think you are a bad judge of character, Elke. You did what anyone would in your position. I understand why you fought for him."

Elke was dangerously close to tears again. She concentrated on her breathing.

It was quiet.

Bernadette sighed again. "Listen, if you won't take the job, I suppose I can find someone else to recommend to Arthur. I just thought this would be a good move for you. It will be easier than trying to work here after everything. It will be a fresh start. And there will be a pay raise."

But I don't want a fresh start, thought Elke. I want one thing to be the same in my life. One tiny thing. I want a foundation, a bedrock. I need it. But that wasn't going to happen, she realized. There would be no foundation, no comfort, no familiarity. The storm that was Felix's sins would rip everything away from her. She would be bereft.

"Elke?"

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You always have a choice."

Elke raised her face to look at Bernadette. "I suppose so. In a way."

"So, what's your answer? Will you take the job?"

Elke let out a little helpless laugh. "Sure."

CHAPTER TWO

Being head of a unit generally meant one got to staff it, at least that was what Elke had always thought. But at the Haven Hills CRU, that didn't seem to be true at all. When she met with Arthur Andrews, the DA and her new boss, he informed her that her staff was already selected and that they'd all be there when she started on Monday morning.

Haven Hills was a thirty-minute drive from her home. It wasn't a long commute, but she'd been practically able to walk to work before, not that she ever had, because it wasn't practical to walk in high heels.

Elke had asked for a key to her office early, but they didn't have keys ready. They told her that she'd have her key first thing Monday. Which meant she and her staff would all be coming in blind. She didn't like that. But DA Andrews said that there was no reason to rush into anything. "Take your time, settle in," he said. And then he went on and on about finding the right case to start everything off.

She had been right before. It was a publicity stunt.

Andrews was mostly concerned with the image of the DA's office, and because of that, he said that they wanted to make sure the first case was the kind of case that would send the right message. Andrews wanted the person they exonerated to be the right kind of poster child for the papers. Someone who the average person could identify with. Not a drunk or a deadbeat or a wife beater. A woman would be great, he said.

Of course, it was up to Elke to pick the case.

But it wasn't really. This was going to be her first test. If she didn't pick the proper case, then her time here was going to be pretty miserable.

However, the more Elke thought about it, the more she agreed with her new boss that it was a good idea to pick the right case. Because she could use some image rehab herself, and she didn't want to be associated with a deadbeat or a wife beater either. And the more high profile this case, the more that people would talk about it. And the more that they talked about it, the more that they would forget about Felix and forget about her role in all of that. And the sooner everyone forgot about Felix, the sooner she could go back to being a prosecuting attorney instead of running a circus freak show.

So, that Monday, she arrived early, ready to tackle the cases and find herself someone innocent.

Assuming there were any innocent people locked up in Haven Hills. It was possible that the business with the man on the documentary had been a fluke. She couldn't believe that there were many innocent people in jail, after all. At least, she was reasonably certain that all the cases she had prosecuted in her career had seen justice served.

If she had thought otherwise, she couldn't have prosecuted a case in good conscience.

As she collected the key to her new office, she decided that some people weren't good at their jobs. Some people didn't have the moral integrity that she did. She would be going over their cases, and she would be finding their mistakes. This new job had nothing to do with her past performance.

Unlike the offices in Gathopolis, her new office was the fourth floor in a newer building, probably built sometime in the 1970s. It had an open floor plan with abundant windows that let in the cold winter sun. There was a conference room in the center, complete with a long table and various props like white boards, a projector, and a screen. All the other offices surrounded it. But the walls were all constructed of glass. The top half of the glass was clear, but the bottom was marbled and distorted to give the semblance of privacy.

The whole place was bright and airy and unfettered.

Elke missed the claustrophobia of her previous office.

She expected to be the first person to arrive, since she was there quite early. She'd seen the sun come up as she was driving. But instead, as she walked down the glass-lined corridor between the conference room and the offices on the west side of the floor, she came face-to-face with Frankie Hart.

"Oh," said Frankie. "Hi." She was clutching an armful of file folders, and her hair was falling out of the bun on the top of her head. Her skirt suit seemed somehow askew. But Elke wasn't surprised by the woman's appearance. Frankie always looked like that.

Elke and Frankie had gone up against each other on a case about three years ago. Typically, there was a friendly camaraderie amongst lawyers, even if they worked on opposite sides of the fence. After all, most cases came down to defense lawyers and prosecutors sitting down together and haggling out deals. You couldn't very well do that kind of thing if you weren't at least a bit friendly with each other.

Frankie never made deals.

Ostensibly, this was because Frankie never took a case unless she was certain the person she was representing was innocent. And innocent people didn't make deals.

But honestly, that couldn't be true, at least Elke didn't believe it. They couldn't all be innocent. There was no way that the police were arresting the wrong people often enough to keep Frankie paid.

Considering Frankie had come to work for the CRU, that seemed to prove Elke's theory. Why else would she be here unless she couldn't pay her bills? Andrews had told her that he'd brought a defense attorney onto the team because it was considered best practice to have someone who'd worked the other side of the fence in the loop. A proper CRU had both prosecutors and defenders on the team. In this case, though, that meant one of each. Elke and Frankie were the only two lawyers on the team.

In fact, the entire CRU was just three members. Four if you counted the executive assistant and paralegal Andrews had hired to answer their phones and get their coffee. The lack of staffing only did more to convince Elke that the unit was a publicity stunt. If Andrews had wanted serious work done, he would have hired more people.

Elke didn't mind the lack of staff, honestly. A few hardworking people could be just as effective as a larger group. But she was a little annoyed at the addition of Frankie.

It wasn't that she didn't like Frankie. Frankie was fine, as far as it went.

Elke had never really... well, the thing was the woman annoyed her. Partly, it was her attitude, as if she was better than everyone else, refusing to come the table for deals. But other little things bothered Elke as well. Her disheveled appearance, for instance. What was that all about? Was she trying to send the message that she was so concerned with her job she didn't have time to put on lipstick or something?

Not that Elke spent an inordinate amount of time doing her makeup in the morning. She tried to look tidy, though. Put together. She tried to look like a woman that a jury could have confidence in.

And that name. Frankie? Was that really her name? It made her sound like a twelve-year-old with a wad of bubble gum in her mouth. Elke knew it wasn't fair to dislike the woman's name. Frankie could hardly help that. Honestly, Elke was probably testy because of the shambles her life was in right now. Before everything with Felix, she'd never have thought such uncharitable thoughts.

Of course, if the business with Felix had never happened, then she wouldn't be in this position anyway. She'd be back in her old job, doing what she was good at.

But she couldn't keep thinking about all that. She shook herself and forced herself to smile. "Good morning."

"Good morning," said Frankie. "When I heard you were going to head up the CRU, I was surprised."

"Really." Elke's voice came out flat.

"Well, you never really seemed like the type to be interested in exonerating the innocent," said Frankie.

Elke nodded. Of course. Whereas this job was right up Frankie's ally. She'd probably lobbied to be in the unit.

"But I'm glad you're here, and I have just piles and piles of cases for us to look into."

"Piles?" said Elke. There couldn't be so many. Frankie was delusional.

"Yes, but right now, I've misplaced a very important file, and I was retracing my steps, trying to find—"

A little boy zoomed out of one of the rooms, running into Frankie's legs and cutting her off.

"Thad!" screamed Frankie. She stumbled, clutching at the files at her chest.

Elke cringed, expecting them both to go sprawling and the files to fly out everywhere, an explosion of paper.

But the boy nimbly weaved around them and down the hallway.

"My son, Thaddeus," said Frankie to Elke. "Don't worry. He's catching the bus. Actually, I probably need to take him down right now. Can you take these?" Frankie handed her armful of files to Elke.

Elke took them awkwardly. "Wait a minute, where are you—"

But Frankie was already running down the hall after her little boy.

Elke looked around for someplace to set down the files. The door the boy had come out of, that was probably Frankie's office. She went in there. Yeah, Frankie had already moved right in. The desk was covered in photos of the little boy and of Frankie and her husband. There was even a potted plant in the corner.

Elke dumped the files on the top of the desk, feeling perturbed. She was the head of this unit. She wasn't a receptacle for files.

She started out of the room.

But someone was at the door. The man was tall, wearing a navy blue suit. His gaze swept her perfunctorily before looking over her shoulder to take in the office behind her. "This isn't your office," he said.

"No," she said. "It's not. I'm sorry. You are...?"

"Oh." He offered his hand. "Detective Iain Hudson."

She took his hand. "Nice to meet you, Detective." He was the third member of her team, the police officer.

"You're Ms. Lawrence," he said.

"Yes," she said. "It's good to meet you. I don't know much about your background, but I'm sure your ties to the local police will help us with our work."

"But you aren't in your office," he said. "I assume you'd take the one on the corner. It's the largest, and it seems most centrally located." He looked around. "Of course, we have a bit more space than we need, don't we?"

"I was only putting down some files on Frankie's desk," said Elke. "Ms. Hart, I mean."

"Right," said Iain. "Of course it's her office." He scrutinized the place, his gaze darting over everything from the desk to the potted plant. Then, sucking in a breath, he stepped back out into the hallway. "I didn't know we were to choose our own offices."

"Well, I suppose you can," said Elke. "It doesn't matter. Do you have one you prefer?"

At that point, Frankie came back up the hallway. Elke noticed that her suit jacket was buttoned crookedly. "It's not anywhere," she declared in a distressed voice.

"What isn't?" said Elke.

"The file I was looking for," said Frankie.

"You're missing a file?" said Iain.

"Yes, I had it right here," said Frankie. "I thought maybe I took it up to the front, to the desk that looks like it's for the secretary, but there's nothing there." She turned to Elke. "Do we have a secretary?"

"Executive assistant," said Elke.

"Right," said Frankie.

"Maybe Thad took the file?" said Iain.

Elke groaned inwardly. That was the last thing they needed. A little boy going through sensitive police documentation. She was going to have to speak to Frankie about having her son in the office, even if it was only for a short time before the bus came. Frankie would have to wait downstairs—

But Frankie was looking at Iain with a wide, frightened expression on her face. "What do you know about Thad?"

Elke furrowed her brow. Iain didn't know about the little boy, then?

"He's your son?" said Iain. "Maybe six or eight years old?"

"Yes," said Frankie, looking even more worried. "Why would you—"

"He's left his signature on the wall there." Iain pointed behind Frankie's desk where Elke could now see the words Thad was here written in blue crayon.

"Oh, hell!" Frankie put her hand to her forehead. She turned to Elke. "It'll wash right off, I swear." Then she turned back to Iain. "But how did you know, just from that?"

"Fairly obvious that it was recent," he said. "They scrubbed this place down over the weekend. I assumed that a child had written it, because of the crayon and the height. I guessed his age based on the height as well. And it seemed most likely that a child in your office would be your son."

"That's..." Frankie shook her head. "That's amazing. You really are a detective."

Yeah, he was Sherlock Holmes, Elke thought. Wonderful. But this was all besides the point. "Your son didn't take the file with him, did he?" said Elke.

"Oh, he didn't have the file, I'm sure of that," said Frankie. "I'd never let him near them. If he saw the crime scene photos, he'd be traumatized."

Elke folded her arms over her chest.

"He didn't have the file," Frankie insisted. "I'm sure it'll turn up."

* * *

In fact, the file did turn up. In the restroom, on the sink. Elke found it when she went in to wash her hands before lunch.

None of them got any actual work done that day. Frankie seemed to be in some sort of organizational flurry, and Elke and Iain only managed to accomplish getting their offices set up.

Their executive assistant, Amos Bradley, arrived at eight o'clock sharp, and he brought donuts. He was young and attractive, and wore a tailored green suit with a lime green collared shirt and matching tie. Amos had a bubbly personality, and she liked him right away.

After work, she drove home to her house, and for some reason, it all seemed different when she walked inside.

Maybe it was because the place was such a mess. In the wake of everything, she'd hardly felt like cleaning, so her sink was piled high with dishes and her living room was scattered with clothing. She hadn't been sleeping in her bedroom since finding out about Felix. Somehow, being in that bed was too much of a reminder for her to handle. So, she'd taken to sleeping on the couch instead.

It wasn't as if she didn't have other bedrooms. Two other bedrooms, in fact. This three-bedroom house had been purchased with the express purpose of starting a family. She and Felix were waiting for the right time, and then they were going to try. The other bedrooms were slated to belong to their adorable little boy and girl (or two girls or two boys) who they would someday create.

Currently, the rooms were bland guest rooms with framed Monet prints on the walls. There was no visual hint of the children they were supposed to eventually belong to.

But Elke knew what the rooms were for. And for that reason, she couldn't sleep in there either.

Because there was to be no having babies with Felix Weaver. There was to be no future with him at all. At least she'd never taken his name when they got married. That would have been truly unbearable. But no, she'd always liked her last name and she didn't want to change it. So, that was a relief, anyway. One tiny oasis of relief in a desert of awfulness.

Elke looked around the house, and she suddenly didn't want to be there at all.

She paused to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and then she went right back out the door. She got back in her car and drove around.

She wasn't going anywhere. She ended up on a loop throughout the housing development, looking at the backyards of all her neighbors, seeing that they had swing sets and trampolines and pools. They had children. She didn't.

She didn't know if she ever would now. She wasn't young anymore. She was older than thirty, and she wasn't sure there was time to get over Felix and meet someone new and form a relationship and have babies. She'd always wanted to be a mother, but maybe it wasn't something that she was going to be able to do now. Maybe that door was closed to her.

She banged her hand against the steering wheel.

Damn Felix! Damn him for ruining everything. How could he have done this to her?

But he hadn't done it to her, not exactly. What she meant was, it hadn't been malicious. Hell, Felix probably told himself that he was doing it for her. Men were always telling themselves little lies like that to convince themselves that their misdeeds were okay. He thought he was providing for her. He thought he was giving her the life she wanted.

Suddenly, she couldn't bear being in the neighborhood anymore. She didn't want to see the expensive houses or the immaculate back yards. She didn't belong here, anyway. She'd gotten here with Felix's ill-gotten gains. She wanted out of all of it.

She drove, and found herself driving back to Haven Hills, back to the downtown area. Haven Hills had lately undergone a successful gentrification, the "bad" neighborhoods of five years ago now turned into hipster loft apartments for young professionals. Some of the "bad" neighborhoods remained, of course, or Haven Hills wouldn't have the crime problem that it did. The odd part of it all now was that from one street to another, the tenor of the city changed. She drove past whole food health stores and then turned the corner to find men standing on the corner of the sidewalk, bottles wrapped in brown paper hanging at their sides.

But even with the juxtapositions of rich and poor, she found herself feeling more at ease on these streets.

Maybe Bernadette had been right after all. Maybe she did need a fresh start.

In the end, though, she had no choice but to drive back to her house in Gathopolis. Back to the memories of Felix and the future they would never have together. The worst thing, she decided, wasn't that he had betrayed her or that he had lied to her or that she had been stupid enough to believe him. The worst thing was that she missed him so very, very much.

* * *

Amos Bradley realized he'd forgotten to lock up the CRU office when he was halfway across the parking lot and almost to his car.

Damn it. He'd never had that kind of responsibility before. He'd always been someone insignificant at any of his other jobs. This was different, and he was glad he was moving up in the world. It was one thing going right in his life, when everything else seemed like crap.

But man, he hoped he didn't mess it up.

He turned around, dashed back into the building, and took the elevator back upstairs.

Once back at the floor, he secured the door. It didn't look as if anything had happened in the short time the place had been unlocked and empty, thank God. He was going to have to make sure that this never happened again. He'd set a recurring alarm on his phone to remind him to lock the door.

He got his phone out and started back toward the elevator.

His phone rang in his hands.

He jumped.

Jesus.

He answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Amos, it's Tom," said a voice on the other end. "You want to come out to the Rainbow?"

"Like now?"

"Yes, now," said Tom. "Haven't you been watching the news? If you stay late at the Rainbow, you end up strangled and doused in bleach in your trunk."

"You're talking about that serial killer," said Amos. "What are they calling him?"

"The Haven Hills Ripper," said Tom. "Only kills pretty gay boys like us. So, if we want to get our drink on, we better do it before eight. What do you say?"

"I don't know. I just got off work," said Amos.

"Oh, right, your new job," said Tom. "First day, yeah? Come out and celebrate."

Amos got on the elevator. He wasn't much in a celebratory mood, honestly. "If gay guys are really getting taken out of the Rainbow and killed, maybe we should stay clear entirely."

"Seriously? You're saying no?"

"I just think going to the bar where some killer called the Ripper is stalking victims is kind of like jumping in a van, heading to Camp Crystal Lake, and then proceeding to have wild sex."

Tom laughed. "Oh, come on, live a little."

"Another night."

"You're still sad about Paul, aren't you? You need to get over that jackass."

"I'll talk to you later, Tom," said Amos, hanging up. Yeah, it was good not to go to the bar. He had a real, grownup job now, and he couldn't be gallivanting around to bars all night.

CHAPTER THREE

"Trevor is guilty of selling drugs to Amelia," Frankie was saying from the front of the conference room, scattered file folders lying on the table in front of her, "but he's not guilty of murder. I think it's fairly obvious that the time line doesn't match up."

Elke stood up. "Let me just stop you right there."

Frankie shot Elke a frustrated look. "You're rejecting this one too? But I haven't even explained the nuts and bolts of the case."

"It's the way you started off," said Elke. "Trevor is a drug dealer. Didn't I just tell you that DA Andrews was very clear to me that our first case should be the right kind of case?"

"The right kind of case is the one in which the client is innocent," said Frankie.

"They aren't our clients," said Elke, folding her arms over her chest.

Frankie flushed. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just... old habits."

"Well, I appreciate that you're passionate about this, and that you feel an idealistic crusade to right wrongs. That's all well and good. But we live in the real world, and in the real world—"

"What?" said Frankie. "In the real world, if you're a drug dealer, you don't matter?"

Elke sighed. "I'm not saying that. Of course I'm not saying that. And we can work on Trevor's case at some point in the future. But for our first case, we need something that will make a splash with the media, and we need the person we're freeing to be very likable. Someone that people can empathize with. We don't want the public to demonize him."

Frankie made a sour face. "I suppose you have some other case, then, someone in mind?"

"Well, no," said Elke. "I haven't had a chance to look over anything yet." They were only in the conference room because Frankie had insisted on presenting to them that morning.

Iain cleared his throat.

Elke turned to him, feeling a bit embarrassed that she and Frankie were having what amounted to an argument. But if she really headed up this unit, she needed to be the final word on every case, and she couldn't very well allow Frankie to think otherwise. Iain, however, seemed utterly unaffected by the tension in the room.

He smiled. "I have an idea for a case."

"You do." Frankie pursed her lips and surveyed him. "When were you in here, poring through files?"

He didn't seem to sense her annoyance. "I wasn't. It's a case I know about. I tried to bring it up to my superiors in the department, but they weren't interested in listening. You might remember it. It's an old case, where the doctor from Haven College and his wife were killed in their home?"

Elke stared at him blankly.

Frankie furrowed her brow. "I think I remember that. It was the daughter, right? And her boyfriend?"

"Well, I don't think they did it," said Iain. "I think they're innocent."

"Tell me about the case," said Elke.

Iain stroked his chin. "Well, let's see. This was about twenty-five years ago, I think. The doctor was named Mukherjee, and his daughter was Saanvi Mukherjee. Dr. Mukherjee and his wife were found on their couch in the living room, both shot in the head. Saanvi and her boyfriend—his name is Kevin Greene—claimed that they had been out for the evening and then when they got home, they found the parents and called 911."

"I remember this now," said Elke. "I talked to someone who was working the case in Haven Hills. Hadn't they been at home, by their own admission, for nearly an hour before they found the bodies? Supposedly, they walked right past the doorway to living room and went straight past the murder scene and didn't even notice it."

"Oh, right," said Frankie. "They did, didn't they? I remember hearing about that. It didn't add up."

"You know," said Iain, "people are really far less observant than we tend to think they are. I don't think the lack of noticing the crime scene means they're guilty."

"Well, it doesn't scream out their innocence," said Frankie.

Elke arched an eyebrow at her. So, she wasn't a bleeding heart for everyone, then? She really did have to believe in the innocent to be on board? All right, well, maybe Frankie was more shrewd than Elke had given her credit for. She would try to give the woman the benefit of the doubt from here on out.

"No, I suppose it doesn't," said Iain. "But the fact that we locked up a pair of thieves who were active in the area and committed several other similar murders in the course of their burglaries might."

"Wait, what?" said Elke. "Were things missing from the Mukherjees' house?"

"Well, no one really knows," said Iain. "Saanvi was the only living resident of the house, and she was put in protective custody and then arrested only a few weeks later. She was never able to go through her family's belongings. There wasn't anything glaring, like an empty TV stand, but then there wouldn't have been, because the Mukherjees had only moved into the house two weeks before, and everything was still in boxes. So, many things could have been taken, and we really wouldn't have any idea."

"Hmm," said Elke. "And the thieves' murders? They really were similar?"

"I can show you," said Iain. "I think they're close enough to warrant a look. I don't have the files on me, but I can get them. I can tell you that there was a case with a man and woman named Smith who were found shot in the head in their bed, and a case with a woman and her grown son, who were robbed and found tied up in the laundry room, also shot in the head."

"Tied up?" said Frankie. "Were the Mukherjees tied up?"

"No," said Iain. "But that wasn't always Kelley's and Squires's M.O. That's the names of the thieves, by the way. They would tie up the victims if they thought they were likely to interfere with the theft."

"Why tie them up if they were going to kill them, anyway?" said Frankie.

"Apparently, they didn't always go in with the intention of killing, but that often happened," said Iain. "I'll pull the file. You can watch a video of the confessions if you want. It'll answer all your questions."

"Sure," said Elke. "But about the Mukherjee case. How do they connect?"

"Other than that Kelley and Squires were active at the time and in the area, they don't," said Iain. "But it seems like they might. There were some hairs found in the Mukherjee house that weren't tested for DNA at the time, because it wasn't yet standard procedure. If we can get those samples tested and match them to the thieves, whose profiles are already on file since they've been arrested, it'll be quick and easy."

Elke brightened. "That's fabulous. Quick and easy, I like it." It would be a good case for publicity. Two innocent wrongfully convicted people instead of one, both of whom had been young. And the fact that there was a multi-cultural aspect to the case was a definite plus. It had all the makings of good publicity, which would make everyone look good. The better she looked, the sooner she could get back to being a prosecutor.

Of course, she had been thinking about that fresh start...

But never mind that. This case was definitely the one to pursue.

"The hair wasn't matched up to anyone?" said Frankie. "Even before DNA was standard testing procedure, hair follicles were analyzed."

"Well, they didn't match either Saanvi or Kevin," said Iain. "I think what happened is that they discounted the hairs because they thought they might have belonged to others who'd been in the house. They'd just moved in, and there were movers who'd brought in boxes and things. The prevailing sentiment was that the hairs might have belonged to them."

"So, these hairs may have nothing to do with the murder," said Frankie.

"But if they match our thieves, it's a slam dunk," said Elke.

Frankie didn't say anything. Apparently, she couldn't argue with that.

"Great," said Elke. "Let's dig into this, then. Hudson, I want you to go and interview the thieves in prison. Hart, if you can put together the documents we'll need to petition the DNA testing and get them to Amos—"

"What do I need to interview anyone for?" said Iain. "We'll just test the DNA."

Elke furrowed her brow at him. "You're the police officer. Interviewing people is what you do."

* * *

Except, Iain thought to himself, he hated interviewing suspects.

"I don't know," Alan Kelley was saying. "You come in here, and you ask me about some date twenty-five years ago. I have no idea what I was doing on that day. How could I possibly know?"

Iain sat opposite Kelley in a small interview room in the prison where Kelley was incarcerated. The walls were concrete blocks painted a muted tan color. The table and chairs they sat on were the same color. There were no windows.

"It's not out of the realm of possibility that you'd remember," said Iain. "Otherwise I wouldn't have asked."

"Well, I don't," said Kelley. He was wearing a blue jumpsuit. When he glared at Iain, there was a sneer on his face.

Iain wasn't intimidated by Kelley. It would be irrational to be intimidated. Kelley was a criminal in restraints. Iain was a police officer. He wasn't armed, (because he had to leave his firearm behind when he went in to question an inmate), but he didn't feel as if he was in danger. He could handle a physical threat.

But Iain did feel inadequate, the way he always did whenever he was trying to have any kind of conversation with nearly anyone.

He was all right when he was talking about the facts of a case. When he was sure of his subject, he felt confident to speak to someone else.

But that wasn't really a conversation. In that case, it was more like a lecture. He was the professor, relaying information to whoever was listening, and they were the students. He could teach, but he couldn't converse. Something about the back and forth of it always tripped him up.

It frustrated him. He didn't like to have faults. He strove to avoid situations like this one. As long as he had a partner, that person could do the talking in an interview. He would listen and file away any pertinent information for later.

Not that there was often likely to be much. In Iain's opinion, the way to solve a crime was to look at the evidence, not listen to people run their mouths.

People had a tendency to lie.

And if they weren't lying, they were confused or mistaken. People were not very reliable.

Kelley was still talking. "I'm guessing that something happened that day you're asking me about, though, and you want me to say that I did it. You figure I might, because I ain't got anything to lose, locked up in here for the rest of my natural life. But you're wrong. I ain't saying nothing about nothing. Not unless maybe there's something in it for me. So, is there? Something in it for me?"

Iain sighed. "It doesn't matter if you speak or not. If there's evidence that you committed these murders, we'll find it."

"Wait, murder? You think I killed someone?"

"You have before."

"No way. It was always Jeremy. He was always doing that shit. I didn't have anything to do with killing nobody."

Oh, right. Iain had forgotten that was Kelley's claim. He had maintained it all through his trial, that he wasn't a murderer, and that Squires was the one who kept doing it, despite the fact that Kelley was uncomfortable with the violence.

Kelley leaned across the table, raising a shackled hand. He splayed his fingers on the table. "I always told him, I said, 'We're wearing masks for a reason.' But I think he liked it. Man, I wish I'd never met that jackass. I would have never ended up the way I did if it hadn't been for fucking Jeremy."

Fine. Iain'd had enough. He had Kelley sent back to his cell and asked for them to bring in Jeremy Squires, the other of the thieves.

But Squires never appeared. Instead, the officer who had been sent to fetch him said that when Squires heard about the date that Iain was asking about, he had refused to go anywhere. When a guard tried to convince him to come along anyway, Squires had lashed out violently. He'd thrown such a fit that he'd had to be restrained. He was now in solitary confinement, and he was going to be there for a while.

* * *

"What do you mean, you got nothing?" said Elke, looking Iain over. He had just come into her office, back from the prison.

"I'm not exactly... good at interviewing people," Iain told his shoes. He was sheepish, and he seemed so different from the confident man she'd seen thus far. "I'm not good at people period."

She raised her eyebrows. Not good at people? But then, she thought, it was actually fairly obvious. She should have seen it earlier. He was on the spectrum in some way. Probably a brilliant analyst, very observant, but not exactly social. In fact, that was probably why they'd moved him to this unit. It made sense. If she had been in charge of him and had been trying to figure out somewhere to put him, she'd have relegated him to a job exactly like this.

But it did cripple the whole unit. She'd expected to have her police officer act like, well, a police officer.

"To be fair, I didn't even get to talk to Squires," said Iain.

"Yes," said Elke. "That's suspicious, isn't it? He'd rather get thrown in solitary confinement than talk to us? What do you think that means?"

"I'm not really one for speculation either."

She gave him a withering look. Of course he wasn't.

There was a knock at the door.

"Yes?" said Elke.

Amos peered around Iain. Today, he was wearing a purple shirt and a paisley purple tie. "Hey," he said. "I'm not trying to interrupt or anything, but..." He gestured with his hands. "Weird phone call for you. It's collect from a prisoner at Oak Hill Prison. Felix somebody or—"

"No," said Elke coldly. "Tell him no and not to call back."

"Okay," said Amos, clearly a bit taken aback by the force of her response.

Iain, on the other hand, was oblivious.

She sighed. "It's not you, Amos." Honestly, she couldn't believe he hadn't heard all about her and Felix on the news. Maybe here in Haven Hills it wasn't as big a story as elsewhere. "Listen, did you get the information you need from Frankie about the DNA testing request? I'd like to get that filed as soon as possible."

"Nope," said Amos. "I haven't gotten anything from her."

Elke sighed. "All right, well, I'll go talk to her." She swept out of the office and both of the men stared after her as if they didn't know what to do with themselves now. She pounded down the hallway. How had Felix found out she was working here? How had he gotten the number?

Now that she thought of it, DA Andrews had mentioned that there would be a press release about the new CRU. That was probably it. Felix had access to the news, same as everyone else, and he probably had his ways to find phone numbers. He had nothing but time in there, after all.

She veered out of the hallway into Frankie's office.

Frankie looked up, surprised. "Yes?"

"The DNA information for Amos?"

"I've got it here," she said, holding up several sheets of paper. "I was about to take it to him."

"Oh, great, thanks," said Elke.

"You told me to do it. Did you think I wasn't going to?" Frankie's nostrils flared.

Elke held up both her hands. "Sorry, no, I wasn't trying to..." She didn't even finish the sentence. She just started to back out of the office. "It's not you, actually, it's..." My stupid, lying husband. Ex-husband. She sucked in a deep breath and turned back to the hallway. "Never mind."

"Okay," said Frankie, sounding confused.

Elke turned back to her. "Actually, how are you at interviewing people?"

"People?"

"Suspects," said Elke.

"Well, I think everyone just wants a sympathetic ear and then—"

"Never mind," Elke said again. Sympathy was not what she was looking for here. She stepped into the hallway.

Iain was coming back down the hallway with Amos trailing after him.

Elke pointed at Iain. "You. With me."

* * *

Saanvi Mukherjee was a small, slight woman in her early forties. She wore her dark hair short and she had huge, luminous eyes that gazed listlessly past Elke. "What? You were expecting some kind of reaction?"

"I was," said Elke, scrutinizing the woman. She and Iain sat opposite a table in an interview room at the prison. Saanvi and Kevin were both being kept at a facility to the south of Haven Hills. It had been about a forty minute drive down here, and Iain hadn't been able to understand what the point was of going and talking to the possibly wrongly convicted. In his mind, it was pointless. The DNA would exonerate them or it wouldn't.

"Well," said Saanvi, "I don't have one. If you'd come to me ten years ago, five years ago, and told me that someone wanted to see justice done, maybe then I would have had a reaction, but it's just been too long. We've tried to appeal. We've tried to get our story heard. Nothing has happened. So, you must understand, it's simply not something I allow myself to have anymore."

"What isn't?" said Elke.

"Hope."

Well, that was sad. Of course, for all Elke knew, this woman had actually committed cold blooded murder. Elke had been hoping she would be reassured of the accused's innocence in this interview, but Saanvi was blank and withdrawn. She couldn't get a read on the woman at all. Elke glanced sidelong at Iain, who was silently observing. She was fairly sure he wouldn't put much stock in "getting a read" on someone.

Well, hell. Maybe he was right. It wasn't exactly scientific, was it?

"All right, fair enough," said Elke. "Would you mind talking to us a bit about the crime?"

Saanvi sighed. "Whatever."

"You would mind?"

"It's the death of my parents, you know," she said. "It's not something anyone likes talking about. Especially when they were killed the way they were."

"Right, I understand," said Elke. "It must be painful for you."

Saanvi sighed again. "What do you want to know? We weren't even there, you know. Kevin and I were out the whole night, and people saw us. People who testified, but it didn't matter. They said we timed it so that we could get there and get back in time. They said that the people who saw us were confused. They were sure it was us. They never even looked at anyone else."

"And there were other people to look at?" said Elke.

"Dad's work study," said Saanvi. "She was angry over the grade he gave her. And those Nazi fuckers. But no one took them seriously."

"Nazi?"

"We have files on those suspects," Iain spoke up. "I've gone over them. We aren't looking at them at this time. We have another theory."

Elke shook her head at him furiously. He shouldn't tell the accused about another possible suspect. What if she actually was guilty? She didn't need any extra ammunition if that was the case.

"Sorry," said Iain and lapsed into silence.

"You don't want me to know the other theory?" said Saanvi. "Let me guess, you aren't actually convinced I'm innocent and you don't want to give me any ideas."

Elke sighed. "We are investigating your case. We're investigating all the angles. The fact that you don't seem to want to cooperate—"

"What do you want to know?"

"You walked right past the crime scene," said Elke.

"It was dark," said Saanvi. "The lights were off in the living room. Kevin and I thought my parents had gone to bed already. That was the way it typically would be. They'd be in bed, and I'd sneak Kevin to my room and we'd... well, be together."

"So, that's what you did that night?"

"No," said Saanvi. "No, thank goodness. I wanted a glass of water, and I went into the kitchen, and that was when I saw that the bread and the cheese and the mayonnaise were out. Which didn't make sense. That wasn't like my father. He was the one who usually made himself a late-night sandwich, but he always cleaned up after himself. So, that was when I checked the bed, and no one was in it. The covers had been thrown aside, like someone had been sleeping and had gotten out. And then I started calling for them. And Kevin came out of the room, and we went together, looking for them. It didn't take us long to find them."

"That's not what you said before," said Elke, who had spent the morning going over the file and the testimony.

"Isn't it?"

"You were in the house for an hour before you called 911. You aren't accounting for that time."

"Kevin and I were talking," she said. "In my bedroom. With the door closed. Quietly, so as not to wake my parents. What does it matter, anyway?"

"I saw the crime scene photos. When you come in the door, there's a doorway to the living room, and there was blood spatter on the floor there. You would have walked right over it."

"It was dark," she said. "We didn't see. I would never have thought that there would be blood in my house. Even if I had seen it, I wouldn't have thought... I would have probably brushed it off."

"Really? You wouldn't have taken blood seriously?"

"I didn't kill my parents," she said. "But if you're convinced that I did, then nothing I say is going to matter to you."

CHAPTER FOUR

Kevin Greene seemed much more welcoming. He shook both of their hands, pumping them enthusiastically. "Wow," he said. "Wow. I read about the new unit that overturns wrongful convictions, and I wondered if maybe we could get our case reviewed, but I didn't expect you to find us first. This is amazing."

"We're investigating," said Elke. "We haven't made any decisions yet."

"Right, right," said Kevin. "But if you look into our case, you'll see. It's ludicrous. They have nothing on us. They're just hyperfocused on the fact we walked past the living room. The thing is, neither of us were paying a bit of attention when we walked in."

"No?" said Elke.

"No," said Kevin. "We were eighteen. We had come home to her house late like that before, and we were there to do exactly one thing." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"I see," said Elke. "So, you were there to have sex."

"Basically," said Kevin. "I was kissing her the whole way back the hall. We weren't paying attention. I mean, it's horrible to think of now. We had no idea, though."

"So, is that what you were doing for the hour interval between when you got home and when you called the police?" said Elke. "Having sex?"

"Yeah," said Kevin.

Elke pressed her lips together. "That's not what Saanvi says."

Kevin nodded. "Right, sorry. She never wanted that to come out. It was really upsetting to her. I mean, can you imagine? Doing that right next to your dead parents? I think she wants to forget that ever happened." He shook his head. "Poor Saanvi. You know, it's so much worse for her. She lost her parents, and she's only got her mother's parents now. Her father's side of the family think she did it. They cut her off completely. It's completely disgusting if you ask me."

"Let's go back to talking about the crime scene if we can?" said Elke.

"Oh, okay," said Kevin. "Sorry if I'm overly chatty. Not a lot of conversationalists on my cell block, if you know what I mean. And I'm excited that you're here. This is really, really good news. I just can't believe it." He grinned widely.

Something about the grin made Elke uncomfortable. Possibly, Kevin was simply socially out of practice as he said. Maybe he didn't realize the way he was behaving while talking about a brutal murder scene was incongruous. He had lived with the reality of this murder for a long time, after all.

Elke cleared her throat. "So, what happened next? You and Saanvi were intimate, and then?"

"Uh, she went to the kitchen for water or something. And then she was gone a while, and I hear her screaming. And I throw on my clothes and leave the bedroom and I find her in the living room, and there are her parents, and she's just—" He sucked in breath, and now all of his smiles were gone. He looked down at the table. "I remember that she was running towards them, and I grabbed her and stopped her, because I was thinking like, if she touched them, she could mess up evidence." He chuckled softly. "Like any of that mattered."

"You were thinking about evidence in that moment?" said Elke.

"Yeah, it was weird. I mean, I think I should have been more worried about Saanvi, but it was just such a shock. It didn't seem real, you know. I only ever saw anything like that on TV, on cop shows, and my brain must have just went there."

"So, Saanvi found the bodies on her own?" said Elke.

"Yeah," said Kevin.

"That's not what you said before."

"It's not?" Kevin furrowed his brow.

"No, when I went over your original interview, you said you heard her calling her parent's names, and that when you left the room, and that you went into the living room together," said Elke. Which, incidentally, matched Saanvi's story, whereas this didn't match.

"Oh," said Kevin. "I said that?"

Elke nodded.

He rubbed his chin, seemingly bewildered. "I don't know. I really remember her screaming. I'll never forget that scream."

* * *

"I don't know about any of this," Elke muttered. She was in the passenger seat of Iain's car. He was driving them back to Haven Hills from the prison where Saanvi and Kevin were being kept. "They contradict each other all over the place, even now, years after the fact. I think they maybe only agreed back then because they'd had time to get their stories straight."

"No, I don't think that means anything," said Iain.

"You don't?"

"Well, the contradictions make sense, don't they?" said Iain. "What he said about the girl wanting to forget that she'd had sex in the same house as her dead parents, that seems likely, doesn't it? I think that would be deeply disturbing to me, and if it disturbed me, it would disturb anyone."

Elke couldn't help but laugh.

Iain shot her a look from the driver's seat. "I said something funny? I didn't mean to."

"Sorry, it's just that you're fairly self-aware."

"I understand my own limitations," said Iain. "I'm not pleased about them, but I accept them. A lot of people are so displeased with what's wrong with them they try to convince themselves that their imperfections don't exist. I find that cowardly and idiotic."

"Of course you do," said Elke, smiling.

"I don't think that was funny either."

"No, sorry." She looked away to hide her smile. He was a bit of an odd duck, but she liked him. He was straightforward, and she appreciated that. She wasn't one to beat around the bush either.

"Anyway, I have limited emotional understanding of other people," said Iain. "It's not that I'm emotionally stunted myself, it's simply that the general populace does a good bit of lying to itself about emotions, and I just can't keep track of all the lies."

"What?" Now she was thrown. "What do you mean?"

"Well, take for instance, when people talk about being so deeply upset that some stranger has been killed. The truth is, they're not really upset about that stranger at all. It's not about the stranger, it's about them. You see, when they hear the story about the stranger dying, someone's father or brother or son, they think about their own father or brother or son and think about what it might be like if they lost that person. But they don't actually care about the stranger. They don't send flowers or offer to help out his widow or spend hours sobbing over this stranger's loss. Empathy is not really empathy. It's selfishness. It's taking someone else's tragedy and turning it entirely inward."

"Um..." Elke shook her head. "I don't think that's really—"

"It is," said Iain. "And anyway, when I say that I feel truly nothing when I hear about a dead stranger, because I don't automatically think about what it might feel like if I lost my own father, I'm labeled unfeeling and unemotional and people don't like me. But it's not that I can't feel that same kind of selfish empathy. It's only that I didn't realize we were supposed to do that when we heard about dead strangers." He gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Elke wasn't sure what to say.

Iain glanced at her. "Sorry."

"It's fine," she said, even though she was still a little off-balance from his speech.

"Anyway, I'm only saying that I think that her emotional reason for concealing her sexual activity is sensible, but I suppose I could be wrong. I don't always understand everything."

Elke was quiet a moment. "I suppose so. But they don't have the events of the evening syncing up either."

"People really aren't very good at remembering things exactly as they happened," said Iain. "I doubt that's significant either."

"I'm not sure. It doesn't bode well."

"If Alan Kelley and Jeremy Squires were present in that house, then that's all we need to know," said Iain. "We need to trust the evidence, not how well something bodes."

CHAPTER FIVE

"Yes?" said the older man who'd opened the door. He had broad shoulders and protruding belly.

"Isaac Montgomery?" said Elke. She and Iain were shivering on the sidewalk outside the man's house. It was the listed address for the witness from twenty-five years ago, but it was likely he didn't still live there. She and Iain were looking up the people who'd provided Saanvi's and Kevin's alibi.

"Yes, that's me," said the man. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Elke smiled. "I'm Elke Lawrence, and this is my associate Iain Hudson. We're wondering if you might talk to us for a moment about Saanvi Mukherjee and Kevin Greene."

"Really?" Isaac was surprised. "After all this time, you want to talk about that?"

"Just for a moment," said Elke. "We're going back over the case to see if it all checks out."

"Well, it doesn't," said Isaac. "At least as far as I know, it doesn't. I know I saw those two kids the night of the murder. I know what I saw." He opened the door wider. "You want to come in?"

"Yes, thank you," said Elke. She and Iain stepped into the warmth of the man's house. They stood in the foyer and took off their jackets. "This will only take a moment," she said to Isaac.

"Okay," he said. "You want to sit in the living room?"

"No, I doubt we'll be that long," she said. "Basically, we want to know where and when you saw the two of them?"

"Well, they were at the bar I worked at," said Isaac.

"The Halo?" said Elke.

"Yeah, that's the place," said Isaac. "I worked from nine in the evening until close that night, and I remember that I had just gotten there, because I was trying to tie on the apron that I always wore. They made us wear it. It had the name of the bar on it in big white letters."

"You were tying on an apron?" said Elke.

"Yeah, I remember that because I almost didn't bother to ask for ID, because my hands were busy behind my back. But that kid comes up, the boy, Kevin, and he ordered two beers. But I got the thing tied, and I asked for ID, and the kid—bold as brass—just hands over their driver's licenses. But it says Under 21 in big red letters on both of them. I hand 'em back and say, 'Nice try, kid.' So, I sold them some sodas instead."

"Did you see them after that?" said Elke.

"No, just then. It must have been around 9:00-9:15," he said. "I swear I saw them. They were there."

* * *

"It doesn't matter," said Elke, back in the passenger's seat of Iain's car. "Even if they were there at 9:00, they'd have had plenty of time to get home and kill her parents."

"Probably," said Iain. "But that's not what they say they did."

"Right," said Elke. "They say that they stayed there until about 10:00, dancing, and then..."

"Drove to that all-night diner in Gathopolis," said Iain.

"How long you think that drive is?" said Elke.

"Twenty minutes, thirty minutes?" said Iain. "You want to drive up there now? Time it?"

"Why not?" said Elke. "Maybe we'll luck out and the waiter who served them still works there."

* * *

"Anyway, the eye witness swore up and down that the perpetrator had red hair and freckles," Iain was saying.

Elke got out of the passenger's seat of the car. They'd just arrived at the all-night diner where Saanvi and Kevin claimed they'd gone after the bar that night. "Let me guess, he didn't?"

"He was black," said Iain peering at her over the top of the car. "And he wasn't tall at all. He was five foot four. He didn't look a thing like the woman claimed."

"No, I've heard things like this before," said Elke. "In traumatic situations, people sometimes don't remember things well. Eyewitness testimony isn't always reliable."

"It doesn't matter whether there's trauma or not," said Iain. "People don't see the things that they think they saw. Eyewitness testimony is completely worthless."

"Now, I wouldn't go that far," said Elke.

Iain shrugged. He shut the door to the car. "That took twenty-five minutes."

"So, if they left at 10:00..." She shook her head. "No, I suppose we don't know that they left at 10:00, do we? No one saw them leave. They could have left right after the bartender saw them at 9:15. That would put them here around 9:40. Then, even if they ate a meal here, they could still be back to Saanvi's house in plenty of time to commit the murder." She shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know if it matters, considering they have an unaccounted hour's worth of time in the house."

"Well," said Iain, "the later they got there, the less time they would have had to commit the murder and clean up."

"Right," she said.

They crossed the parking lot to the door to the restaurant and went inside. At the door, they were met by a hostess.

"How many?" she said brightly.

"No, actually, we're looking for someone. David Richards. He used to work here a long time ago," said Elke. "It's probably a long shot that he still does—"

"David's the owner," said the hostess. "He's not here right now, though. What do you guys need to see him about?"

Elke nodded at Iain.

Iain showed her his badge.

"Oh!" said the hostess. "I'll call him."

* * *

"So, that's quite a story, going from a waiter here to owning the place?" said Elke.

David Richards smiled. He was sitting in a booth with the two of them in an empty corner of the diner. "Yeah, it's pretty crazy. What happened is that I got close to Jim, who owned the place before. He, uh, didn't have any family, and when he got cancer, I was the one who took him to the hospital and helped him with his prescriptions and everything else. I kept this place running so that he could pay his bills. He ended up leaving it to me."

"Wow," said Elke. "That was good of you to help him out."

"Angie said you were the police?" said David. "You really come all the way out here to ask me about how I got this place?"

"Oh, no, sorry," said Elke. "We're here to talk about Saanvi Mukherjee and Kevin Greene. Do you remember them?"

"Of course I do," said David. "Because they were sitting right here in this restaurant when those cops say they were murdering her parents." David pointed. "That booth over there. I remember. I couldn't tell you what they ordered, but I remember that they were disappointed, because we'd just switched to the more limited late-night menu, and there weren't any chili fries on that menu, only bacon cheese fries, and the girl—Saanvi—she'd apparently really had her heart set on chili fries. I don't know what she did order, but she asked about that."

"Okay," said Elke. "But how can you be sure they were here at that time?"

"That's why," said David. "We switch to the late-night menu at 10:00. So, I know it was after that. And I think it was probably more like 10:30, but I couldn't be sure. I do know it must have been after 10:00, though. I remember clear as day. She wanted chili fries."

Elke shot a glance at Iain.

He gave her a blank look, as if he didn't understand what she was trying to communicate to him.

Hell, he probably didn't. She got the impression he wasn't great with social cues.

Anyway, she was reassured by the eyewitnesses seeing Saanvi and Kevin out and about that night, regardless of how little stock Iain put in such things. It was quite possible the two were actually innocent. She hoped so. Otherwise she was wasting her time.

"It's a real shame, you know," said David. "Those kids didn't do it. It always upset me that they went away to prison. I know they were here. I just don't understand why that wasn't enough to keep them out of jail."

CHAPTER SIX

Elke's heart started pounding in her chest when she saw Felix. She had been dreading this trip, putting it off, but the collect call today had pressed her to do it. She was walking into the visitor's room in the prison where Felix was being kept. It was a large room with clusters of bolted-down tables and chairs. The floor was checked muted red and gray with pink and white flecks. There was a line of windows along one wall, looking out onto the prison yard—two layers of fences with rolls of razor wire on top.

Felix sat alone at a table. His hair was cut short now, and his face looked puffy. He was wearing a prison-issue jumpsuit. When he saw her, he stood up.

She stopped moving at the sight of him. She was struck by an impulse to turn around and run. She didn't want to see him. She didn't want to talk to him.

But she'd come this far. Might as well get this over with.

She forced her feet to move. She walked over the checked floor, each step bringing her closer and closer to the man that she'd promised to love and cherish until death do them part. But she hadn't known then what she knew now. She couldn't be joined to this man anymore.

"El," he whispered when she was close. He reached out for her.

She ducked away from his hand. "You won't sign the papers."

"Geez, El, that's why you're here?" His face fell and he sat down heavily. "You're really serious about this, huh?" he asked the table.

"You think divorce papers are a joke?" Her voice was too high pitched. She sat down too, opposite him.

"No, no, I just thought maybe you were trying to make a point or something. I thought—I hoped..." He looked up at her. "Do you have any idea what it's like in here? I can't do this without you."

"You are doing it without me," she said, even though her heart was breaking. For so long, she had wanted to protect this man. When he was sick, she made him chicken soup and got him cold medicine. When he was cold, she hunted up extra blankets from the hall closet. Sometimes, at night, they cuddled close in bed, and she had clung to him, never wanting anything to happen to him. Tears sprang to her eyes. "You're in here. I'm not. We're not together anymore."

"Hey, hey, don't cry," he said softly. He always hated it when she cried. "Come on, if anyone should be crying—"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself." She was fierce now. Her nostrils flared. "You're the only person responsible for the fact you're here. No one held a gun to your head and told you to create a drug empire."

"Empire? Geez." He shook his head. "I don't have an empire." He was sulky.

"Oh, whatever. I know much cash they seized from our shed. I was there when they served the warrant. I spent so long saying it was a mistake, that you were framed. I put my reputation on the line for you, and then there was all that money. Right under my nose." Now tears were flying out of her eyes. Angry, she dashed them away. "You fucking bastard, Felix. Sign the goddamn papers."

"Look, El, that money—"

"Spare me," she said. "Don't lie to me and say it's not yours."

"It's not."

She glared at him. "They found your fingerprints all over the plastic wrap you had the bills wrapped in." She still remembered that, huge bricks of cash wrapped in plastic, like green baked goods. How had there been so much damned money in the shed? She never went in there. It was Felix's domain, not hers. She'd trusted him so blindly. She hadn't known. God, she'd been such an idiot.

"I didn't say that I hadn't touched it, but that doesn't mean—"

"How does that make it better?" she demanded. "Tell me. How?"

He licked his lips. "Look, okay, El, things got out of control. In the beginning, it was only supposed to be one job, just a little extra cash to help with the down payment on the house."

She gasped a little. "The gift from your dad? That wasn't a gift, was it?"

He shut his eyes.

She had wanted to send a thank-you note to his father for the gift, but Felix had convinced her not to. He said his dad didn't want a big thing made over it, and that he'd find the thank-you note uncomfortable. Felix said his father never wanted them to mention the gift.

God, how could she have been so stupid?

"I'm not a bad guy," said Felix. He reached across the table for her. "Come on, you know me."

"No," she said softly, and she put her hands on her lap so that he couldn't touch her. "I don't know you at all."

"I'm still me, baby," he said. "I'm the man you married."

"You're not." And she was crying again.

"I need you. Stick with me through this. If you put in a good word for me, I could get a reduced sentence. I could be out before too long. We could still have a future together."

"Are you crazy, Felix? Why are you saying this?" She wiped at her face, brushing aside her tears.

"Because I love you," he said softly. "Because you love me too. Because we've faced everything together so far, and I can't do this if you're not with me."

"Felix, please." It came out as a sob. He was making this all so much harder.

"I fucked up," he said. "Okay, I did. I admit it, and I'm sorry. I don't deserve you. But please. Please, Elke. Don't divorce me."

"I have to," she said through her tears. "Don't you understand?"

"No." And now there was a crack in his own voice. "I really don't."

"You betrayed my trust. You lied to me. And you kept on lying to me, even as you watched me destroy my reputation."

"El—"

"I lost my job," she said. "Did you know that? Because no jury would trust my judgment. Hell, I couldn't even tell my own husband was a drug dealer."

"I'm not a drug dealer," he said. "I don't push my product on anyone. There's a demand, and I meet it, that's all. It'll happen with or without me, so it's not a moral thing."

She drew back. "What?" That was the most self-serving rationalization she'd ever heard. It disgusted her.

Felix shrugged. "It's not a moral thing. And anyway, you have another job. I tried to call you—"

"Don't do that," she said. "Don't ever call me again. You and I are over. I don't think I ever knew you at all." She gazed at the man in front of her. He was like a stranger to her. "Sign the papers or don't. If you keep refusing, I'll get an order for a default divorce. One way or another, this marriage will be officially over. Because it's already over, Felix. There's nothing left."

"El, come on," said Felix.

She slid the papers across the table. "Sign them, Felix."

He peered down at the papers. Then he shook his head. "You really are going to push this, aren't you?"

"You know it."

He paged through the divorce papers. Then he shook his head. "No, I don't want half the house. You take the house. All of it."

She sighed. "If you think making some gesture is going to change my mind—"

"I don't need it," he said. "I got that house for you. I want you to have it. You may hate me, but I still love you, and I still want to take care of you."

Her lower lip trembled. Damn him. His stupid gesture was making it all harder.

"So, change that, and I'll sign it," he said, shoving it back to her.

She seized the pen on the table and made the adjustments on the paper. If he thought he was going to call her bluff, he had another thing coming. That done, she presented him with the papers once again.

He looked stricken.

"Going to back out now?"

"No," he murmured. He picked up the pen. "I don't want to hurt you anymore, El." He signed.

* * *

Iain peered down at the file. He'd read over the case a few times, but he hadn't given it a thorough going over, and he thought that he might as well. He didn't want to take things home since they were all using the originals, and he'd neglected to ask about making copies, so he sat at his desk, gazing down at the pages.

"Hello?" called a voice.

He got up from his desk. Hmm. He had said to Amos that he would lock up after Amos left, but he'd completely forgotten to do that. Damn it.

Iain got up from his desk and wandered out into the hallway.

"Hello?" called the voice again.

"Clara," said another voice, this one deeper, a male voice. "It's obvious no one's here. I told you that we shouldn't come so late."

"Well, why was the door unlocked, then?" replied the first voice.

Now Iain could see the owners of the voices, by virtue of the way all the walls in the place were constructed of glass. It was a man and woman, older, and they were walking along the opposite side of the conference room. Iain wondered if he could hide somewhere and hope they went away. He was going to have to confront them and ask them to leave, and he really didn't like confrontation. It was another of his weaknesses, somewhat of an irony as well, considering he was a police officer and he had to confront people all the time.

Iain had done a stint as a traffic cop, pulling over speeders, and it had been utter misery for him. He would let people go all the time without pulling them over, even if they had been speeding, because he simply didn't want to have to deal with talking to the people. People who'd been pulled over were often hostile, and Iain hated it. Their hostility seemed to rob him of his ability to put words together. He'd fumble over what he was trying to say and look like a complete idiot.

Eventually, he'd written himself a bit of a script. He practiced it and rarely deviated from it. Hi there, do you know why I pulled you over? This was a way to get the person to admit guilt and possibly defuse the hostility a bit. You were going XX over the speed limit. There's a ticket for that. He didn't say that he was going to write them a ticket, but made the ticket into a vague inevitability, something out of both of their hands.

Remembered the script, he squared his shoulders and went out to confront the people who were in the office. "Hi there," he said. "The door is this way. Do you know why I'm showing you the way out?"

"Oh, hello!" said the woman. Clara, he remembered. "There is someone here."

"Clara, he wants us to leave."

"Are you a member of the Conviction Review Unit?" said Clara.

"Clara," sighed the man.

She glared at him. "Shush now, Adam." Back to Iain. "Are you?"

"Listen, it's after hours," said Iain, who was already starting to feel flustered.

The woman touched her chest. "I'm Clara Greene. I'm Kevin's mother." She grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him close. "This is Kevin's father, Adam. Kevin told us you're looking into his case."

Iain rubbed his forehead. "We do have it under review, yes. But as I said, it's after hours. The door shouldn't have been unlocked. I—"

"Oh, we're just here because we're pleased, and we want to say thank you." Clara's voice suddenly started to shake. "You can't imagine what it's been like all these years. Kevin is our only child. Our one and only. A long time ago, I thought maybe he'd be married by now, maybe there would be grandchildren, that sort of thing. Now, all I care about is getting my baby out of that awful place."

"Clara," said Adam quietly.

Iain didn't know what to do with his hands. He was feeling nervous, the way he did when people started to get emotional. He knew there was some way he was supposed to react, but he wasn't sure what it was. There were so many ridiculous rules, and they weren't intuitive. If he could only get them straight in his head. How was it that he was supposed to respond to this? Apologies? Should he apologize, even though none of it was his fault? "I'm so very sorry, Mrs. Greene."

She smiled sadly. "Thank you."

Adam put his arm around his wife. "We've done all we can for him. We've sunk all our savings into paying for lawyers, trying to get his case reviewed. He's innocent. We've always known that."

"He wouldn't have killed anyone, let alone Saanvi's parents. There was no reason to," said Clara.

"Listen, if he really is innocent, we'll find that out," said Iain. "That's our job, after all. We overturn wrongful convictions."

"If he's innocent?" said Clara. "You don't think he is? I'm telling you, there is no way on God's green earth that my son could have done this thing."

Now Iain felt even more flustered. "I... I don't have conclusive evidence yet, but I'm working on getting it. Once we have something concrete, then we'll be able to know the facts of the case."

"What do you mean concrete?" said Clara.

"He must be talking about the samples they took from the scene," said Adam. "You're getting those tested for DNA, aren't you? I told them that if there was DNA that didn't match the two of them it would mean someone else had been in the apartment, but the lawyer said it wouldn't make any difference, that DNA was irrelevant, because there was no doubt the two of them had spent so much time in the house." His face was getting red.

Iain swallowed. Elke had indicated to him that he shouldn't give too much away about the ongoing investigation, that Kevin and Saanvi were still very much suspects. He needed to keep it vague with Kevin's parents. "There are many things we're doing to look into the case, but I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss them at this point."

"Do you have any children?" said Clara.

Iain shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not." He couldn't imagine himself with kids. He'd be the world's worst father. Children were needy, and he wasn't good at being there for people. Just ask the women he'd attempted to date and disappointed over the years.

"Well, if you did, you'd understand," said Clara.

"Maybe," said Iain. "But not really. I've never been in your actual situation. I could only imagine it, and I'd probably imagine it wrong."

Clara furrowed her brow.

Damn it, that was exactly the kind of thing that Iain wasn't supposed to say. It was true, what he'd said, but that didn't matter. When he said true things, it made people react strangely. "Sorry," said Iain. "When I do imagine it, I think it must be awful. I know that parents love their children more than life."

"Yes." Clara nodded, giving him a watery smile.

Okay, there. That was better, then. He licked his lips. What should he do now? Promise them it would all turn out all right and usher them out of the door? But he couldn't promise that. "Listen, I don't know if this is the kind of thing I really should say, but I have to be honest. I don't know how our investigation will turn out. I can promise you that I am devoted to finding the truth. I can also tell you that I think it's unlikely your son is guilty. I believe we will find evidence that exonerates him. But I can't be sure of that, so I can't tell you that I'm going to make things all right for you."

Clara sniffed. "No, I know that." She nodded. "Thank you for being honest. If you really do look for the truth, then I think it will all come out right in the end, though."

"I will," said Iain.

"A lot of the other law enforcement officers we've worked with have been looking for the easiest, tidiest way to close the case," said Adam. "Not the truth."

"I've noticed that," said Iain, making a face. "It frustrates me as well."

And then both of them beamed at him in a way that made him feel even more uncomfortable. He probably should have defended his fellow police officers. He knew that was expected of him. But the truth was, he was often frustrated by them. He often felt like he was the only person trying to do things right, really right, and he was appalled at the laziness and sheer ignorance of those around him. But, to be fair, that wasn't just with police officers, that was with everyone. He didn't understand other people, and other people didn't understand him either. Often, they called him things like a human robot or a living machine.

"Thank you," said Clara.

"Thank you," said Adam.

"It really is after hours," said Iain. "I've got to escort you to the door."

"All right," said Adam. He tightened his grip on his wife's shoulders and steered her back in the direction they came.

It took a while to get them out of there. They kept thanking him and telling him how pleased they were that Kevin's case was under review. But finally, he got them out the door and he locked it after them.

Feeling relieved, he stalked back through the hallway to his office. He hesitated at the door. It was late. Maybe he should just go home.

But there wasn't anything at home. His apartment was empty. No one was counting on him. He didn't have a dog or a cat. He didn't even have a fish. When he'd been in college, he had a pet snake, a ball python. He mostly had it because it was a weird pet to have, and back then, he felt he needed to cement his weirdness in some tangible way. It made it easier to deal with somehow.

But he'd accidentally killed the snake. He'd unplugged its heater to clean its aquarium and forgotten to plug it back in.

The guilt of that incident haunted him to this day. No more pets for him. Not even snakes, which were relatively easy to care for. He wasn't capable of that kind of responsibility. Iain was aware of his limitations, and he accepted them. So he did his best to avoid being in situations where he knew he was going to fail. It wasn't always possible, of course. Take that interaction with Kevin Greene's parents. That hadn't been anything to be proud of, but he'd gotten through it as best as he could.

He sat back down at his desk, rubbed his temples, and looked back down at the files he'd been going through.

The words swam in front of him.

He found most of the case a bit bewildering. The detective work wasn't good, in his opinion. Almost everything seemed to have come from the fact that the police were bothered by the accused's walking past the crime scene without seeing it. They thought that didn't add up and they built everything else around it, including fabricating a motive for Saanvi and Kevin that seemed patently untrue.

Now, Iain didn't put much stock in motives. People were inscrutable. Who really knew why anyone did anything? Hell, he wasn't sure if most people entirely understood why they did things themselves. Iain himself found himself inexplicably compelled to do certain things, and he couldn't explain why that was. He didn't know why he was drawn to being a police detective, but he couldn't help be completely engrossed by murder cases. He found solving them gratifying.

No, it was more than that. An unsolved case was an itch at the back of his head, and it wouldn't go away until he had unraveled it, uncovered all the clues, and gotten it solved. An unsolved case was a mess. A solved one was tidy.

But anyway, the motive for Saanvi and Kevin was that the two had struck out at her parents because her parents were too strict and confining, keeping Saanvi from the life she and Kevin wanted together. But the fact that Saanvi and Kevin had been out that night barhopping and staying out late with no thought of consequences seemed to belie the motive right there.

Iain flipped through the pages of transcriptions.

Crime scene photos. He looked at the bodies, sitting on the couch. Blood spattered on the wall behind them and out the doorway into the hallway. Propped against the couch was a picture that hadn't yet been hung on the wall. It was a butterfly.

Photos of the bodies. Close-ups of Dr. Mukherjee and his wife. Their faces. Their wide frightened eyes. The gunshot wounds in their foreheads. The blood.

But what was that? Was that a shadow on the photo?

Iain turned the photo to get a better look. There, on the neck of Tempest Mukherjee, just under her jaw, was an oval-shaped bruise about an inch and a half long and half as wide. Huh. What gave someone a bruise like that?

Iain cocked his head. Hold on.

Hold on.

Was there a similar bruise on Dr. Mukherjee too?

Yes, there was.

Well, well, well. What did that mean?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Frankie Hart set down her purse on the kitchen table and collapsed into a chair there. "Oh, hell, Rufus."

Her husband, Rufus, was at the stove, stirring something that smelled delicious. Frankie thought she was one of the luckiest women in the world to have met a man like Rufus. He cooked like a four-star chef, and he was always willing to do it. Frankie burned spaghetti, so she was glad to have someone else in the kitchen. Their deal for their entire marriage had been that Rufus cooked and she cleaned up. She very much liked the division of labor, especially on a night like tonight, where she was bone tired.

"Your second day was that bad?" said Rufus.

"She hates me." Frankie took off her shoes, which were killing her. They weren't even high heels. Frankie refused to wear high heels, which she thought of as institutionalized torture for women.

"Elke Lawrence? Your boss?"

"Yes."

"I don't think she hates you. How could anyone hate you?"

"She does though." Frankie's voice came out like a wail. "I can't believe I took this job. I can't believe it. I was making better money as a defense attorney."

"No, you weren't. You were making sporadic money at best, and you were always heavily discounting your rates so that people could afford you. This is a steady paycheck. We need that. Thad needs that."

"Oh, about Thad. Sweetie, we need to find a different after-school program for him. I got a call today that he can't stay at the one in Fairfield."

"What? Why not? They didn't say anything to me when I picked him up."

"That's because they prefer to give bad news on the phone." She scoffed. "They said he could stay through the day, but that he wasn't a 'good fit.'" This kind of stuff happened more often than not, and no amount of explaining that Thad had a mild form of autism ever seemed to make anyone more understanding.

"Oh, geez. What do you think he did?"

"They said that he's been uncooperative and resisting punishment."

"What kid wouldn't?"

"Right?" She rolled her eyes. "But I guess he was throwing stuff at the teacher and she couldn't do anything with him." She sighed. "I could handle this, I really could, if my boss didn't hate me."

"She doesn't hate you."

"I'm telling you, she does."

"Did she tell you she hated you?"

"No, but she interrupted me and she wouldn't pick any of my cases. And then she gave me an assignment—which obviously was something beneath me, something for a secretary to do—and then when I didn't have it done in two minutes, she was in my office asking where it was. I don't know what I did to get on her bad side."

"You said she was never easy to work with in the court room."

Frankie sighed. "I know, I know. Maybe I should quit. Maybe I should open up my old practice again."

"Geez, Frank, it's your second day. Give it some time, maybe?"

She was quiet.

"So... you going to pitch her a different case tomorrow?"

"No, we've already got a case," she said.

"Oh?"

"Do you remember the case about twenty-five years back where that girl and her boyfriend killed her parents?"

He thought about it. "The father was a doctor at the college?"

"Yes, that one."

"Yeah, I remember. Wait, they're innocent?"

"I'm not sure, but maybe."

"Well, see, there you go. This is what you wanted to do, Frankie. Get innocent people their lives back. You can't quit now."

She smiled wanly. "I guess not. What are you cooking?"

"Coconut curry."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful."

"You gonna set the table?"

She smiled. "Of course."

* * *

It was nearly 9:00 in the evening by the time Iain got back to his apartment, and he wasn't pleased to find the door unlocked. Shit.

"Harley?" he yelled, coming inside and shutting the door behind him. Why the hell had he given that woman a key to his apartment? She'd wormed it out of him, just like everything else. Why was it so hard to resist her?

"Iain, where the hell have you been?" came her voice.

She was in the kitchen. He took off his suit jacket as he walked down the hallway. His kitchen opened onto a small dining room. He had a little table there, flanked by two chairs. A chandelier hung over the table. The light fixture had come with the apartment. He draped his jacket over the back of one of the chairs and loosened his tie.

Harley was sitting on the counter in his kitchen. The cabinet next to her was open and she was taking canned goods out of it and putting them in an Amazon Prime cardboard box. She was wearing skintight jeans and a flannel shirt. Her eye makeup was smudged. She always wore too much eye makeup. Jet black eyeliner that didn't match her hair or her eyebrows. It was always smudged, and it made her look trashy.

Iain kind of liked that, though. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't think you'd mind," she said, smiling at him. "Should I have called first?"

He let out a sigh. "Why are you going through my cabinets?"

"Well, did I tell you about what happened at Starbucks?"

"Harley." He folded his arms over his chest.

She hopped down off the counter and sashayed over to him. "Oh, it's so good to see you, Iain. It's been too long."

"Stop," he said. He should back away from her. But he didn't.

She pressed herself close. She reached up for his tie and tugged at the loosened knot, pulling his face down to meet hers. She kissed him.

He shut his eyes. He liked kissing her. She always made the first move, and that made things easier for him. Most women were hard to figure out. Harley wasn't. He liked how straightforward she was.

She pulled away, but she kept her hands on his tie. She began to untie it. "So, anyway, I got the flu real bad. I was throwing up for days. And I called the manager at Starbucks on like the second day. I would have called the first day, but I was sick as a dog, and I couldn't even get out of bed. Well, I mean, except to go to the toilet and throw up. Even though there was nothing in my stomach."

He made a face. "Spare me the gory details. Why were you calling Starbucks?"

"Oh, I had a job there." She finished untying his tie and pulled it off him. She tossed it on the table and smiled at him.

Okay, he had a pretty good idea of where this was going. "You lost your job and you need money, and that's why you're here."

"I am not asking for money." She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

He pushed her hands away. "Harley, listen—"

"I thought I'd just take some food is all." She put her hands back and unbuttoned the next button down.

He seized her wrists. "How much?"

"It's not about money, Iain. I have enough for my bills, just not enough for groceries."

He sighed. "How much?"

"Stop it," she whined and wriggled away from him, pulling her hands out of his grasp. She went back over to the counter and began hunting through the cabinet for more cans. "I'm not here for money. It's not like that."

Iain and Harley had been friends since high school, if you really wanted to call their relationship a friendship. Iain didn't have a lot of friends, but he had enough experience with the concept to know that friends didn't constantly take advantage of each other, the way Harley did to him.

No, okay, that wasn't entirely fair. Sure, he was always giving Harley things. Money, food, a place to stay, more six packs of beer and bottles of wine than he could count...

Harley showed up and they slept together. And then he gave her things. He felt uncomfortable about it sometimes. It seemed manipulative, perhaps on both of their parts. And sometimes he was plagued with thoughts that bothered him. He wondered if Harley liked him at all or if she just used him.

He liked her. She made him crazy, but he liked her more than he'd ever liked a girl. And in the grand scheme of things, she was as close as he'd ever really had to a longterm girlfriend. Not that she was his girlfriend. He couldn't have actual girlfriends, because they always got annoyed with the amount of time he spent on his job. They wanted him to promise to show up for dates and dinners. They wanted him to make them a priority, and he just... couldn't. But Harley didn't care about that at all. She'd show up every now and again, and they'd have an evening together. Sometimes, they'd get drunk and talk late into the night about all kinds of things. Sometimes, he felt closer to her than he felt to anyone on earth.

But she was always gone in the morning, and she didn't put any demands on him. No responsibilities. He appreciated that.

He crossed the room to her.

She turned to face him.

He put his hands on the counter, one on either side of her, blocking her in. The counter at her back, his arms on either side, his body in front of her. His voice dropped in pitch. "You have anything planned this evening?"

Her mouth opened slightly. She looked up at him, a knowing smile playing on her lips. "No plans."

He kissed her neck, the hollow under her ear. He knew she liked that.

She gasped, closing her eyes.

"Let's have dinner and, um, catch up," he murmured. "And then I'll take you grocery shopping." He knew that they wouldn't go to a grocery store. Instead, he'd write her a check or something. But she'd feel better if she didn't come right out and ask for money and if he pretended he wasn't going to give it to her. It was easier that way.

"Okay," she whispered. Her hands went back to the buttons of his shirt. She unbuttoned the third one, and one of her hands slid inside to glide over his skin.

He sucked in breath at the sensation.

She sighed. "God, Iain, I missed you."

And then they were kissing again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

In the morning, when his alarm went off, Iain got out of his bed and his head was pounding. He'd been up too late with Harley. He'd had too much to drink.

She was gone, of course. He'd fallen asleep tangled up in her bare limbs but woken up alone. And he didn't mind that at all. Having Harley around in the morning would be nightmarish. It had happened before, once or twice, especially after what had happened with Dale. She hadn't wanted to go back to the house after that happened. He remembered the way she clung to him, the way she cried.

Yes, there was definitely something real to their relationship. They had a shared past. He'd done things for her—

But he didn't really like thinking about all that, and he didn't have the time anyway. He wanted to get to work early this morning to get in and talk to Jimmy about those bruises on the Mukherjees' necks.

He started coffee and took several aspirin. He got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and guzzled it. He took a hot shower. He fried himself an egg and made some toast. By the time he'd eaten and drunk half his coffee, he felt much better. His apartment was just down the block from the office, so he walked to work in the morning. The walk eradicated the last shreds of his hangover.

He had to stop in to the CRU to pick up the file he wanted, but that only took a few moments. Then he headed for the police headquarters, which was right next door.

He found Jimmy in the morgue, where he worked. Jimmy was one of the few people who worked for the Haven Hills Police Department who he felt a real camaraderie with. They only ever talked about work, but Jimmy always seemed as excited and curious about the crime scenes as Iain was himself.

"I thought you got a different job," said Jimmy. He was eating a donut. Jimmy was rail thin, but he was always eating. People were amazed that he had such a healthy appetite when he looked at dead bodies all day, but nothing fazed Jimmy. "I thought you were at the CRU."

"I am," said Iain. "I'm looking into a case, actually. I want to show you something."

"Oh, what?" Jimmy was eager.

Iain handed over the crime scene photos. "Do you see it?"

Jimmy furrowed his brow. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"Under the chin, on the neck."

"Humph," said Jimmy, who had just shoved the rest of his donut in his mouth.

Iain waited while Jimmy chewed.

"Weird. It's on both of them," said Jimmy.

"Yeah," said Iain. "You ever see anything like that before?"

"I don't know. Doesn't ring any bells."

"Damn," said Iain, shaking his head. "I was hoping you could tell me what it was."

Jimmy handed the photos back. "Sorry. If anything comes to me, I'll let you know."

"Thanks," said Iain. "I appreciate that."

* * *

"This is a tricky case," Elke was saying. "It's almost as if we have to prove that someone else did it in order to exonerate Saanvi and Kevin." She was in the conference room, standing in front of the white board with a marker in her hand. "Hopefully, we're going to get back the DNA information soon, and we'll be able to prove that Alan Kelley and Jeremy Squires committed this murder. Hopefully, it's going to be that easy. But in case it's not, we need to be prepared with some other theories and ideas of ways to proceed."

Frankie, Iain, and Amos were all sitting in front of her. Amos was scribbling notes in a notepad, but the other two were just silently watching her.

"So," said Elke, "I think we should make a list of suspects." She uncapped the marker and turned the board. She wrote Kelley's and Squires's name in the upper left hand corner. "There are other suspects as well. We've all been through the file." She turned and wrote Rory Gutierrez on the board. "Just to summarize, Miss Gutierrez worked as a student assistant at the college health clinic where Dr. Mukherjee worked. She was apparently very angry over the failing grade that he'd given her. She was going to be denied credit for her work. At the time, she was looked into because she might have been angry enough to kill. But she had an alibi and was ultimately ruled out."

Elke looked out at everyone, eyebrows raised, waiting to see if anyone had anything to add.

No one said anything.

She turned back to the board and wrote Zachary Wheeler and Joseph Chapman on the board. "These two are members of some kind of white supremacist group."

"They claim they're just about family values and Christianity," said Frankie.

"Of course they do," said Elke, rolling her eyes. "Because everyone thinks Jesus is on their side."

Amos smirked.

"They were angry with Dr. Mukherjee because of abortions," said Elke. "But I have to admit I'm a little fuzzy on all that. Frankie, did you understand?"

"He was sending college girls to Planned Parenthood," said Frankie. "And apparently, they wanted him to give them the option of going to some pro-life crisis pregnancy counseling service or something. They said a lot of hateful things. They had a publication at the time, but now they run a podcast. Anyway, in their publication, they called Mukherjee a murderer and they said that he didn't deserve to live. They said that he should be publicly hung."

"But there was no evidence that they did anything violent," said Iain. "Admittedly, they're awful people, but they have no violent history."

"They also apparently were angry that Dr. Mukherjee had been featured in a magazine about gun ownership," said Frankie. "Dr. Mukherjee kept a gun for self-defense, and he was featured in the magazine. I guess they thought that only white people should be in the magazine."

"Or people who opposed abortion," said Iain.

"Do we have any other suspects?" said Elke.

Everyone was quiet.

"No?" said Elke. "Well, let's go back over everything with a fine-toothed comb, then, looking for anything we missed."

Iain raised his hand. "I, uh, found something in the crime scene photos. Both of the victims have similar shaped bruises on their necks."

Elke considered this. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know yet," said Iain. "But it's interesting."

Elke nodded. "Definitely. Good work, Hudson." She smiled at him. Then she turned to Amos. "Make copies of the file for all of us if you don't mind. We'll spend today going back over it."

"Sure thing," said Amos.

"You turned in the paperwork to request the DNA testing?" Elke asked him.

"I sure did," said Amos.

"Excellent," said Elke. "Hopefully we get those results back soon and we'll find out we did all this work for nothing." She smiled at them.

No one smiled back except Amos.

* * *

There was a knock on Elke's door.

She looked up to see Iain in the doorway. "Come in," she said. She gestured to a seat in front of her desk.

Iain sat down.

"Is this about the bruises?" said Elke.

"Oh, no, I haven't made any more progress with that," he said. "I was actually here because you wanted us to look for more suspects."

"Right. You have someone?"

"Well, maybe," he said. "I can't say what it means, but I did want to tell you that I was looking over Tempest Mukherjee's bank statement in the file, and I discovered a several withdrawals of cash from her personal account over the month leading up to the murder. The withdrawals are frequent and unlike her normal pattern of spending money. They add up to a fairly significant sum."

"You think that means something?"

"It might," he said.

"Maybe she was spending more money on something than she usually would have. Maybe she had developed a bad habit. An addiction?"

"Yes, possibly," said Iain. "Or maybe it was all for one transaction, and she was taking it out in increments."

Elke tapped her chin. "If so, that probably wasn't a legal transaction. If it was something above board, she wouldn't have tried to hide it. But what would she have needed a huge chunk of cash for?"

"Well, I'd be reaching here," said Iain, "but it's possible that she was hiring a contract killer."

Elke's eyebrows shot up. "That is quite a leap. To kill who? Her husband?"

"I guess so."

"If so, why was she killed as well?"

"I don't know," said Iain. "Like I said, it's a reach."

Elke sat back in her chair. "Well, maybe it went wrong somehow. Maybe she changed her mind and tried to fight them off and they shot her."

"She was sitting on the couch when she was shot," said Iain. "Didn't look like she was fighting."

"True," said Elke. "All right, maybe she changed her mind and threatened to expose the killer's identity. Maybe that's why he shot her."

"That would make sense, I guess," said Iain. "But there's no evidence of any of this. It's all conjecture."

"Right," said Elke. "Still, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. You and I both know that most murders are committed by people close to the victim. The original investigators went for the daughter because it's most likely. But what if it was the mother? We need to find out if she had any reason to kill her husband. Thanks for bringing this to my attention."

"Do you want me to do more digging?"

"You mean do I want you to interview anyone?"

Iain's face reddened a little bit.

She smiled. "I'll let you know."

He nodded. "Listen, I'm sorry if—"

She held up a hand. "Don't apologize. I don't think I've given you any indication that I'm displeased with your work, have I?"

"No," he said. He smiled. "Thank you, Ms. Lawrence."

She smiled too.

He left, and then Elke went down the hall and asked Frankie to look into Tempest.

"The mother?" Frankie was horrified. "What would her motive be?"

"I don't know," said Elke. "See if you can find anything."

Frankie made a face, but she nodded. "All right. I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Later that afternoon, Elke got a call that Saanvi had requested to talk to her again. This time, she drove out to the prison on her own, without Iain. She thought she could use the time to think over the case.

But the joke was on her, because she spent all her time thinking about Felix and how pathetic he'd been when she spoke to him the night before. Even though she had meant what she said, that the marriage was over, she was still raw over the entire exchange. She didn't feel guilty, because she knew she'd done what she had to do. But she still felt for Felix. She was still half in love with him, even after everything. She thought that feeling should have turned off a long time ago. And yet, somehow, it hadn't.

At least it was only half in love, she decided.

But she wondered if she should be doing anything for him. She hadn't been in touch with his parents since the search warrant. Before, they had all been on the same side, sure that Felix was innocent. But now, with the truth laid out, Elke wasn't sure what to say to them. They were good people. She imagined they were going through hell right now. But she was going through hell too. She didn't know if she had it in her to console them or to provide support. She needed a support system herself, not to be support for other people.

But she kept going back and forth about contacting them all the way to the prison.

No conclusions drawn, she tried to put it out of her mind as she went in to see Saanvi.

The room was the same as it had been last time. Small, bland, windowless. Elke sat down across from the other woman. "You're not my client. I don't work for you. Don't get some idea that I'll come every time you summon me," she said to Saanvi.

Saanvi didn't react other than to shrug. "This will be the only time, I imagine."

"All right," said Elke. "Well, now that we've got that out of the way, why don't you tell me what this is all about?"

"I had a letter from Kevin," said Saanvi. "They let us write to each other, and he wrote me about you."

"Okay?" Elke had no idea where this was going.

"You've gotten his hopes up," said Saanvi. "He thinks we're actually going to get out of here. I don't like it. Don't do that. Don't promise him things. I don't want him crushed again. He's been through too much. He doesn't know how to turn it off like I do. He still thinks that there could be a happy ending, and there can't be."

Elke narrowed her eyes. "Why do you say that?"

"It's what I know."

"Is it because you really are guilty? Did you shoot your parents?"

"No," said Saanvi quietly.

"Well, maybe you just watched. Maybe Kevin did it."

Saanvi's face tightened. "No," she said more forcefully. She clenched her hands into fists. "No, of course not. And don't think you can make me confess to it. I went through something like twenty straight hours of interrogation and they tried every way from Sunday to get me to say I did it. But I never broke. I never gave them what they wanted, and I won't give it to you."

"Broke?" said Elke. "Why would you say it that way?"

"Because it felt like that," said Saanvi. "I was tired and scared and grieving. And they badgered me and yelled at me, and I started to feel as if I didn't know what was real anymore. They would say things to me like, 'Maybe you did it, but you don't remember. Maybe you've blocked it out.' And I would wonder if that was true. It was incredibly hard to stay strong, to keep believing the truth."

"And what is the truth?"

"That I didn't do it."

Elke was quiet.

"At first my parents' death seemed surreal," said Saanvi. "I thought it was a nightmare, and that I'd wake up and my father would be drinking coffee and my mother would be cooking pancakes in the kitchen. But I never woke up, because it all really happened. Someone killed them, and they blamed me for it. And whoever that person was not only robbed my parents of their lives, but also their child. I know that would hurt my mom and dad if they knew. Some people take comfort in the idea of an afterlife, but not me. I don't want them to know that I'm here, that their only child will die in prison, that their legacy was cut off by whoever killed them. I hope they have no idea."

Elke pressed her lips together. She didn't know what to say to that, and the force of the despair in the thought seemed to roll into her like a boulder.

"Whoever killed my parents took my life, and they took Kevin's life, and they took the life of his parents. They stole from all of us." Saanvi shook her head. "I could be angry about it, but it drains me to be angry. Just like it drains me to have hope. I need to survive as best I can. I can't be drained if I want to survive. I have to shut all that down. But Kevin, he's never figured out how to shut down. He just keeps hoping and feeling and letting everything drain out of him. He's like an open wound. He's fragile. Please, don't make him any promises."

"I haven't," said Elke. She regarded Saanvi with sympathy. This girl really was innocent, wasn't she? How horrible. Elke reached across the table to pat Saanvi's arm.

Saanvi recoiled. "What the hell was that?"

"We're going to get to the bottom of this case," said Elke. "We're going to find out what really happened that night. And we're going to find proof. That I can promise you."

CHAPTER NINE

Elke started back the hallway toward her office.

Iain poked his head out of his office. "Where have you been?"

"I went to talk to Saanvi," said Elke. "She said she wanted to talk."

He fell into step with her. "About what?"

"About how we shouldn't get Kevin's hopes up, because she worries about him," she said. "Apparently, Saanvi doesn't think we're going to get her out of there. But we are. I think she's innocent."

"You weren't sure yesterday, what changed? Did you find some new evidence?"

"No, it's just... a feeling," said Elke.

Iain made a disapproving noise.

"Sorry, I know you don't think feelings mean anything, but I do," said Elke. "Humans have emotions and intuition for a reason. We evolved them, and they aren't completely unreliable all the time. You might not understand how it works, but I do trust my own gut."

Iain didn't say anything.

They reached her office. She stopped. "What have you been doing? Any more suspects? Anything on the bruises?"

"I've been thinking we should go over the other suspects again," he said. "I get the feeling that the first investigation wasn't done very thoroughly."

"You and me both," she said. "I can't get over Kevin's and Saanvi's alibis. Both people said they were out most of the evening, and it seems as if that was dismissed. More and more, it feels like the investigating officers had their suspects, and they tried to make the crime fit the suspects, not the other way around."

"Well, I'm thinking about the student, Rory Gutierrez," he said.

"She also had an alibi," said Elke.

"You know how I feel about alibis," he said. "Unless they're backed up by tangible evidence, they're hearsay."

She rolled her eyes. "Right, of course. Alibis mean nothing."

"Besides, this alibi Gutierrez had, it's only her roommate, who might have lied for her."

"I suppose. Still, I don't know how much time to concentrate on her. Her motive seems thin to me. Do people really commit double homicide over a bad grade?"

"Maybe," said Iain. "Apparently, that failing grade was going to keep her from graduating."

"But killing him wouldn't have solved that problem."

"No," he said. "But when people commit murder, it almost never makes sense."

She gave him a funny look. "What are you talking about, of course it does."

"Whatever their motive, it's almost never worth the risk of getting caught," he said. "When people do it, they aren't thinking clearly. Or they're psychopaths."

She rubbed her temples. "All right, it doesn't matter if she has a motive? Because if we didn't look at motive, no one would have looked at her at all."

Iain considered this. "Well, that's a good point. Maybe I have to do some more thinking about motive. But it doesn't matter. I still think we should look into both her and the white supremacists again."

"I already told you to go back over the case and look for new leads," she said.

"Okay," he said. "But when I brought you what I found about Tempest Mukherjee, you told me not to pursue it. So, I just want to be sure it's all right to pursue anything I find on the other suspects."

"Have you found something?"

"Not yet, but if I do, should I come to you with it, or should I keep digging into it until I get to the bottom of it?"

"Knock yourself out, Hudson," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "Dig as much as you'd like."

* * *

"All right, well how long is he going to be in solitary?" said Elke into the phone. She paused. "Really? That long, huh?" She glared at the ceiling of her office. "No," she said. "No, there's nothing else you can help me with, thank you."

Thanks for nothing, she added silently as she hung up the phone.

So, she wasn't going to be able to have an interview with Jeremy Squires for a while yet.

Maybe it didn't matter. They were waiting for the DNA results, after all. It was quite possible that she was overcomplicating everything for no good reason. But she couldn't simply sit around twiddling her thumbs. It wasn't in her makeup. She needed to stay busy. And not just because of the fact that she was always trying to hide from her thoughts about Felix, but because she liked to be busy.

She opened up the case file. Time to go through it again. She needed to know this case inside and outside, the way she did when she was preparing for a trial. She took a deep breath, and began to read.

CHAPTER TEN

Iain read through the transcript of the interview with Gutierrez's roommate. It was short, and the officers hadn't kept her there very long.

According to the roommate, whose name was Mariah Williamson, Gutierrez had come home that evening around eight. The two had watched TV together and then gone to bed around midnight, which was when the 911 call was being made. If it was true, then Gutierrez couldn't have committed the murder.

The officers interviewing her hadn't pressed too much, but they had asked if Williamson was sure. They said it sounded like a typical evening to them, and typical evenings tended to run together. Could she be sure this evening was the one in question?

"Yes," Williamson had said. It was that evening, because she remembered that they had watched an episode of Timetracks together at 9:00. She remembered because Gutierrez didn't like the show and had made fun of it the entire time.

Iain shut the file right away and picked up his phone. He didn't expect the number from twenty-five years ago to still be good for Williamson, but it didn't hurt to try.

The phone rang a few times and then someone picked up. "Hello?"

"Hello, I'm looking for Mariah Williamson."

"I think you have the wrong number."

"Oh, sorry." He hung up. Yeah, that had been a long shot. She'd been in college back then, she would have moved. He turned to his computer and looked her up. Maybe she'd have a listing in the phone book?

No. But that wasn't uncommon. Lots of people only had their cell phones these days. Iain was one of them. He kept searching.

He found her in the police database, which was comprised of various public records like the DMV and Vital Statistics, but the phone number there was the same one he'd just tried. She must never have updated it.

More searching.

Within seconds, a social media profile filled his screen. Williamson hadn't listed her phone number publicly, but if necessary, he might be able to contact her through the website. But he wasn't down for the count yet. He clicked through to her friends list. He went through three or four people before he found someone who had their phone number listed.

He called it.

The phone rang and rang. And went to voicemail.

Damn it.

He went through the list some more. Six more names down and then he found another phone number. He dialed that. This time, someone answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, this is Detective Iain Hudson with the Haven Hills Conviction Review Unit. I'm calling because I'm trying to make contact with Mariah Williamson."

"Uh..." The person on the other line sputtered. "How did you get my phone number?"

"Facebook. It's important that I speak to Ms. Williamson. Do you have a phone number for her?"

"I... I guess. Is she in trouble?"

"No, no," he said. "She may have important information for a case, however. I really need to speak with her."

"Right, okay."

"So, what's the number?"

The person rattled it off, and Iain took it down. He did all right in conversations like this, when he was looking for information, when everything was straightforward.

But now he was going to have to call Williamson, and that conversation might not go as smoothly. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

He thought about putting it off. Maybe he should take a break, go to the snack machine on the floor below them. Maybe he should go through the rest of the case file before he called.

Don't be a coward, he told himself.

Right. He could do this. It would be straightforward. There was no reason for it not to be.

He dialed Williamson's number.

It rang.

And rang.

"Hello?"

"Mariah Williamson?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"I'm Detective Iain Hudson with the Haven Hills Conviction Review Unit. I'm calling about the Mukherjee case from twenty-five years ago. Do you remember talking to the police then about your roommate Rory Gutierrez?"

"Uh... wow. Seriously?"

"Yes."

"That case was solved."

"I just need to go over something simple with you, if I could."

"Well, this isn't really a good time."

"It'll really only take a few moments," he said. "It's just a simple thing."

"I'm sorry, I can't talk right now."

"Just five minutes."

"It's not a good time," she repeated.

"All right, when would be a good time?"

"I don't know."

"This afternoon? This evening?"

"Tomorrow," she said. "In the morning. I could meet you somewhere in town. Maybe the coffee shop on Main Street."

Iain didn't really want to have to meet her face to face. That would only make everything more awkward. But Elke had told him to go ahead and dig into things. He wasn't going to back to her with his tail between his legs and say that he couldn't handle interviewing one woman. "All right," he said. "Tomorrow, then."

* * *

Frankie didn't even know where to begin looking into Tempest Mukherjee. She thought the theory that Elke had painted for her was beyond ridiculous, but she wasn't going to discount it out of hand. She'd look into it enough to prove that it was bunk and then she could move onto something else. Heck, she had folders and folders of possible candidates. Next time she presented a case, she'd do a better job making the accused seem appealing.

She looked through the file, trying to see if anyone close to Tempest had been interviewed. Maybe they'd spoken to a friend or a sister, someone who might have a better idea if Tempest had been unhappy in her marriage.

She didn't find anything like that, but she did find a list of persons of interest with phone numbers. The list was fairly short, and it included Rory Gutierrez and Zachary Wheeler and Joseph Chapman, the white supremacists. There was someone else on the list, though, noted as Tempest's boyfriend? The name was Joshua Oliver.

Frankie glared at the name, confused.

Okay, she had never been a police officer, but even she knew that in a murder case, the boyfriend was always a suspect.

If Tempest had been having an affair, and she'd been with another man, he had a motive. Why wasn't this guy at the top of the list for the investigation? If Frankie hadn't thought so before, now she was sure that the people conducting this investigation had screwed up royally.

She called the number for Joshua Oliver.

Belatedly, as the phone was ringing, she realized the number was probably too old to be of any use to her. She wasn't likely to reach this man this way.

Someone answered the phone. "Dr. Oliver's office."

"Dr. Oliver?" she said. There was no indication of that on the paper. This was his office? What kind of doctor was he?

"Um, yes," said the voice on the other end, who now sounded a little bit confused and hesitant. "Head of the English department?"

"Oh," said Frankie. "He's a professor."

"Yeah," said the person on the phone. "Can I ask who's calling?"

"I'm Frankie Hart. I'm with the District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit in Haven Hills. I need to speak to Dr. Oliver."

"Well, he's booked for the rest of the afternoon. Straight classes. What is this regarding?"

"It's about a case we're reviewing," said Frankie. "It's important."

"Oh." A pause. "Well, I can put you on his schedule for tomorrow if that would work?"

"Sure," said Frankie. "Tomorrow." So, Tempest was having an affair with one of her own husband's colleagues. But was this guy capable of murder? Or could it be that he and Tempest had planned the crime together?

Things were getting interesting.

* * *

"Well," said Lulu Peters, resting against the counter in Elke's kitchen, "it's a great house. It's a great neighborhood."

Elke waited, sensing a negative coming soon.

"But I'm afraid that values in this area have come down since you purchased the house, so it's unlikely you'll get back what you bought it for."

"Oh," said Elke, chewing on her lip. She'd been worried about that. Felix had acted as if he were magnanimously granting her the house. But it wasn't a big deal for him. He had lots of drug money stashed somewhere, undoubtedly, so he wasn't worried about finding the money to pay his legal fees. There had been enough money in that shed to pay off the house, but Felix had kept the mortgage to make sure that things didn't look suspicious. And it wasn't exactly great for her, being given this house. The monthly payments were high, and she would struggle to pay them on her own. Selling it seemed like the best option.

Besides, she didn't like being in this place anymore. It only made her sad.

"These days, people are looking for uniqueness if they're going to pay those kinds of prices," Lulu continued. "They like to see different architecture, unique set-ups in rooms, that sort of thing."

"Oh, are you saying I should do some remodeling?" said Elke, looking around, trying to think of what could be changed about the house. Personally, she liked her decor understated and classy. She'd never been one for showy, trendy things.

"No," said Lulu. "I'm not saying that. I doubt it would be worth it. You might be able to raise the asking price a bit, maybe even to the price you paid, but you'd be out the money used for the remodeling."

"Right," said Elke. She crossed to the sink. She stood next to Lulu, but didn't look at her. Instead, she gazed out the window at the back yard where her children would never play.

"You could always rent it out."

Elke pulled back from the window to look at Lulu. "Rent the house? Be a landlord? Isn't that a lot of work?"

"Doesn't have to be," said Lulu. "For a fee, my agency is willing to be a go-between for you, handle everything. All you have to do is sit back and cash the rent checks."

"Which will just go to pay my mortgage," she said.

Lulu shrugged. "You'd be surprised what people would pay to rent a house like this."

"What kind of people?" said Elke. "I'm not renting this place out to college students. I don't want people throwing parties and trashing the place."

"No, of course not," said Lulu. "We'd show this place to young professionals or families with small children."

"Families?" She looked out at the back yard again, picturing children running around there and laughing. Of course, it was cold outside now. Kids wouldn't be out there. But there might be snow over the weekend. It would be a good yard to build a snow man.

"Yes, definitely," said Lulu. "You know, a lot of people forgo the idea of a starter home these days in favor of renting. So many people with young children still have college loans or even debt from their wedding, and they can't afford to add anymore debt to that picture. So, they're renting. I'm sure we could find a very nice family who'd love this place and take care of it like it was their own."

Elke turned back from the window. "Okay. Rent it out, then. Let's do it."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Hi there." Dr. Joshua Oliver offered Frankie his hand. His office was a small room with dark wood paneling on the walls. Behind his desk were all of his diplomas hanging in frames.

Frankie took his hand. "Hi." They shook over his desk.

"Go on and close the door." Dr. Oliver was all smiles.

Frankie shut the door.

He sat down. "I don't believe I've made your acquaintance? If I have, I don't remember. Sorry."

"No, this is the first time we've met."

He gestured for her to sit down. "Well, what can I do for you?"

She sat. "I'm actually here to ask you some questions about the past. Twenty-five years ago, in fact."

He furrowed his brow and his smile faltered a bit. "I'm sorry. Who are you exactly?"

"I should apologize," said Frankie. "I should have led with that. I work for the DA's Conviction Review Unit. We review old cases to make sure that the proper people were put in jail for the crimes committed."

"You do," he said, and he was no longer smiling. "So, this is about Tempest and Abeer."

"It is," she said. "I understand you had a relationship with Tempest."

Dr. Oliver let out a huge sigh and sat back in his chair. "Tempest Mukherjee. I met her at a faculty function at the dean's house one Christmas. Stunning woman. What happened to her, it was just..." He shuddered. "Awful."

"Yes, it was," said Frankie. "How long were you and Tempest involved?"

"Involved? No, no, it wasn't like that," said Dr. Oliver. "Nowadays, you might call it an emotional affair. There was no physical contact between us, and there wasn't even any real acknowledgment that anything was going on. I mean, nothing was. We'd meet for coffee and talk, that's all. I suppose we were both flirting with each other, but nothing came of it. She wouldn't have done that to Abeer. She loved him."

"So, she was happy in her marriage."

"Well, I didn't say that," said Dr. Oliver. "I mean, you don't start calling another man and asking him out for coffee if you're happy in your marriage."

"She wanted to leave him, then?"

"Maybe," he said. "If she did, she didn't tell me that in so many words. She was lonely. She had begun a promising career in business, but then she took time off when Saanvi was born, and she never did go back. Meanwhile, Abeer was working longer and longer hours. He had two jobs. He worked for the college during the day, and then he took evening shifts as well at an urgent care clinic in town. He was never home. She thought they had enough money, and she didn't think he needed to work so hard. She even suggested going back to work herself. But Abeer didn't like the idea of his wife working. It was a point of pride for him, something leftover from his Indian heritage. A woman's place was in the home. But without her daughter to take care of anymore—Saanvi was already in college herself—Tempest was going crazy with boredom. She had nothing to do and no one to talk to."

"That sounds like a situation that might have made her desperate."

"Yes, I think so," said Dr. Oliver.

"Desperate enough to try get away from her husband by any means necessary?"

"What are you saying?"

"Well, there's some evidence that indicates maybe Tempest arranged for a professional to kill her husband and that something went wrong and they were both killed."

"What? That's crazy," he said.

"It's perhaps a bit... convoluted," she said. "But that's why I'm here trying to check it out. You wouldn't be inclined to believe that?"

"Absolutely not. It's ludicrous. Tempest didn't need to kill Abeer to get away from him. She could have simply walked out the door. She wasn't frightened of the man. She didn't need him. In fact, the weekend before she died, she went to her parents' house alone, and I couldn't reach her. At the time, I thought it might be possible that she was going to ask them if they would allow her and Saanvi to live there if she left."

"So, you did think she wanted to leave him?"

"What?"

"Well, earlier you said you weren't sure she wanted to leave Abeer."

"I wasn't. I still am not. This is all just conjecture on my part."

"Did anyone speak to you twenty-five years ago when the case was first being investigated?"

"Of course."

"And you admitted the affair then?"

"It wasn't an affair."

"But you told them that you and Tempest were close."

"They found phone records, and she'd called me a lot, and so they came and talked to me."

"And did they ask you about your whereabouts that night?"

"Jesus." Dr. Oliver sat up straight. "What is this? This case is solved. It was the daughter and her boyfriend. I always thought that girl was a selfish brat, and I wasn't the least bit surprised she did what she did."

Hmm. So, he was pretty defensive. "Where were you that night, Dr. Oliver?"

"I was in Tarronton."

"All night?"

"Well, there was a debate that night there. Back then, I was head of the debate team for the college. So, the debate started at 8:00, and it went to 10:00. Some of the students and I went out afterward for a drink at a pub. I used to drink with students back then. I was young and idiotic. Wouldn't do it today. But anyway, that's where I was. I drove home around midnight. I was probably over the legal limit, but I didn't get pulled over. It's not an alibi I'm proud of, but I assure you, I did not kill Tempest. I would never have hurt her."

* * *

"Um," said Mariah Williamson to the man behind the counter at the coffee shop, "I'll have a small latte. But with almond milk. And sugar free syrup. Um, the vanilla? And no whip cream. And not too much foam."

The guy at the counter nodded and then turned to Iain.

"Just a coffee," said Iain.

The guy tossed him an empty cup and nodded at the carafes that were lined up along the counter behind Iain.

Williamson hugged herself, waiting for her drink.

Iain went over and filled up his cup. He found some sugar packets and creamers and put one of each in his cup. He stirred. He took a sip.

Hot.

He grimaced, blowing on the liquid. This was going great so far. He was probably going to have a blister on his upper lip.

Williamson was still hugging herself, staring at the floor.

Behind the counter, the guy was working on her drink.

Iain couldn't stand holding the cup anymore. It was too hot. He set it down. Then he spied one of those cardboard sleeves. Perfect. He slid that on the bottom of the cup. Hot liquid sloshed over the lip, burning his hand.

Damn it.

He set the cup down again and found some napkins. He cleaned himself up, cleaned up the counter.

When he looked up, Williamson had her drink.

Together, they found a table in the corner of the shop and sat down.

"So, this is about Rory?" said Williamson in a quiet voice. "I thought that was all over with. Didn't that girl confess to killing her parents?"

"Well, she was convicted, but she never admitted it," said Iain. "We think it's possible that she's innocent and someone else committed the crime."

"Rory. You think it was Rory?"

"We're looking into a lot of different options," said Iain. "But I guess you know that it wasn't Rory, because you're her alibi."

Williamson took a drink of her coffee. She set the cup down and began to fiddle with the lid. "You're really just covering your bases then?"

"Can you tell me what you and Rory did that night?"

"We watched TV."

"Do you remember what show?"

"Oh, it was a long time ago. A really long time ago. We were kids, you know?" She bit down on her lip.

"In your statement to the police, you said it was Timetracks."

"Right." She nodded. "Yeah, Rory hated that show, and she made fun of it the whole time were watching it."

"Except that show used to come on Thursdays," said Iain. "I remember, because I used to watch it. It was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid."

"Okay, so?" said Williamson.

"Well, the crime was committed on a Friday. That show wasn't on that day. I can only assume the police interviewing you didn't catch that because they weren't familiar with the show."

Williamson tried to pick up her drink again. Her hands were shaking and coffee spilled out onto the table. She fumbled for some napkins. "Well, it was a long time ago. I don't know why I said that. I guess we watched something else, then. I know she was there, though."

"You're lying," said Iain. He was sure of it. He wasn't a great student of human emotion, but she was so nervous, it seemed likely she wasn't telling the truth.

"H-how do you know that?"

"She was accused of murder and you lied for her. You said she was with you when she wasn't."

"She made me do it!" Her voice was shrill.

Iain flinched. He didn't like how upset she was getting. "Calm down," he said.

"Rory was awful sometimes," said Williamson, and now tears were streaming down her face. "She said that I had to say she was there. If I didn't, she was going to tell my boyfriend I cheated on him."

"I see."

"It wasn't fair. It was only once, and I was drunk, and it didn't mean anything. I still loved Tim. I loved him so much that we got married. We're still married, and he still doesn't know." She let out a thin wail. "Oh, God, I can't believe I just told you all this. If Rory finds out, if she tells Tim, my entire life is ruined. It would kill him to know. Just kill him dead."

Iain shrank from her. She was really, really upset now. What was he supposed to do? How did he get her to stop crying? He handed her a napkin. "Calm down, please."

She took the napkin and sobbed into it.

Iain cringed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"I'm just calling to get an estimate on how long it will take to test the samples in the Mukherjee case," said Elke into the phone. It was morning in the office, and no one was there except her and Amos. She wasn't sure where everyone else was, but she was going to hope they were doing work off site, not sleeping in.

"What are you talking about?" said the person on the other side of the phone.

"We sent in a request to test some samples from an old case," said Elke.

"And you are?"

"Elke Lawrence. I head up the CRU."

"Huh. Yeah, we don't have any requests from the CRU."

"You don't?"

"Nope. Sorry. Somebody's gotten their wires crossed somewhere. You sure you submitted the right forms?"

"Pretty sure," she said. Her heart was picking up speed.

"It's form 3-B and 4-F on the network drive."

"Yes, that's what we filled out."

"Well, they never got here. Maybe the holdup is in evidence storage. They've got to release the samples to us before we test them."

Elke let out a huge sigh. "Maybe so. Thanks. I'll get it sorted."

"Great. Hope we can help you out soon."

Elke got off the phone and forced herself to take a few deep breaths. Maybe it was an honest mistake. She shouldn't assume the worst yet. She walked up the hall to find Amos.

Amos's desk was right next to the door to the CRU office. He was in a small alcove, his desk facing outward. Anyone who came in the door had to stop and talk to him. He was at his desk typing on his computer.

"Amos?" she said.

He looked up. "Yes. Can I help you?"

"You sent in the files to have the DNA tested, right?"

"Sure did," he said.

"You're positive of that?"

"Absolutely, why?"

"Well, the lab never got our request."

Amos made a face. He turned back to his computer and scrolled through his email. "Nope, I sent it. Right here. Look." He pointed at his screen.

"Of course you did," she said. "I'm going to go check with the people in evidence storage." Probably just a mix up, she thought. That's all. Anyway, a walk would be nice. Fresh air and all that. Of course it was below freezing outside, so the fresh air was going to be cold, but it would still be refreshing.

She went back to her office to get her coat and gloves and then headed for the elevator.

She took the elevator to the bottom floor and then exited the building. The police department building was two doors down, less than a block away. She'd been in there once or twice for various reasons. This time, when she went inside, though, she had no idea where she was headed. She stopped at the front desk to ask for directions and was sent to the bottom floor of the place. She descended two flights of stairs, her heels clicking against the tile the whole way down as she clutched the banister for balance. The stairs were pretty steep.

As she descended, the paint on the wall went from a nice beige to a seafoam green, which was worn off in a few places. There was a tiny hint of a musty, basement smell.

At the bottom of the steps, she emerged into a hallway that seemed to wind in a serpentine pattern around various storage rooms. Eventually, she found the evidence storage. There was a window, like at a bank or something, and two women were sitting behind it.

She stepped up close.

They were both staring at their computers. They didn't seem to see her. One had a bun on the top of her head. The other was wearing a plaid suit jacket. They were both quite overweight. Between them, on the counter was an open package of Hershey kisses.

Elke cleared her throat.

The women ignored her.

"Excuse me," said Elke.

Plaid Jacket looked up. "Yes?"

"I'm from the CRU," said Elke. "We want some evidence released to the lab for testing."

"Oh," said Plaid Jacket. "Well, there's a set of forms you submit to us, and then—"

"We did that," said Elke. "I was given the instructions when I started working here. I made sure we followed them."

"Oh," said Plaid Jacket. "Well, then, I'm sure we must be backed up and haven't had a chance to get to it."

"I see," said Elke.

Plaid Jacket smiled, but her smile seemed fake somehow. "Anything else?"

Elke crossed her arms over her chest. "What is it that you're doing now, exactly?"

Bun looked up. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Just that if you're not busy, maybe you could pull the evidence for me. I'll even take it to the lab myself."

Plaid Jacket and Bun exchanged a glance.

Elke waited.

Plaid Jacket turned back to her. "You know, if I could be honest with you?"

"Please," said Elke, even though she was fairly sure she wasn't going to like what came out of the woman's mouth next.

"I think we're all a little miffed at your choice of cases to review."

"Miffed?" Elke drew back.

Bun nodded. "It's pretty obvious that Saanvi Mukherjee and Kevin Greene are guilty. We had our best detectives working on that case. And we think, if you take a little bit of time to consider, maybe you'll just want to withdraw your request altogether and not bother the lab with DNA testing."

"DNA testing that will be worthless, by the way," said Plaid Jacket, "because there's nothing wrong with the work our boys did on that case."

Elke sucked in a breath. "I want the tests done. I want the samples. I'm not going to reconsider."

"It's only that—"

"Listen," Elke interrupted, "I can call DA Andrews if you'd like. I can let him know that you're impeding my work here. I'm sure he can let your supervisor know that you're not doing your job."

Both Plaid Jacket and Bun got sour looks on their faces.

Bun stood up. "Wait here," she said. "I'll go pull your evidence."

* * *

Elke did deliver the samples to the lab herself, along with the proper forms. She didn't trust the evidence storage personnel to make sure it got there. She was plenty mad by the time she made it back to the office.

On the one hand, she understood. She knew that she would bristle at the notion that she had prosecuted an innocent person. If this was one of her own cases, she would defend her work long and hard. She wouldn't back down easily.

But this was a request for DNA testing. You couldn't argue with DNA. If she was presented with DNA evidence that someone she had put away was innocent, she would apologize and accept it. She wouldn't try to stop the testing from happening.

She was appalled that people didn't want the truth to get out. That they were so protective of their egos that they would put up obstacles for her to do her job.

Sure, this wasn't a job that she thought she wanted, but now that it was hers, she was going to do her best. She set high standards for herself, and this job would be no different.

But she had a bad feeling about the future. If this was how it all started, if even evidence storage was against them, then they might have worse problems with the police department.

When she got back to the office, Frankie and Iain were both there. She poked into Frankie's office first.

"Where were you this morning?"

"Looking into the mother, like you said," Frankie said.

"Find anything out?"

"A little," said Frankie.

"Okay, let's all head to the conference room, and you can fill us in," said Elke. Then she went back to Iain's office.

"Hi," he said.

"Where were you this morning?"

"I was interviewing Gutierrez's roommate," he said.

"Interviewing someone? On your own? Was it a disaster?"

His face twitched. "Where were you?"

She chuckled. "I'll tell you all about it in the conference room."

The three gathered there, and she had Amos sit in to take notes. She explained to them about the problems with the DNA testing, and how she'd hand delivered the samples to the lab, so they would hopefully be tested as soon as possible. Then she asked the others to fill her in on what they'd found out that morning. When she'd heard from both of them, she got up and went to the board.

"So," she said, "we've got another suspect, then. This Joshua Oliver." She wrote his name on the board.

"Well, if his alibi checks out, it's a good one," said Frankie. "He would have been with multiple witnesses all night."

"You'll check into that?" said Elke.

"Yes," said Frankie.

"And we can't rule out Tempest either," said Elke. She wrote Tempest's name on the board as well. "If she was unhappy in her marriage, maybe she plotted to kill her husband."

"Maybe," said Frankie, "but as Dr. Oliver said, it hardly makes sense. Why not just leave him?"

"Money, maybe?" said Elke. "Can you check on that too?"

"Sure," said Frankie. "But if she had enough money to pay off a contract killer, then she wasn't hurting for cash."

"That could have been her husband's money," said Elke. "Maybe if she divorced him, she would have been destitute, but if he died, she would have inherited everything."

"Maybe," said Frankie. "I have to be honest, I don't think it was her."

Elke nodded. "It's still pretty tenuous, I admit." She turned back to the board and Rory Gutierrez. "On the other hand, someone doesn't have an alibi anymore." She wrote, No alibi under Rory's name. She turned back to Iain. "Good work finding that out."

He spread his hands. "It was really only because I used to watch Timetracks."

"Still, that moves us forward there," she said. She surveyed the board. "I think we're coming along here. I tried to get another interview with Jeremy Squires, but he's still in solitary. And that just leaves the white supremacists." She tapped her marker against the board. "We should probably go and talk to them too." She pointed at Amos. "Call them and set something up. I don't want to show up unannounced, I want to make them sweat. Whether or not they did it, I want them to worry we've got something on them. Guys like that don't deserve any better. When you call, Amos, say that new evidence has come to light and that's why we need to chat with them. That should make them nervous."

Frankie smiled a little. "That's devious. But in a good way."

Elke smiled back. She and Frankie were getting along better and better. Things weren't going badly at all. She stepped back and surveyed the board. "Well, that's where we are, everyone. We're doing all right."

"I've been thinking about something," said Iain.

She turned around to face him. "What?"

"Well, it's something about the crime scene. When we talked to Saanvi, she said that she found things out in the kitchen, like someone was making a sandwich," he said.

"Yeah, I remember that," said Elke.

"And she said that the bed had been slept in," said Iain.

"Right," said Elke. "So?"

"Well, that isn't where they died," he said. "So, whoever killed them herded them into the living room. Probably threatened them with the gun, and said that if they didn't go to the living room, they'd be shot."

Elke nodded. "I guess you're right. I hadn't thought about recreating the crime scene and going through it, but it could be useful, could give us some clues."

"Last night I was doing some reading on children who kill their parents," said Iain. "They almost never do this."

"Do what?"

"Move the people, herd them around. It's not like that. When children kill their parents, they seem to go, find them, and attack."

"Really?" said Elke. "Why?"

"Oh, who knows why?" said Iain. "Murder is senseless."

Elke sighed. "I forgot you thought that."

"It's probably guilt," said Frankie.

"Hmm?" Elke turned to her.

"If you're going to kill your parents, you don't want to talk to them first. You're not going to move them through the house and sit them on the sofa and look into their eyes and shoot them," said Frankie. "You're going to do it quickly. Don't kids who kill their parents often do it while they're sleeping?"

"Sometimes," said Iain. "Sometimes, it seems as if something provokes them, and maybe in the middle of an argument, they begin lashing out. They pick up a weapon and use it with deadly force."

"A crime of passion," said Elke.

"If you want to say that," said Iain. "It seems that children who kill their parents tend to fall into a few different categories. Some are severely abused, some severely mentally ill, and some severely anti-social. None of those really seem to apply to Saanvi Mukherjee, although she could be dangerously anti-social, what you might call a sociopath. But even if she is a sociopath, even if it's not a crime of circumstance, but a predetermined one, in most cases, the perpetrator would come upon the parent unawares and use the element of surprise to his or her benefit. Moving the parents through the house, that doesn't fit."

"Hmm," said Elke.

"She's also a tad bit too old," said Iain. "Most children who kill their parents are adolescents. They are somewhat trapped in their parents' home. But Saanvi had her own car and a generous allowance and seemed to do as she pleased. She was in college. She was a burgeoning adult. It's all wrong. This crime was almost certainly not Saanvi and Kevin."

"I don't think so either," said Elke.

"The original investigation seems so shoddy," said Frankie. "These two were railroaded."

They all nodded in agreement.

"So what kind of killer would move people through the house?" said Elke.

"The thieves," said Iain. "They might have been in masks, and one of them may have kept them in the room while the other raided the place. Maybe they didn't think they'd have to kill them, but then something happened. Maybe a gun went off accidentally or maybe their identities were compromised. Alan Kelley claims that he never wanted to kill anyone, but that Squires would do it just for sport or something."

"But it could be Gutierrez too," said Elke. "Right? I mean, maybe she ranted and raved at him while he was sitting on that couch. Maybe she had to tell him off before she shot him."

"And if so," said Frankie, "it could also be the white supremacists. They might have also wanted to rant and rave first."

"But it doesn't fit so well with the hit-gone-wrong scenario, does it?" said Iain. "That's another strike against Tempest as the murderer."

"Well, we can't be sure," said Elke. "We weren't there, and we don't know what happened."

"That's what we have to figure out," said Frankie.

"Exactly," said Elke.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Hi there, Mrs. Lawrence," said the voice of Ted on the phone. Ted worked at Elke's favorite Chinese restaurant, and they knew each other by name. She was just getting ready to leave the office, and she knew she didn't feel like cooking tonight, so she was calling in an order. Truth be told, you couldn't really call popping frozen meals in the microwave cooking, which was all she did lately, but she didn't have energy for that either. Sometimes, she didn't eat at all, actually. She found she didn't have much of an appetite. She forced herself to eat enough to keep going, though.

She was losing weight. Which was something she'd normally be a bit pleased about. Can't be too rich or too thin, right? Not that she was anything approaching rich. She hated to admit it to herself, but dealing with her new financial circumstances was a bit of a shock. She'd gotten too used to indulging in expensive extras, like paying people to clean her house, and now she had to cut down on extra spending. But she still made enough money to live comfortably. She wasn't destitute.

And the weight loss? Well, she didn't find it as exciting as she might have hoped.

She wasn't finding much exciting these days, but she surprised herself with how involved she was getting in this case. She cared about the outcome of what they were doing. She was even beginning to feel as though they were doing something important. They were righting a wrong here. There may not be many cases in which the police had screwed up so badly, but this was one of them, and she was glad they'd found it.

Anyway, even if she wasn't feeling a hundred percent yet, she was feeling better. She had focus in her life, and she was moving forward. The divorce was going ahead, the house was going to be rented out, and she had a new job.

So, for some reason, her appetite returned. She had a thought about Chinese, and she felt actually hungry. She was looking forward to something, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually done that.

It was just a small thing, but it was a good sign for Elke. She was grinning as she held the phone to her ear and walked across the parking lot toward her car.

"Hi, Ted," she said.

"It's been a while."

"Yes," she said. "Things have been a bit off lately, but they're looking up now."

"I'm glad to hear it. The usual, then?" He rattled off her typical order, sweet and sour pork, beef lo mein, and two egg rolls.

Her throat closed up. She made a rattling, guttural sound.

"Mrs. Lawrence? Are you okay?"

She hung up the phone and darted across the rest of the parking lot to her car. Once there, she threw open the door and got inside. She clutched the steering wheel, shaking.

And then she started to sob.

Of course her usual order contained an order for Felix.

Of course it did.

She should have known that it would.

But she'd somehow forgotten that, and it had been like icy water in her face.

She really let go, sobbing so hard she thought she might break apart. Her shoulders shook, her nose ran, her face got blotchy. She was a mess.

As wave after wave of sobs hit her, she knew that the problem was that she didn't even know who she was anymore.

She used to be part of a couple. She and Felix were a unit. Her relationship was part of her identity. She was a lawyer, and she was a wife. That was who she was.

Except... she wasn't anymore.

Who was she?

Elke Lawrence, single woman who orders Chinese food for one.

She sobbed harder.

When she finally stopped crying enough to get herself together to drive, she found her appetite had disappeared again.

* * *

It was after midnight, and Iain's phone was ringing.

He snatched it up and answered it before he could think. "Hello?"

"Hey, Iain," came Harley's voice on the other end. She sounded tentative and scared.

Shit. He'd picked up the phone because he was conditioned to do it. Working as a police detective, he sometimes got calls at all hours, and they were always emergencies. He'd trained himself to wake up fast and get moving. But that didn't happen anymore, because now he didn't work for the department. He worked for the CRU. So, of course it was Harley in the middle of the night. And of course she needed something. He flopped back onto his pillow. "What's going on?"

"Um, well, it's not a big deal, but I maybe kind of got arrested."

He sat straight up. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Is anyone..." Dead? "Hurt?"

"No," she said. "Well, not really."

"Not really?"

"Iain, this is my one phone call. You think you can come and get me out of here?"

He groaned. "Let me guess. If I post bail, you'll pay me back?"

"Don't you have friends you can talk to? You're a police officer."

No, he didn't have friends. Not many, anyway. They didn't much like him there, and that was why they'd kicked him out and sent him to work elsewhere. Not that he minded his new job at the CRU. In fact, he was starting to really like it. He thought it was a good fit for him. But he might be able to get her out, anyway. It depended on what she'd done. "What'd they pick you up for, Harley? Who's hurt?"

"It was just a bar fight," she said. "I don't know why someone called the cops. I threw a couple punches, pulled her hair. They arrested her too."

A bar fight. So classy. This was going to be embarrassing.

"Iain?" she said.

"Yeah, I'm on my way," he muttered and hung up.

Then he stared at his phone, wondering if he should have said no. After all, nothing about Harley was worth this kind of hassle.

He didn't know what it was between him and Harley. He only knew that when she needed him, he always came running.

Like a damned dog.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Man, what is this chick to you, anyway?" Stubbs was saying. Stubbs was Iain's old partner. They were standing in the lobby of the police station. Stubbs's hair was a little bit mussed, because he'd been sleeping when Iain had called him and gotten him out of bed. Iain and Stubbs weren't friendly, not exactly, but they had been through a lot together. If anyone was going to help him out, it was Stubbs. Iain didn't know who else to call.

Everyone liked Stubbs. People did favors for Stubbs. They didn't so much do that for Iain.

"She's a friend," said Iain.

"Yeah?" Stubbs shoved his hands into his pockets. "A good friend, I guess. You're the reason she's still out on the streets in the first place."

Iain looked away.

"You swore up and down what she did was self-defense. But she just got picked up for fighting, huh? Maybe she's more violent than you think."

Iain rubbed his forehead. "It was self-defense."

"Come on, man, would you just admit that you're fucking her or whatever? Why it is always this 'friend' shit?"

Iain flinched.

"I don't know," said Stubbs. "Maybe you aren't fucking her. Maybe you're just blank between your legs like a Ken doll. I cannot figure you out."

Iain glared at him. "What does it matter? And how is it your business?"

"It's my business because you're asking me to stick my neck out for her. And I don't get why. If you tell me it's because she's pussy, then at least it makes sense."

Iain's jaw twitched. He stared at Stubbs and his voice was bland. "She's pussy."

Stubbs did a double take, and then he started laughing.

Iain felt himself flushing. The whole thing was mortifying. He knew what everyone on the police force thought of Harley. She wasn't a criminal or anything, but she did have a way of misbehaving. The thing with Dale, that had been the worst of it, but she really had been in danger from him. Still, she wasn't the kind of girl that someone like Iain should be associating with, and he knew that. He knew how it made him look. He should have told her to screw herself.

Stubbs clapped him on the back, still chuckling. "You know, maybe you're not as much of a tightass as everyone says, Hudson."

Jesus. Iain looked over Stubbs shoulder, wishing the ground would swallow him up.

"I'll talk to Nash, okay? I'll release her into your custody. But she skips out on her hearing, and this blows back on me, I will straight-up murder your ass."

"I got it," said Iain. "Thank you. I'm sorry for getting you out of bed."

"Yeah, yeah." Stubbs rolled his head on his shoulders. "Well, I did owe you for the times you covered for me when I was late."

That was true. And Stubbs had been late a lot.

"All right," said Stubbs. "Wait here. I should have her out in twenty minutes, all right?"

* * *

"No, you're not coming back to my place," said Iain. He was driving through the streets of the city.

"What?" said Harley from the passenger seat of the car. She had scratches on her face and a bloody nose. She looked awful. "But I thought I was released into your custody."

"I'm taking you to your house, and putting you to bed. I'll stay until you're asleep."

"No, you can't take me there," she said. "I don't want you there."

"Too bad."

"No, Iain, no."

"You don't get a choice in this," he said.

She folded her arms over her chest. "Why can't we go back to your place?"

"Because you're going to sleep in, and you'll be there when I wake up, and I can not deal with you in the morning," he said.

"Seriously?" she said. "Why not? When you see me in the morning, you realize I'm a dirty slut that's beneath you?"

He glanced at her. "Something like that."

"Fuck you."

He was quiet.

"You're just mad at me," she said finally. "You don't really think that about me."

"I am mad," he said. "I'm really damned pissed. You can't do this to me anymore."

"Anymore? It's not like I get arrested all the time or anything."

He didn't say anything.

"It's not." Her voice was rising in pitch. "Look, screw you. You can just pull over and let me out here."

"No," he said. "Like you said, you're in my custody. I have to make sure you don't break any other laws tonight."

"I don't want you at my house."

"Well, that's where we're going, so you can deal with it."

She hugged herself. "Damn it."

"Why's it such a big deal, anyway?"

"It's a mess. I'm embarrassed."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure."

"I'm serious," she said. "It's not good. Especially upstairs. You promise me you won't go upstairs. It's a disaster up there. And your place is always so neat and tidy. I don't want you to see it. Hell, Iain, I'm already embarrassed enough about tonight. I would have called someone else if I had anyone else to call."

"Whatever."

"Promise me you won't go upstairs."

"Your bed's upstairs. I'm not leaving until I know you're sound asleep."

"I can sleep on the couch."

"This is silly, Harley. I've seen your messy house before. You never cared then."

"It's worse," she said. "So much worse. And I did so care, I just pretended I didn't."

This woman was going to drive him insane. "Okay, okay. Fine. I won't go upstairs."

* * *

But when he got to her house, he didn't think it was all that messy at all. In fact, it seemed cleaner than usual. It reminded him of the way it had looked when Dale lived there. He used to insist she kept the place spick-and-span. Iain thought she probably didn't clean just as a rebellion to all of that. The guy had been a bastard. Deserved the bullet he got, however it had happened.

Iain didn't like thinking about that, so he put it from his head. He was tired, so he didn't make any waves. He waited while she got cleaned up and then he tucked her in on the couch.

When she was lying there, covers up to her chin, she looked younger, like when she was a teenager, when they'd first met. She yawned. "What would I do without you, Iain?"

"I don't know," he said.

One of her hands snaked out from under the covers to stroke his jaw. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Yeah," he said.

"I mean it," she said. "Thank you. You're my white knight, you know?"

He sighed. "I don't know why you have to get yourself into so much trouble, Harley."

"I don't either," she said. She wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled his face down.

He kissed her.

They broke away, and they gazed into each other's eyes.

He sat back up. "Go to sleep, Harley."

Obediently, she closed her eyes. It didn't take long until she was completely asleep. He slipped out the front door and drove back to his apartment.

In the lobby of the building, a man was sitting and scrolling on his phone. When he saw Iain, he leaped to his feet. "God, I knew I'd catch you on your way back. I can't believe I missed you before."

Iain furrowed his brow. Who the hell was this?

"So, Mick Thomas, Haven Hills Daily News. Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

"You're a reporter?"

"It's about the case you're working on with the Conviction Review Unit. We've heard that it's the Mukherjee case from twenty-five years ago. Is that true?"

Iain rubbed his face and started walking toward the elevator.

Mick came after him. "I hear you're testing DNA, but I don't understand why. Obviously, if Saanvi Mukherjee lived in the house and Kevin Greene was a frequent visitor, their DNA would have been everywhere. What's the point of the DNA testing?"

Iain reached the elevator bank. He pushed the up button.

"Come on, man. I've been camped out here since seven this evening. Give me something."

Iain surveyed him. "It's late."

"I know that."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I'm just trying to do my job," said Mick.

"Well, I'm just trying to go to bed."

"Come on, just one comment. Please?"

Where was the damned elevator? Iain tapped his foot against the floor.

"The DNA. Why the DNA?"

Iain sighed. "We're not looking for Saanvi's or Kevin's DNA."

"Then whose?"

"Some other suspects we have," said Iain. "The best way to clear their names is to find out who actually did it."

"But if you know they're innocent, then that's all you need, right? You don't need to know the real murderer."

The elevator door opened. Iain stepped inside. "Who knows? If we want the department and the DA to believe us, maybe we do need to find the murderer."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"All right, hold on, who are you again?" said Rory Gutierrez. She was sitting behind her desk at the office where she worked. Nowadays, instead of being an angry student, she worked as a manager at a bank. "You're police officers?"

"He's a police officer," said Elke, pointing at Iain. "I'm a lawyer. We work for the Conviction—"

"Review Unit. Yeah, I got that," said Rory. "I guess I'm confused as to why you're talking to me."

"We're going over the Mukherjee case," said Iain.

"Because...?" Rory raised her eyebrows.

"We want to make sure that justice was served the first time through," said Elke. "We want to make sure the right person was locked up for the murder."

"Oh," said Rory, smiling knowingly. "And so I'm a suspect again, then. Great." She looked up at the clock above the door. "Listen, I learned some things the first time around, like the fact that I don't have to talk to anyone if I'm not being detained. So, is that happening? You guys going to bring me in and hold me and question me?"

Elke shook her head, forcing a big smile on her face. "You've got this all wrong. All we're trying to do is go over what you said and rule you out."

"Yeah," said Rory. "That's what they said last time."

"And they did rule you out," said Elke.

"Yeah, because I have an alibi," said Rory.

"Let's start at the beginning," said Elke. "Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with Dr. Mukherjee?"

"Whoa, we didn't have a relationship. He was old and married, and I was not about to... no."

Elke sighed. "I mean, your working relationship."

"Oh," said Rory, laughing a little. "Okay, well, I guess, um, it was mostly good. I thought it was anyway. But he was apparently, like, really passive aggressive, because he was very displeased with my performance, but never said anything until he gave me that failing grade."

"You were his work study. What does that mean, exactly?"

"I basically was like an assistant, only I didn't get paid in money. I got paid with a grade. I was there three days a week for an hour, and I helped with all the things he was doing in the health clinic at the college, which was basically like a doctor's office."

"So, you didn't think the grade was fair?"

"No," she said. "I didn't. At the time, I was young and kind of naive. I didn't really understand how the world works. And I guess I actually hadn't been doing a great job, after all. I mean, I was late a lot, and I didn't have the greatest attendance, but like I said, he never indicated to me that I was going to fail. I thought maybe he'd give me a C or something. The thing was, it wasn't even related to my major. I needed credits to graduate, and that was the only thing I could fit into my schedule. And he was taking it seriously, like I should really want to learn about illnesses and medicines and shots and stuff? But I didn't care. I just wanted to get my credits and get out of there, you know?"

"When you got the grade, how did you feel?"

"I was pretty angry. I went to the clinic and I yelled at him. He didn't yell back. He was completely composed. He let me finish, and then he told me to leave or else he would call campus security. I left, and then two days later, he was dead."

"How angry were you with him?"

"I was furious. I wasn't going to graduate on time, and I was disgusted. I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. But it ended up being fine. I took a summer class and got the credits, and it only took a couple extra months to graduate. It was nothing. It definitely isn't a motive for murder. Besides, like I said, I have an alibi."

"About that," said Iain. "I talked to your old roommate recently."

Rory's eyes darted toward the door and then toward the window, and then back to them. "Okay?"

"She admits that you weren't with her, and that you blackmailed her into providing that alibi," said Iain.

Rory's lips parted.

"Where were you the night of the murder?" said Elke.

Rory stood up. "If I'm not being detained, I don't think I have anything else to say."

Elke sighed. "You know that if you don't cooperate with us, it will only make us more suspicious."

"I think I want you to leave," said Rory.

* * *

Zachary Wheeler shook hands with Elke and then offered his hand to Iain. "We know our rights, and we don't have to talk to you." He was smiling affably. Wheeler was a slim man in his late forties. His blond hair was cut short against his head. He wore a striped polo shirt and a pair of khakis.

"But we're curious about this new evidence," said Joseph Chapman, shaking Elke's hand after shaking Iain's. "We've always found this case pretty interesting."

"We think maybe the brownie daughter was sort of a tool of the Almighty or something," said Wheeler. "That mutt took that scumbag off this earth. He didn't deserve better."

"No?" said Elke. That was quite a way to lead things off if you didn't want to appear suspicious, wasn't it? These two were arrogant bastards, and she would have liked nothing better than to find something—anything—that they were guilty of.

The two received Elke and Iain in their recording studio, where they recorded their podcast, a mixture of conspiracy theory, radical politics, and pure hatred towards other races. There was a poster on the wall of a gun that said, Preserve the 2nd Amendment. An overflowing ashtray sat on the table between the men.

Chapman took out a cigarette. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Actually, yes," Iain spoke up.

Chapman snickered. He lit the cigarette anyway.

Iain made a pained expression.

It only made Elke more annoyed with these men. They were like wolves in disguise. They spoke well, and they were intelligent, so they didn't seem to fit into the stereotype of the typical racially prejudiced bumpkins, but their arrogance gave it all away. They were ignorant and hateful.

"So, what's the new evidence?" said Wheeler.

"DNA," said Iain, who was more and more talkative these days. "Don't suppose you two would like to give us a sample?"

"Are you kidding?" said Chapman. "So that you could falsify the evidence and frame us? Yeah, right."

"Didn't think so," said Iain.

"What kind of DNA we talking about here?" said Wheeler.

"How about we ask the questions?" said Elke. "Why don't you tell us about how you first came to know of Dr. Abeer Mukherjee?"

"A college girl wrote an anonymous letter to the editor about how she'd had an abortion and regretted it, and said that the curry-nigger doctor pushed her into it," said Chapman. "That pretty much set us off."

Elke choked at the racial slur.

"Sorry," said Chapman, but he didn't sound sorry. "The, uh, doctor of Indian descent pushed her into it."

"And not just us," said Wheeler. "There were a lot of other groups pretty angry too."

"No girl wrote that letter," said Iain.

"What?" said Wheeler.

"I read the letter," said Iain. "And it was almost certainly made up. There were certain turns of phrases throughout that are only found in the pro-life movement's way of speaking. And the way the sentences were put together, some of the vocabulary... I'd say it was written by someone much older than a teenage girl. Possibly even a pastor at a church. What I figure happened was that someone told the pastor—or whoever it was—that Dr. Mukherjee was sending girls to Planned Parenthood when he found out that they were pregnant. And I think the pastor decided to write a letter to the editor, and he figured one from a grieving mother would be more effective than one from an angry man."

"That's bull," said Wheeler. "You can't know who wrote the letter."

"Not with certainty," said Iain.

Elke had seen the letter too. It was included in the case file. She had thought something seemed a bit off about it, but couldn't quite put her finger on it. She was pretty sure that Iain's analysis was spot on. "Whatever the case, it's not important," said Elke. "It was true enough that Dr. Mukherjee referred pregnant girls to Planned Parenthood and that some of them did get abortions."

"Yes," said Chapman. "That was true. So, the guy was a murderer."

"Just as good as one, anyway," said Wheeler. "He had an opportunity to save those babies' lives, but he sent them to be slaughtered."

Elke pressed her lips together.

"You know what they do in an abortion?" said Chapman. "You know that it's torture for those babies, and that they scream? They feel pain."

"No one thinks abortions are pleasant," said Iain. "But lawfully, they're not considered murder, so that's what we concern ourselves with."

"Yeah, we know that," said Wheeler. "Just one more reason why the government is screwed up. I mean, here's the liberal side, making all this noise about whether or not gay people can get married or not, and all the while sanctioning the wholesale killing of babies."

Elke took a deep breath. Truthfully, she wasn't exactly gung-ho for abortions. She knew that she could never have one herself, no matter the circumstance. But she also didn't feel it was her right to make that choice for every other woman. She understood a lot of pro-life arguments, even agreed with them. Most pro-lifers were not crazy like Chapman and Wheeler. Most weren't racist assholes. "This isn't really about the government or about liberals, is it? It's about Dr. Mukherjee."

"Well, he was one of those guys," said Chapman. "He was one of the baby-killing bastards, and whatever happened to him, he deserved it."

"His wife too?" said Elke.

Wheeler shrugged. "I don't know about her. Maybe she was an innocent woman who got caught in the crossfires or maybe she was just as guilty as him because she stood by him while he helped negotiate baby killing. So, maybe she got what she deserved too."

"But we didn't do it," said Chapman.

"No, it wasn't us," said Wheeler. "We didn't kill him."

"But you think he should have been killed?" said Elke.

"Definitely," said Chapman. "Look, it was never about race, either. It was about the abortions. I mean, that's why we were angry with him."

"Yeah, but we didn't condone killing him, to be fair," said Wheeler.

"I read your newsletters," said Iain.

"So did I," said Elke.

"You said that he should be strung up in the village square for all to see," said Iain.

"'A good old fashioned hanging' is how you put it," said Elke. "At least I think so."

Wheeler and Chapman exchanged a look.

Chapman turned back to them. He had the decency to look a little embarrassed. "Okay, we were practically kids back then. I was twenty-three, Zach was twenty-two. We might have said something like that, but we didn't mean anyone should actually kill him. I mean, not really."

"Yeah," said Wheeler. "It's good that he's dead. He deserved to die. But we don't advocate murder. We're not about violence."

"Right," said Chapman. "We're good people. We're not even anti other races."

"No, we're not," said Wheeler. "We just think that people are more comfortable around their own kind, that's all. And if you look at the world, you'll see that we're right. People tend to self-segregate."

"How many years has it been since all those laws were abolished? And we still have black neighborhoods," said Chapman.

"And black music," said Wheeler.

"And black TV shows," said Chapman.

Elke smiled coldly. "Well, it sounds like things are exactly the way you like it already, doesn't it?"

Wheeler and Chapman exchanged another look.

"All we want," said Chapman, "is to be left alone and not to be forced to do anything we don't believe in. I would that's our right as Americans."

"Okay," said Elke.

Chapman stubbed out his cigarette. "The night that bastard was murdered, we were at a rally. Lots of people saw us there. We can give you their names if you want to call them and ask them."

"Great," said Iain. "Let's have those names, then."

* * *

"So, Rory's looking even more likely," Elke was saying, peering up at the board. "She clammed up when we talked to her today, and she's got no alibi at all." She was back in the conference room with Frankie and Iain. The three were talking over the latest developments in the case.

"What if it is her?" said Frankie. "How would we prove it?"

"Well, if the DNA doesn't match Squires or Kelley, it might match her," said Iain.

"Do you think she did it?" said Frankie. "I mean, there's some logistical problems we haven't worked out, right? Like the gun. We still haven't talked about the gun."

Elke turned away from the board and went over to the conference table. "Yeah, that's true." She turned to look at Iain. "Hudson, you were the one who brought this case up to us. You don't think the gun's a barrier?"

He turned to face her, confused. "Why would the gun be a barrier?"

"The Mukherjees were shot with their own gun," said Frankie. "It was kept in a safe in the living room, and whoever killed them must have had the combination."

"Which does tend to point to Saanvi," said Elke.

"Because she would have known the combination," said Frankie. "She lived there."

"There were no other fingerprints on the safe besides Dr. Mukherjee's," said Iain. "I think he got the gun out himself."

Elke sat down in a chair. "That's an interesting thought."

Iain flipped the board over. On the other side it was blank. "May I?"

"Sure," said Elke.

Iain began to draw on the board. "Okay, so the couch is here, where Dr. and Mrs. Mukherjee were found." He drew two Xs on the board. "Here's the kitchen." Another X. "Here's the bedroom." Another X. "I still think our best option is Kelley and Squires, since they tended to rob houses this way. They would have come in and found Dr. Mukherjee. They would have had their own guns, and they would have forced him into the living room at gunpoint. The safe is right next to the couch. Dr. Mukherjee finds a way to open the safe and get out his gun while they aren't watching. But before he can use it, they see it and they force him to give the gun up."

"How?" said Frankie.

"Most likely by threatening the life of his wife," said Iain, tapping the X for the bedroom. "Then, once they've got the gun, it only makes sense to use it. The guns they have might somehow be traceable to them. But using the Mukherjees' own gun means that no one knows who did it. It's a win-win for the murderers."

"Or murderer, if it was Rory?" said Elke. "How does she manage that if it's her?"

Iain considered. "I have no idea."

"Maybe the gun was out when Rory came in," said Elke. "Maybe Dr. Mukherjee heard a suspicious noise and left his sandwich and went to the safe for the gun. Then when he saw it was only Rory, he set the gun down."

"And then she grabbed it," said Frankie. "Maybe she didn't come there to murder him, just to talk. But maybe once the gun was in her hands, it got out of control."

Elke nodded. "Tempest could have heard the commotion and come out to see what was going on and gotten drawn into it."

"By that time, Rory's panicking," said Frankie. "They know who she is, she's threatened them with a gun. She may not have known how to get out of the situation."

"Yeah," said Elke. "You seem to have a good understanding of her."

Frankie shrugged, but she looked pleased. "I'm just throwing things out."

"Well, maybe you should go talk to her instead of us," said Elke. "Try to get a DNA sample."

"Right now?" said Frankie.

"No, let's give her a little bit of time. She was worried today. Let her calm down," said Elke.

"Sure thing," said Frankie.

Elke got up from the conference table and walked over to the board. She peered at the Xs that Iain had drawn. "All right, what if it's Chapman and Wheeler?"

"I thought you said they had tons of witnesses that they were at a rally," said Frankie. "I saw you giving the list to Amos."

"He did check into that," said Elke. "People may have seen them at the rally early, it was over by 10:00, even if they stayed the whole time, which no one could confirm." She shook her head. "You should have seen those guys. They weren't the least bit sorry that the Mukherjees were dead. They were practically inhuman." She turned to Iain. "You agree we can't rule them out, right?"

"We can't say for certain they didn't do it," said Iain.

"But you don't think they did," said Frankie. "Do you?"

Iain touched his chest. "I still think it's Kelley and Squires."

"You don't think Rory's lack of alibi is suspicious?" said Frankie.

Elke snorted. "He doesn't think any alibi means anything unless it's backed up by video or DNA."

"That's not exactly true," said Iain. "It's only that people are unreliable. They don't always see what they think they saw. Eyewitness testimony is a subpar form of evidence, that's all."

Frankie tapped her chin. "Well, I guess you've got a point."

"He does?" said Elke.

"Sure," said Frankie. "When defending people, you often find that people are sure they saw your client places that your client never was. It happens more often than you'd think."

Elke waved this away. "All right, fine. People are all blind. But that doesn't mean that Chapman and Wheeler didn't do it."

"You like them for this?" said Frankie.

"I think it would be great to put them away," said Elke. "I mean, if they were actually guilty, can you imagine the positive PR that would be? If this were a hate crime, and we uncovered it? That would be amazing."

"But is that what the evidence is telling us?" said Iain.

"It's not telling us no," said Elke.

"True," said Iain. "We can't rule them out. Actually, I guess if it was them, it could have gone down quite similarly to the way that I imagine things with Kelley and Squires. They might have brought their own guns as well."

"But decided to use his own gun against him instead to cover their tracks?" said Frankie.

"They might have had even more of a reason to do so," said Elke. "Their guns may have been legally registered to them."

"They wouldn't have been so stupid as to come there with their own guns," said Iain. "They would have known they'd get caught."

"Maybe they weren't planning to murder them," said Elke. "Similar to what Frankie was saying about Rory."

"What? They just came to confront him?" said Frankie.

"Or to scare him," said Elke. "Maybe they disguised themselves, wore masks or something. Maybe they just thought they were going to tell him to stop the abortions, but everything ended up going sideways."

There was a banging noise.

Everyone turned to see DA Andrews through the glass wall. He was barreling down the hallway toward the conference room. He was holding up a newspaper. He stopped in the doorway, holding up the paper. "What the hell is this?" he growled.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Iain squinted at the paper. That was a copy of the Haven Hills Daily News, which was... Oh, man, talking to that reporter at the elevator hadn't been a really weird dream, had it? He was dragging today, having lost far too much sleep the night before.

The headline on the paper DA Andrews was holding read, DA's Office Doesn't Believe Claims of Its Own New Unit.

Andrews slapped the paper down on the table.

Elke was squinting down at the paper, clearly confused.

Andrews pointed at Iain. "You. This is you."

Iain held up his hands in surrender. "Sir—"

"Don't speak," said Andrews. "It doesn't matter who it is." He whirled on Elke. "This is your unit. So, if crap like this goes down, it's ultimately your responsibility. So, Ms. Lawrence, tell me, what the hell is this?"

"I..." She picked up the paper, scanning the article. "I haven't seen this, sir."

Andrews folded his arms over his chest. "I'll spare you the time it takes to read it and just give you a summary. The article says that you're investigating the Mukherjee case from twenty-five years ago. I remember that case. I tried that case." He pointed at his chest.

Elke cringed. "Really? That was yours?" Man, seriously, should she have picked a case that was the DA's personal case for the first case? Twenty-five years ago, he hadn't been the DA, but had been hired by the former DA to prosecute cases. This was one of his own. Damn, damn, damn.

"But that's fine," said Andrews. "You're meant to operate independently of the rest of the DA's office, because we want these cases to be objective. Personally, I'm fairly sure everything we did on that case was sound. They were in the house for an hour, by their own admission, and the weapon was the gun in the house. It was open and shut."

Elke chewed on her lip. "Sir, we think that—"

He held up a hand to stop her. "I don't want to talk about the case. You work on the case. I already worked on that case. You want to investigate that case, fine. Go ahead. Although, I do have to admit that I'm shocked you already have proof of the accused's innocence after the short time you've been working."

"Proof of innocence?" said Elke. "We don't."

Andrews tapped the newspaper. "Says here you do."

"Well, that's not accurate."

"It also says that I and my staff are being so bullheaded that we won't believe you unless you find evidence that someone else committed the crime."

Iain flinched. That was not exactly what he had said, but he could see how his words could have been twisted to that meaning.

"No, sir," said Elke. "No one in this office thinks—"

"Doesn't matter about that, does it?" said Andrews. "Because now the whole city thinks it. And I've got a year and a half before elections. I started this unit to help with public relations. Considering what happened with your husband, I thought you and I were on the same page, Ms. Lawrence."

Her husband? What was Andrews talking about? Iain found his curiosity piqued.

Elke's face froze. "We are," she said in a clipped voice. Apparently, the subject of her husband was a sore spot.

"Well, it doesn't seem like it," said Andrews.

"I'm so sorry," said Elke. "I really have no idea what happened." She glared at Iain. "But I can assure you, sir, nothing like this will happen again."

"It had better not, Ms. Lawrence," said Andrews. "You know, I hired you as a favor. I didn't want any taint on my CRU, and I was afraid with what had happened with your husband, it would bring a black cloud over everything. I was convinced otherwise, and so far, it hasn't been a problem. But something like this?" He tapped the paper again. "Well, this doesn't look good for anyone."

"I promise you, sir, you'll never have to deal with something like this again."

"Yeah." Andrews smiled tightly. And then he swept out of the office.

Everyone was quiet.

Elke picked up the paper. Slowly, silently, she read the article. She was trembling.

Iain shifted on his feet. Great. There was going to be confrontation. More confrontation. There had already been all the anger from the DA, but now there was going to be even more anger, and it was going to be directed at him.

He wanted to run out of the room, but he knew he couldn't. He had to stand his ground and take it.

Elke tossed down the paper and turned to Iain, red faced. "What did you do?"

"I didn't say what they printed," said Iain.

"Why were you talking to the press? We haven't even formally announced that we're investigating the Mukherjee case. But you confirmed it."

"Well, we've been running around talking to all the people involved in the case," said Iain. "It was going to get out one way or the other."

She let out a harsh hiss of air. "It wasn't your place to confirm it."

"Fine," said Iain. "I made a mistake."

"I don't understand," she said. "Walk me through this. At what point did you decided it was a good idea to talk to the press?"

"It was two in the morning. The reporter was in the lobby of my apartment building. He followed me to the elevator."

"Why were you out at two in the morning?" she said.

"Th-that doesn't matter," he sputtered.

She reddened again. "Sorry. I guess it doesn't. Were you drunk?"

"No," he said through clenched teeth. "But I was tired. And he badgered me, and I said some things, but I didn't say what he says I said. Not in those words. He's twisting my meaning, making it out that I said something I didn't say."

"But you did talk to him."

Iain was quiet.

"Hudson?"

"Yes," he said softly.

"Then it's not his fault. It's yours," said Elke.

He was quiet.

"Isn't it?" Her voice had lowered too.

"Yes," he breathed.

"Never talk to the press again," said Elke. "Never."

He looked at his shoes. He wanted to run again. It was taking all of his power to stay in one spot and take this.

"Go," she said. She turned to Frankie. "Both of you. I need to be alone."

* * *

Elke stayed in the conference room, sitting at the table, still shaking.

Maybe she'd been too hard on Iain. After all, he wasn't good at talking to people in the first place. If some reporter had tried to manipulate him, he might not have been able to protect himself from that. But screw that. Iain was a grownup. He knew better.

Still, she shouldn't have lit into him like that. It wasn't the way she wanted to conduct her unit. She didn't want to be that kind of boss.

Andrews had been out of line, that was what had started this. And the things he'd said about Felix had stung.

He hired her as a favor? Really?

She shook her head. Had Bernadette wanted her out of her hair so badly she'd felt she needed to call in a favor to get rid of her? God, how mortifying. She drew in several deep breaths.

Her phone made a notification noise.

She told herself to ignore it. Honestly, she kept meaning to go through all those apps and change the settings so that she wasn't constantly getting interrupted by something or other. But she never got around to it, so whenever she heard that notification noise, she grabbed the phone and looked.

And truthfully, at this moment, she was glad of the distraction.

She whipped out her phone.

It was an email. She didn't recognize the sender. She touched the notification and her email app opened.

The message was from afriend@lmail.com. It read, You already got the murderers locked up. Leave well enough alone with the Mukherjee case. Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong.

Oh, great. Just great. So, this article runs in the paper and now random crazies felt the need to weigh in on what she did?

She deleted the message.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Amos picked up the phone. "CRU, Amos Bradley speaking. Can I help you?"

"Hi there, Amos, this is Karen over at the lab," said a woman's voice. "You sent us some samples from the Mukherjee case to test?"

"Oh, yeah," said Amos. "We did. Is there a problem?"

"Well, not exactly, but we're just a little confused. Are you sure that you didn't mean to send us some different samples?"

"As far as I understand, those are the only samples associated with the case."

"I mean, samples from a different case."

Amos was taken aback. "No, that's the case we're investigating. Did you see the paper this morning?"

"No, I haven't seen the paper. What's in the paper?"

"Never mind," said Amos. "Point is, we're investigating the Mukherjee case."

"But that doesn't seem like the kind of case your team should be investigating," said Karen. "It's a sound case. It doesn't need review. The right people are in jail. There's no doubt of that."

"Obviously there is doubt," said Amos. He was beginning to feel a little unsure of how to handle this. When it came down to it, he hadn't been consulted in the selection of the case, but from what he understood, there were solid reasons why the Mukherjee case needed review. He wasn't sure if this Karen person was calling to be an ass or if she truly was curious. "Listen, maybe you want to talk to my boss? She maybe can talk about her process for choosing this case."

"No, no, that's fine. You can pass my message on to her, though."

"You're going to test the samples, aren't you?"

"Sure, sure. We'll test them. But it's a damned waste of taxpayer money, if you ask me."

No one did, Amos thought to himself. "Thanks for your help," he said. He hung up. He got up from his desk and went looking for Elke, who was still in the conference room, looking down at her phone with her eyebrows furrowed.

He hesitated in the doorway and then rapped on the door lightly.

She looked up. "Oh, it's you, Amos."

"Sorry to bother you. I know things are tense in here this morning."

She sighed. "Things are fine. We're moving forward. What can I do for you?"

"I just got an asinine call from the lab," he said.

"What? Is everything all right with the samples?"

"Someone named Karen wanted to make sure that we really wanted those samples tested and that we hadn't sent them by mistake. She thinks we should be investigating a different case."

Elke pressed her lips together and looked back at her phone.

"She said she'd test the samples, but that it was a waste of taxpayer money."

Elke looked up at him. "I wonder if Karen's been sending me emails too."

"What?"

"Oh, I got a note from someone telling me to keep my nose out of the Mukherjee case," said Elke.

"Man," said Amos, folding his arms over his chest. "Who knew this case was so controversial?"

"All the more reason to keep digging," said Elke, squaring her shoulders.

* * *

Elke shook hands with the woman who'd shown her the apartment. "I'll let you know, but I do like it a lot."

"Sure thing," said the woman.

They were standing at the elevators, chatting after the tour. The apartment was in a building close enough to her new office to walk. It had a nice open floor plan, the kitchen dining room opening out onto the living room. There was a big master bedroom with a walk-in closet and its own bathroom. The bathroom had a big soaking tub. There was another bathroom, too, and a second bedroom. Elke thought she could use the other room as an office or maybe for exercise equipment.

"Well, I'll wait to hear from you then," said the woman. "I'll just head back to make sure everything's locked up?"

"All right," said Elke.

The woman left, and Elke faced the elevator alone.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. Elke climbed inside. There was a man in there with a garbage bag. It was Iain.

"Lawrence," he said. "What are you doing here?"

The elevator doors closed.

"Hudson," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking out the garbage," he said, gesturing to his trash bag.

"You live here?"

"I do," he said.

"Well, I'm looking at an apartment here," she said.

"Oh," he said. "We'd be neighbors."

"Yeah," she said. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. She might want some space between her work life and her private life. Of course, she didn't think Iain was the type to come over and to say hi.

She really did like the apartment. She cocked her head at him. "Do you like it here?"

"Sure," he said. He looked down at his feet. He seemed even more closed-off than usual.

Then she remembered that the last time she'd talked to him, she'd bitten his head off. She cleared her throat. "Look, about earlier. About the journalist and the story and everything—"

"We don't have to talk about that," he said briskly.

"I'm sorry if I came off too strongly."

"Really, it's fine," he said.

"I think you're doing great work. I'm happy to have you on the team. I think you're an asset to the unit."

It was quiet.

He shifted on his feet. "Thank you," he murmured.

And then she didn't know what to say.

They rode to the bottom floor together in silence.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Iain wasn't sure what he thought about the prospect of Elke living in the apartment building. He supposed it would be fine, unless Elke was the type who'd knock on his door and bring by beer or something and want to come in and hang out. He hated that. He always felt awkward. If people showed up at your door, it seemed as though you had to invite them in. Was there a polite way of getting rid of impromptu visitors? He didn't know what it was.

But he thought it was unlikely that she'd do that. After all, she was the boss, and she'd want to make sure there was a line between herself and the others. It would probably be fine.

When he got back upstairs, he got some ground beef out of the refrigerator and made himself a hamburger, which he fried up on his stove. He buttered a bun and fried it up afterward. He put on mayonnaise and pickles and made a mound of greens next to it on the plate, which he drenched in ranch.

Dinner.

After that, he poured over the case files for a while, looking for anything he'd missed. When the words started to swim in front of him, he gave up and watched some TV.

Around 9:00, his phone rang.

It was Harley.

He didn't answer. He didn't have time to deal with Harley tonight. If she'd already gotten herself arrested this early in the evening, he couldn't help her out.

His phone beeped a moment later. Voicemail.

Don't listen to it, he told himself.

He listened to it.

"Hey, Iain," said Harley's voice. She sounded as though she was crying. "I need you. Can you come to my place, please?"

He sighed. She needed him, huh? Sure. She always needed him.

Let her take care of herself for once. He turned his attention back to the television.

People on the screen talked and laughed and moved around.

He couldn't focus. What did she mean she needed him? What if something actually bad was happening to her?

No, he couldn't let himself think that. Because if something actually bad were happening, then Harley wouldn't have simply left a voicemail. She would have kept calling until he picked up. In a real emergency, she would have been desperate. So there was no reason to—

His phone was ringing again.

Damn it, it was Harley.

He picked up. "What?"

She sniffled. "Did you get my voicemail?"

"What's going on?"

"Just come to my house, okay? Please?"

"You got it cleaned this time, or will I have to steer clear of the upstairs again?"

"Iain, I mean it. I need you."

He sighed. "Fine. I'll be right there." He hung up.

He took the elevator downstairs to his car and drove to Harley's house. His car was cold inside and it took a while for the heat to start working. His headlights barely seemed to cut through the darkness.

Harley lived outside of town in the suburbs. Her house had belonged to her mother, who'd died of cancer when Harley was only twenty. Harley had the house free and clear, which was a good thing, because she could never have kept up with a mortgage. The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac and the yard was surrounded by trees, so it felt isolated out there. Even so, the neighbors were fairly close.

It was a miracle that no one had called the police when Dale got shot.

Iain really hoped he wasn't walking in on some kind of situation like that again. If that was the kind of help she needed, she could damn well get it from someone else. He was done with that.

Iain pulled into Harley's driveway and noticed that the garage was open and an unfamiliar pickup truck was parked inside.

What was that all about? It wasn't looking good thus far.

Harley was on the porch, smoking a cigarette. Her eye makeup was smudged, making her look like a raccoon. "Thanks for coming," she said.

He climbed up the steps to meet her. "What's this all about?"

She shook her head, sucking hard on the cigarette.

"Harley?" he said. "I'm here. If you want my help, you're going to need to tell me—"

"Who's out there?" called a voice from inside the house. A male voice.

"Shut up!" Harley called over her shoulder, her voice full of fury. "You just shut your mouth, Otis."

Otis? Really? There were people who actually had that name? Iain was getting a pretty clear picture of what this was. And he wasn't the least bit pleased. Sometime, just once, he'd like Harley to pretend that she thought he might actually get jealous or angry. Because, hell, he didn't lay a claim on her or anything, but the thought of her with some other man, especially one named Otis... He grimaced. "Can I have a cigarette?"

She dug out her pack and handed it over.

He popped one out. "This isn't cool, Harley. I don't want to be in the middle of whatever—"

"He won't leave." She handed him her lighter.

He lit his cigarette. "Did you ask him to come here?"

"That's irrelevant," she said. "Did you bring your gun? You can scare him."

He sucked on the cigarette, smoke invading his lungs. He had stopped smoking in college. (Just up and stopped. One day, he'd decided he didn't want to do it, and then he hadn't after that. He'd expected it to be hard, but it really wasn't. It was all about making up your mind, at least that was what he thought.) Now and again, he'd bum a cigarette, but they always tasted kind of gross now. "I'm not threatening your one night stand with a gun."

"That's not what he is."

"Oh, okay," said Iain, ashing over the porch railing. "I see. I guess you asked him over for a rousing game of Monopoly."

"Just... I want him out."

Iain sucked in another lungful of smoke and then stubbed the barely-smoked cigarette out. It tasted disgusting. He pushed past Harley and went into the house.

The sound of the television wafted out from the living room, so that was where Iain headed.

He found Otis sitting on the couch. He wasn't wearing shoes and his white-socked feet were propped up on the coffee table. He was watching basketball. When he saw Iain, he set down his feet and sat up straight. "Who the hell are you?"

Iain gazed at him blandly. "Harley wants you to leave."

Otis smirked. "Yeah, we got in a fight. But that happens. I ain't going anywhere."

Iain smiled tightly. "I think you are. This is Harley's house. If she wants you out, you need to respect her wishes." Fight? Fight implied something longterm. Was Harley bringing this guy back here on a regular basis? Iain got a brief, but pleasant, flash of wrapping his hands around Otis's neck.

Otis picked up a can of beer off the coffee table and took a slug. "Respect her wishes, my ass. Who the hell are you?"

"He's a cop," came Harley's voice from behind Iain.

Iain shot her an annoyed look and then he turned back to Otis. "I'm not here in any official capacity."

"The hell you saying that for?" demanded Harley.

Iain gritted his teeth. "You want the police to get an intruder out of your house, you call 911. I'm here as your..." He fumbled for a word. "Friend. That's all."

Otis looked him over. "You're Harley's friend, huh?"

Iain's jaw twitched. "Something like that. You need to leave."

Otis stood up. "You the one who brought her home the other night? Tucked her in on the couch like that?"

Iain narrowed his eyes. "What do you know about that?" Like Otis had seen Harley on the couch. Like he'd been here.

Otis turned to Harley. "You're a fucking whore, aren't you?"

"Hey," said Iain. "Calling her names is probably not your best play here."

Otis turned back to him. "Well, I'm not wrong. That's all she is." He turned back and sat down. He shoved his feet into a pair of boots and began tightening the laces. "You want me gone, fine. I'll go."

"I think that would be a good idea for everyone," said Iain.

"Shut up." Otis tied his shoes and got to his feet again. He glared at Iain. Then he turned to Harley. "Not in our bed, you whore."

Our bed? Iain shot Harley a confused look.

Otis's nostrils flared. "I can't believe you just bring him here. Right in front of my face." He shook his head. His voice lowered. "How could you?"

"Just go, Otis," said Harley. "Just go."

Iain folded his arms over his chest. Oh, this was starting to make sense. Yeah, the pieces were coming together just fine.

Otis pointed at Harley. "This isn't over. I'm not giving up on this without a fight. You're mine, Harley, and don't you forget it." He stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

Then Iain heard the engine of the pickup truck starting, and the vehicle screeched out of the driveway and into the night.

Harley collapsed on the couch. "Oh, thank God," she sighed.

Iain walked out of the living room. He started up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" Harley called after him.

"He's why you didn't want me to go upstairs," said Iain, still climbing. "It wasn't because of the mess at all." At the top of the stairs, there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. Iain could see inside the bathroom and saw men's shaving cream sitting on the sink. "He was here that night." He stalked into the bedroom and yanked open the closet. There were rows and rows of men's jeans and flannel shirts.

"Jesus, Iain," said Harley.

He turned.

She was in the doorway to the bedroom.

"He lives here," said Iain.

"Not anymore," she said. "I just kicked him out. With your help. Thank you very much."

Iain dragged a hand over his face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't know. All kinds of things." She glared at him. "But you know that already. We know that about each other. Both of us are pretty screwed up."

Iain turned back to the closet. "How long?"

"How long what?"

He wanted to get angry. To yell or break something. He wasn't really sure how to be angry, though, so he just stood there. "How long has he been living here?"

"I don't know. A few months. Does it matter?"

"Yeah, it matters."

"Why?"

He shut the closet door, but he didn't turn to look at her. "Because I want to know how many of the times that you've been with me were times when you were going home to be with him." And now his voice was shaking.

"Oh, Jesus, don't be like that." Harley was disgusted. She headed down the steps, as if she wanted nothing more to do with him.

He went after her. From the top of the stairs, he called down, "Most men wouldn't deal with being the guy you screw in order to get him to do your dirty work, you know?"

"Yeah, well, you're not most men," she said.

He pounded down the steps.

"And I'm not most women." She turned to face him as he reached the bottom.

All of his clothes felt too tight. His skin felt too hot. He wanted to explode in some way. He wanted to hurt something. Maybe he wanted to hurt her.

But he was repulsed by that notion, so he turned away from her and headed for the front door. He went out on the porch. It was cold, and the air hurt his lungs. He fished around in the ashtray for the cigarette he'd put out earlier. There was a lighter lying on the railing. He lit up.

The door opened. Her voice was soft. "Come on, Iain, you know that what's between is... is..."

He had to get away from her. He started across the porch toward the steps.

"You know me in a way that no one else does," she called after him. "And I know you."

"And that gives you the right to take advantage of me all the time?" He kept moving. He started down the steps.

"I need you," she said. "But you're not..."

He pounded over the cold, hard ground to his car.

"It's not like you'd move in here with me, you know?"

He stopped. He turned to look up at her. She was right about that.

"I wouldn't even ask." And her voice was frozen, like the cold, winter air.

He contemplated his cigarette for a moment, and then he dropped it on the ground and stepped on it. He started back up the steps to her.

"I didn't realize this would make you so upset," she said. "You don't... I didn't think you cared."

He stopped right in front of her, inches between them. "I care," he said, and his voice was hoarse.

She put her hands on his chest. "I'm sorry."

He gazed at her. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but he still liked the way she looked.

She dug her hands into his clothes, gathering up handfuls of his shirt, and she tugged him back toward the door. "It's cold out here," she whispered.

He let her pull him back into the warmth.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"God," said Rory Gutierrez, "you guys don't give up, do you?"

Frankie stood at the doorway to Rory's office. She clutched her bag, in which she had the kit to take a DNA sample. It was easy enough to do. She'd been trained to do it. It was just a quick swab. Whether Rory could be convinced to give the sample or not, Frankie wasn't sure. She decided to take a gentle approach. She didn't want to scare Rory. "Well, I think maybe you got off on the wrong foot with my colleagues. Believe me, I know how much Elke Lawrence can be. Hard to take."

Rory cocked her head at Frankie, but she didn't say anything.

Frankie gestured to the chair in front of Rory's desk. "Can I sit?"

Rory sighed. "What if I told you that I don't want to talk at all?"

"Now, why would that be?"

"You can't force me to talk," said Rory.

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that." Frankie decided to sit down anyway. She smiled. "I don't want to force you to do anything. This isn't supposed to be that kind of a conversation. I just want to chat with you a little bit."

"Sure, about where I was the night of the Mukherjee murders. Except I don't want to talk about that. And nothing you're going to say is going to make me want to talk about that."

"Okay." Frankie eyed the woman. She made her face look concerned. "Are you afraid of something, Rory?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, maybe you're worried about talking to me, and you think something bad might happen to you if you do."

"Yeah, okay, well, you're investigating a murder. You want to put someone in jail for the rest of their life. That's scary."

"We want to put the guilty person away."

"Right, but apparently, you got it wrong once already, so your batting average isn't great. I don't want to be the next innocent person to go away for this crime."

Frankie took a deep breath. "Okay, you're innocent. So, let's prove that. Once we rule you out, you never see us again."

"How do we prove my innocence? If it was so easy, then they could have done it twenty-five years ago."

"They could have, maybe, but they didn't do it as a matter of course. It was rare back then."

"What are you talking about?"

"DNA," said Frankie. "If you're innocent, DNA will clear you. There are samples from the Mukherjee house that we're having tested. You've never been in the Mukherjee house, right?"

"Right," she said.

"So, then we'll test your DNA, and it won't match, and that will be that."

Rory shook her head. She bit down on her bottom lip.

"Is there any reason your DNA might be in the house? Tell me now and we'll figure this out."

"It's not that." Rory massaged the bridge of her nose. "If I give you that DNA, then do I go in some database? Would they test it against other unsolved crimes?"

"Is there another crime you're involved in?"

"Well, some things have statutes of limitations, right?"

"Yes, they do, but what is it that you're concerned about?"

"No, I need to shut my big, fat mouth," said Rory, shutting her eyes.

"Listen, all I'm concerned with is the Mukherjee case. I don't care about anything else."

"Sure, you don't." Rory made a face. "As if I could believe anything out of a cop's mouth."

"I'm a lawyer."

"Even worse." Rory lifted her chin. "I want you to leave. I'm not saying anything else."

* * *

"That's okay," said Elke to Frankie, who was annoyed with herself for failing to get the DNA from Rory. "We'll find some other way to get her DNA. Anyway, we can probably hold off on it until we get the tests back on Kelley and Squires." She was sitting at the conference table and Rory was there too. Iain was sitting at the table, but he seemed a little preoccupied. "Hudson? You with us?"

He turned to Elke. "What?"

Elke laughed. "You thinking deep thoughts about the case there?"

Iain made a face. "Sorry, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

"Maybe you should get some coffee," said Elke. "Actually, maybe Amos can help us out with that." She went to the door and yelled for Amos.

After they had all given their drink orders to him, and he'd promised to be back in a jiffy, Elke sat back down at the table.

Frankie still didn't know how she felt about Elke. The woman could be brusque, even rude, but she seemed to be focused on the case. Her heart was in the right place, anyway.

"So," said Elke. "Where were we?"

No one said anything. Frankie didn't know if she should bring up Rory again. After all, it seemed like Elke had closed the door on that case for now. She kept her mouth shut.

Elke pointed at Frankie. "Joshua Oliver's alibi? You were going to check into that."

"Oh, right," said Frankie.

"Did you get a chance?"

"I did," said Frankie. "I tracked down three of the students who were on the debate trip with the professor. They all confirmed his story. I also spoke to the professor at Ethen College, which hosted the debate, and he said that Dr. Oliver was witnessed to be there by the audience, which may have been about thirty people, plus all the other students from other teams. And it's too far of a drive for him to have gotten back in time to commit the murder."

"So, we cross him off?" said Elke.

"I think so," said Frankie.

Elke turned to Iain. "What do you think, Hudson? Is this good enough, or do we need some tangible evidence?"

Iain shrugged. "Maybe he conspired with Tempest. He wouldn't have needed to be there in order to do that."

"But we said that the gun evidence doesn't seem in line with our theory about Tempest," said Elke.

"But we haven't ruled her out either," said Iain.

"How do we do that?" said Frankie. "It's not like we can use DNA. She lived there."

Elke made a tent with her fingers and rested them under her nose. "Didn't Dr. Oliver say that Tempest went to her parents house the weekend before the murder?"

"You think her parents did it?" Frankie's eyes widened.

Elke laughed. "No, but I do think we should talk to them. Why did she go there? Did she confide in them that her marriage was unhappy? They might be able to help us figure this out."

"True," said Frankie.

Elke got up. "When Amos gets back, I'll have him hunt down their number and see if we can set up a time. It'll be you and me, Hudson. Hart, you'll stay here to hold down the fort."

Hold down the fort? What? But Frankie just smiled. Whatever Elke wanted, she'd do.

* * *

"Okay, look," said Elke to Iain, "when we get there, you've got to let me do the talking."

"I always do," said Iain, staring straight forward as he gripped the steering wheel. He was driving north to Tempest Mukherjee's parents' home, and he seemed pretty focused on the road. However, he seemed a little out of it today, and she wondered why he was low on sleep. Before, he'd said that he'd been talking to a reporter in the wee hours of the morning. Did Iain have some kind of substance abuse problem or something?

It wasn't uncommon for people in their line of work, truly. Especially when dealing with grisly murders all the time. That tended to get to a person, and sometimes there was no way to handle it besides drinking.

But Iain didn't seem like the type.

Of course, maybe he got wildly social under the influence of alcohol. Maybe he turned into someone completely different. But she doubted it.

"You don't always," she said. "Sometimes you chime in. And I don't want to discourage you from doing that in general, because the last few times, it's been pretty helpful what you've said. But in this case, I think we have to be very careful not to upset Tempest's parents. We don't want them to get the idea we're accusing her of murdering her husband and somehow getting killed herself as a product of her own actions. I think that might make them hostile."

"Yes, probably," said Iain.

"So, it's best if you let me talk."

Silence.

Then Iain spoke up. "I'm not a complete idiot, you know."

"I didn't say you were."

"I do understand the need to be respectful to parents of a dead child," said Iain. "I know that."

"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'll be quiet anyway." He sounded annoyed.

Elke sucked in a breath. "Is this about the other day when I was angry about the article, because I tried to tell you that I—"

"We don't have to talk about that."

"Okay."

"I think I tried to tell you that."

"Okay," she said. Man, something was going on with him. Maybe he was simply irritable because he hadn't slept much. "I just, I get the feeling there's some tension here between us."

"No."

"No?"

He sighed. "I had a rough night last night is all. I'm still not sure how I feel about... It's not about you, or us, or the job."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be thinking about it. I should just be focused on the case."

More silence.

"You know, I've been having personal issues too," said Elke softly. And she wasn't sure why she was volunteering this.

"Yeah, I did look up what happened with your husband," said Iain. "I'm sorry. That must have been horrible."

"Ex-husband," she said.

"Of course," said Iain.

More silence.

"I'm just thinking about something that someone said to me last night," Iain muttered. "And how it doesn't make any sense."

"Oh," said Elke. That was vague. She was kind of curious. Should she press? Ask questions? What would she ask? Do you, in fact, have a substance abuse problem, Hudson? Yeah, maybe not.

"Sorry." Iain adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. "Uh, forget I said anything. Maybe we should talk about the case."

"Sure," she said brightly. She tried to think of something to say about the case, but the only thing that came to mind was, "You don't really think it was Tempest, do you?" Crap, that was offensive.

"Uh, well, I think I've made it clear that I think our most likely perps are Kelley and Squires," he said.

"So, you think we're wasting our time going up here?"

"I didn't say that," he said. "That money did go missing from her account. We don't know why. It's suspicious."

"Yeah, that's true. If it's her, though, it's going to be another PR nightmare. I mean, no one's going to want to hear that the murderer is a dead woman—one of the victims. And we'd still have to find the contract killer she hired. How would we do that?"

"I don't know," said Iain. "But if we have to do it, we will. The truth is all that matters."

She sighed. "You're right." Of course he was right. That was what they were doing here. They were looking for the truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Iain clutched the cup of coffee that Cleo Austin, Tempest's mother, had given him. He wasn't sure how many cups of coffee he'd had today. Three? Four? It was making him feel a little jittery. A little on edge. Maybe that was why he kept thinking about what Harley had said last night.

Elke had declined the coffee. She was sitting next to Iain on the couch. "So, I apologize for coming to see you like this out of the blue. I'm sure dredging up these memories isn't easy."

The two were sitting in the Austins' living room. Someone in the house had a thing for chickens, because they were everywhere. The windowsills, the mantle, and several shelves were all covered in various little ceramic chicken figurines.

Iain gazed into the coffee, barely paying attention to Elke. I didn't realize this would make you so upset. That was what Harley had said, and she'd gotten him with that little line, plus the one about how she didn't think he cared. That had stopped him. That had made him feel guilty. Because so many people had told him he was cold and detached and unfeeling. And she knew that too. Damn it.

"It's not a problem. I'm not saying it isn't hard," said Cleo. "We miss our baby girl, of course."

"And our granddaughter, too," said Tobias. "We miss her something awful. She's been locked up her entire adult life. All the things she's missed, it's terrible."

"And you know she gets no support from her father's side of the family, and they're the ones with all the money. All doctors on that side, all with million-dollar houses," said Cleo. "They could be paying for lawyers for her. God knows, we've tried to do what we can. We've helped out the Greenes, Kevin's parents, as best we could. But at some point, we've just run into brick walls."

"And you wonder," said Tobias, "you wonder if you'd had more money to get better lawyers, if maybe..." He shook his head.

Iain took a slug of the coffee. Okay, he was cold and detached sometimes. He was. Right now, these two people were pouring out their frustrations at the demise of their family, and all he could think about was the fact that his girlfriend—no, his fuck buddy—was a manipulative bitch. He set the cup down on the coffee table and tried to concentrate on the interview.

"Anyway, it's painful to talk about," said Cleo, "but we're also glad you're here. We're glad somebody finally saw that Saanvi and Kevin are innocent."

"Well, to be fair," said Elke, "we're not taking any positions at this point. We're simply investigating the case."

Right, thought Iain darkly, and if they find out we suspect their daughter, they won't be pleased. This was a delicate balancing act. He was glad Elke was handling it. Especially because he was still thinking about Harley. Her words from the night before echoed through his brain. She was a liar. She had lied to him. She said that shit, and knew it would get to him, but she was lying. Of course she knew how much it would affect him.

"Yes, we understand," said Cleo.

"But we'd like to help however we can," said Tobias.

"All right, well, we have some questions, then," said Elke. "How would you characterize the relationship between Tempest and Abeer?"

Cleo and Tobias exchanged a glance.

"I'm not sure what you mean," said Cleo.

"We liked Abeer," said Tobias.

"He was wonderful to our daughter. A wonderful husband."

"So, they were happy?" said Elke, raising her eyebrows.

Iain picked the coffee back up again. Okay, so this was interesting. Had the parents simply not known about the state of their daughter's marriage, or were they lying for some reason? Or could Dr. Oliver have been lying? Or could Dr. Oliver have been mistaken? People seemed to have mistaken ideas about other people's situations all the time.

I didn't realize this would make you so upset.

God. Why couldn't he get Harley's stupid voice out of his head?

Liar, he wanted to say to her. You realized, because if you hadn't, you wouldn't have kept me out of the upstairs that night I brought you home from the jail. You didn't want me to see him then, so you realized.

He drank more coffee.

"Yes, they were happy," said Cleo. "They were very happy. They had a lovely new house and a beautiful daughter. Everything anyone could want."

Elke nodded slowly.

"Why do you ask this?" said Tobias.

"Just following up on some other leads is all," said Elke. "I heard from a source that Tempest spent the weekend before the murder here with you. Is that true?"

"Yes, actually," said Cleo.

"Why did she come?" said Elke.

"Well... to be honest, I've never really been quite sure about that," said Cleo. "I did think maybe something was wrong at the time. It was strange for her to come alone. She didn't even bring Saanvi with her."

"She was quiet," said Tobias. "She came to meals with us, but she didn't have a lot to say. And she took a long walk out in the yard on Saturday. I offered to walk with her, but she said she wanted to be alone."

"I was worried," said Cleo. "But then after..." She swallowed. "Well, after she was taken from us, I was only grateful that I'd gotten that last weekend with her, you know. I told myself that maybe it was God working through her, bringing my little girl back to me for just a bit."

Tobias nodded. He reached over and grasped his wife's hand.

They exchanged a look, their eyes brimming with tears.

Iain drained his cup of coffee. "You say she took a long walk? In the yard?"

"Yes," said Tobias, turning to Iain.

Elke glared at him.

"That a normal thing to do? Walking in the yard?"

"Well, I suppose," said Cleo.

"Most people walk on the road or on a trail or something. She just walked around in your backyard for no reason?"

"Hudson," muttered Elke, shaking her head at him.

He ignored her. "Can we see your yard?"

* * *

Elke grabbed Iain by the arm. She spoke in a low voice so that only he could hear her. "Do you really think this is significant?"

He glanced at her. He nodded, but didn't speak.

All four of them were out in the Austins' back yard, which was sprawling, dotted with trees and bushes, and decorated with a lot of metal garden stakes in the shape of roosters and tractors.

She kept talking. "You have any idea how painful this is for these people? You were completely disrespectful—"

He pulled away from her and started walking across the lawn.

Elke groaned inwardly. Maybe it had been a bad idea to bring him along. He wasn't a great interrogator on a good day, and with his lack of sleep and personal issues, he seemed even less on his game today. She turned to Tobias and Cleo. "I'm sorry. He's... a little eccentric, but he's a good detective. He's not always very, um, considerate—"

"It's fine," said Tobias, smiling at her. He started after Iain. "I wonder where he's going."

They all trooped after Iain.

Iain walked across the lawn and stopped next to a pine tree. Underneath there was another garden stake, but this one was in the shape of a butterfly. He pointed at it. "This. Where'd it come from?"

"Well, Cleo put it there," said Iain.

"No," said Cleo. "I didn't. It doesn't really match." She cocked her head. "I honestly don't think I've noticed it before. It's so far under the tree." She turned apologetically to Elke. "I don't work in the yard as much as I used to. I used to do a lot out here, but after Tempest passed, I sort of lost interest. We pay a nice young man to do the mowing and landscaping. We don't come out here that often."

Iain turned to Elke. "You remember the crime scene photos? That picture propped up next to the couch. It was a butterfly."

"So?" said Elke.

"Oh, Tempest loved butterflies," said Cleo. "She had her whole bedroom done up with butterflies. You think she left this here?"

Iain scratched the back of his neck. "Do you have a shovel?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Elke was horrified. She assured the Austins that they weren't going to dig up their yard for no reason, but they seemed to have become excited by the discovery of this butterfly stake. Tobias went and got Iain a shovel, and Iain started digging.

Tobias and Cleo exchanged breathless conversation about how they couldn't believe that this had been here, right under their noses, all this time.

The stake was hard to see, with all the low-hanging, needle-laden branches of the pine tree obscuring it. Elke had to grant them that. But she had to admit she was skeptical that it could be related. Twenty-five years out under a tree? Marked by a butterfly stake? What could possibly be buried out here? She figured Iain would dig and dig and there would be nothing there.

But after about twenty minutes, Iain dug up a plastic bag. When he opened it up, it was full of money.

"What?" said Cleo, who was startled at the sight of it.

"Well," said Iain, "that's where the money she took out went."

"This is Tempest's?" said Tobias. "Why would she take out money? Why would she bury it in our back yard?"

Elke shook her head. "I have no idea."

"No way to know for sure," said Iain.

Elke licked her lips. "Well, we do know that Tempest wasn't as happy in her marriage as she might have let on."

"Really?" Cleo was still staring at the money. "How do we know that?"

"There was..." Elke cleared her throat. "Another man."

"Oh, no. That doesn't sound like Tempest." Cleo shook her head.

"He says that there was no physical relationship," said Iain. "He says they just met for coffee and talked periodically."

"Well... maybe..." Cleo reached out for Tobias. She looked like she was drowning.

Tobias put his arm around her. "She was a grown woman, Cleo. She wasn't a little girl anymore."

"Anyway," said Elke, "he did seem to think that she wanted to leave Abeer. Maybe she buried this money here so that she could have it free and clear."

"Free and clear?" said Cleo. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, she had her own bank account," said Elke, "but the money deposited there was from Abeer, and he had control over the account. If she left him, she would have had nothing until she could have possibly gotten alimony from a divorce settlement or found a job. So, she might have taken money a little bit at a time and hidden it somewhere so that she could take care of herself if she left."

"We would have taken care of her," said Cleo.

"She was proud," said Tobias. "She wouldn't have wanted that."

"She could have told us!" said Cleo.

Tobias sighed.

"What?" Cleo pulled away. "She could have. We would have understood."

Tobias turned to Elke. "We've always been proud of our marriage. Lots of our friends who got married at the same time as us, they went through divorce after divorce, but we stuck together. And we always told Tempest that a marriage isn't something you throw off easily. We said that it's worth it to stick it out and work things out. Lots of times, people end up in some other marriage, and they find out that the amount of problems don't change, just the kinds of them."

Cleo licked her lips. "Oh, Tobias, maybe she wouldn't have told us."

"Maybe not," said Tobias.

Cleo let out a noisy breath. "I don't understand. What does this mean? Is this a clue? That other man. Who is he? Did he kill her?"

"We don't think so," said Elke. "He seems to have a strong alibi."

"So... then what?" said Cleo. "It doesn't mean anything? You dug up our yard for nothing?"

"We..." Elke looked at Iain for guidance, although why she did, she didn't know.

"It wasn't for nothing," said Iain. "We've proved your daughter didn't hire a contract killer to kill Abeer. She's innocent."

Tobias and Cleo both turned horrified faces on Elke.

Elke cringed.

* * *

Amos popped back through the offices to make sure that no one else was there that night. Iain Hudson had a tendency to stay late, and he was always so quiet back there in his office that Amos never knew if the guy was there or not. But Iain must have slipped out at some point, because his office was quiet and dark.

The boss, though, Elke Lawrence, was coming out of her office and closing the door.

When she saw him, she jumped. "Oh, Amos, I didn't realize you were there."

"Sorry," he said. "I was on my way out. Just getting ready to lock up.

"Great," she said, smiling. "See you tomorrow." She gave him a little wave and then strode down the hallway and out of the place.

Amos watched her go. He liked her fine. He liked all the people who worked at the CRU, although Iain was a little brusque. Overall, though, it was a good place to work, and he was glad to have the job. He had to admit it was different here, though. He'd been working at a law office in town for years. He'd gotten the job right out of school. He had his associate's degree and wanted to take a year off before going back to school.

Executive assistant jobs paid well and he had the qualifications, so he took the job. He ended up there for longer than a year. But he liked it there, because it was a big place and a lot of people worked there. He and the other assistants would all eat lunch together every day, and he missed the social aspect of his job. This new position, it was great and all, but it was a little lonely.

While working for the other law firm, he'd taken classes at night, and now he was a full-fledged paralegal. It was those new qualifications that had landed him this job, and the higher salary that came with it. He was grateful for the opportunity.

But the place was so solemn, and he didn't know how to liven it up.

Amos knew that a lot of people struggled with their place in the world. People would ask all sorts of existential questions like, "Why am I here? What is my purpose?" But Amos had sort of always known with an innate certainty that his purpose in life was to bring light and joy to whatever situation he found himself in. Knowing that didn't mean that it was any easier to make big decisions in life, like what he should be when he grew up, because he'd sort of floated into this career, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do it forever, but it did mean that—wherever he found himself—he usually made that place a happier place.

He hadn't, however, quite figured out how to do that here at the CRU.

He'd assessed the situation fairly quickly. He could tell that there was some sort of tension between Elke and Frankie. Iain was a robot. So, he was up against a good bit of resistance to happiness and joy, even if you didn't count the fact that they were doing serious, solemn business here, and that people's lives were in their hands. They had the ability to save people from a life behind bars, but also the power to cast suspicion on others who had been free for years. So, it wasn't exactly a carefree sort of job.

He sighed as he walked back up the hallway to his desk at the front. He'd tried bringing in donuts, but that hadn't done much. He'd left them in the conference room, but people hadn't stayed and eaten and talked to each other. Instead, they'd gone in separately and taken the donuts back to their desks, none of them so much as acknowledging each other. He wondered if he could invite everyone out for a drink some night. Frankie had a family, so she might not come, though. He wanted them all to be there, considering there were only four of them.

Amos was a sunny person, and he liked to work in a sunny environment.

Also, he was gay.

He thought the gay part made it easier to be sunny. After all, they hadn't name gay people "gay" for no reason, now had they? He didn't know why that was, but he thought it was a testament to his sexual preference, that while going through the worst kind of prejudice and hate, they could come to be known as a word that was synonymous for happiness and playfulness. That made him proud.

Not that he was always happy or anything. He was a regular person. He had his ups and downs. Lately, he'd been through a bad breakup that had gutted him. If he was truly honest, part of the reason he'd stuck around at that job at the law firm hadn't been only because it was a great working environment. It was also because he wanted to stay close to Paul, who was still doing undergrad at the local college. Paul was one of those guys who made undergrad take six years by strategically changing his major four times. Paul liked school.

Amos guessed that he should have realized Paul wasn't going to get a job after graduating. That obviously Paul was going to go for a masters. It was what Paul did.

And maybe he'd made the relationship into more than what it was. They were always insisting to each other that it was casual. They never moved in together, and they never made hard and fast rules. They were allowed to make drunken mistakes, as they called them. That meant that if either one of them got trashed and ended up in bed with another guy, he would just keep that to himself and not tell the other. Both had been in previous relationships torpedoed by their own cheating, and neither felt it was fair when the accident meant absolutely nothing and was fueled by alcohol.

Funny thing was, as near as he knew, neither he nor Paul had ever had one of those accidents during their relationship. They pretty much never went out and got drunk without the other one. They'd been attached at the hip.

So, when Paul said that he was going to New York for grad school, Amos had offered to come along.

But Paul hadn't wanted him to.

Amos kind of got it. He knew that running off to some new place and remaking yourself was a thrilling proposition. You couldn't remake yourself with your boyfriend tagging along. But at the same time, they weren't kids anymore. There was a time when you stopped remaking yourself and accepted yourself as your portion—to half-ass quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, who Amos liked, but not well enough to remember the real quote. Anyway, it meant that. Eventually, you just had to be you. It was what you did when you grew up.

Obviously, Paul was not ready to grow up.

His loss.

Amos lifted his chin and squared his shoulders and strutted the rest of the way out of the office, stopping to lock up on his way out. Yes, that was right. It was Paul's loss. Amos was a catch, and if Paul couldn't see that, then screw him.

Amos sashayed down the hall, telling himself that everything was going to turn out just fine. Sure, he'd been having trouble finding anyone else he was the least bit interested in, and sure, his new job was like going to a funeral every day, but things were going to look up, because he was strong, and attractive, and smart. He sucked in his breath and smiled.

He arrived at the elevator and hit the button for down.

The elevator door opened immediately.

Amos grinned. Good sign.

There was another man in the elevator. He saw Amos's smile and grinned back.

Amos stopped grinning. He couldn't explain what it was, but there was something about the man's smile he didn't like.

"Hi there," said the guy.

Amos considered waiting for the next elevator, but then decided he was being stupid. He stepped inside, nodding at the guy, but not saying anything. He wanted to turn his back on the man, but found he couldn't quite do it. Instead, he flattened himself on the opposite side of the elevator and watched him warily.

The elevator doors slid closed.

The other man was in a gray suit with a checked tie. The colors of the checks were magenta and jade green. His shirt matched the jade green checks, only it was a lighter shade. The guy had purposefully disheveled hair, moussed into place. He should have been attractive, but there was something about his eyes that just... weren't quite right.

Amos wished he could back away further.

The man was still smiling. "Hey, don't I know you?"

Amos shook his head.

"Do you ever, uh, go to The Rainbow?" The Rainbow was a club in town that catered to gay men. It was actually Amos's favorite hangout, but he'd been staying clear lately, what with all the stuff about the serial killer.

"No," said Amos, lying.

"Are you sure? I could swear I've seen you there." The elevator started moving. The man looked startled, but he was faking. He stumbled and somehow ended up on Amos's side of the elevator.

Amos shrank from him.

"What's your name?" said the man. "I'm Dick." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Amos wanted out of the elevator now.

"You know," said Dick, lowering his voice, "I don't think I've ever seen an ass as tight as yours."

Amos pressed himself against the wall. When had Dick seen his ass?

"We should hang out sometime," said Dick. "We could meet at the club or you could give me your number."

Amos shook his head. "No, thanks. I'm, uh, just getting out of a relationship."

"That's the best time," said Dick.

Amos shook his head again. How much longer could this elevator ride last?

"Hey," said Dick, "do you work for the new CRU thing? Is that where you were coming from?"

Amos didn't want to admit anything. But he didn't want to tell this guy it was none of his business. Something told him not to be rude to Dick. Something told him that Dick wouldn't like that, and he didn't think that he wanted to make Dick upset. He hated that feeling, but his survival instinct was taking control now. "Yeah, I work there."

"You're doing that Mukherjee case," said Dick. "You think that's a great idea?"

Amos licked his lips. What the hell was this? Who was Dick? Was that air of menace he was picking up somehow related to the case? Maybe Dick was connected to one of their suspects. Maybe he had been sent here to send some kind of message.

But then the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Dick got out. "Well, this is my floor," he said, waving as he left. "See you around, Amos."

Amos's throat closed. He hadn't told Dick his name. He was sure he hadn't.

The elevator doors shut and the elevator started moving again.

Amos loosened his tie. The back of his neck was sweaty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Iain got home, he felt wired but exhausted. Too much coffee. He sagged against the elevator wall on his way up to his apartment and contemplated what he wanted to eat for dinner. He didn't think he had it in him to cook anything, not even to fry up a hamburger. No, he was going to order in, but he wasn't sure what he wanted.

He'd hurt his hands digging up the Austins' backyard. He'd been wearing gloves at the time, but they were crime scene gloves, plastic gloves, not gardening gloves. He had a blister on his palm. He poked at it with one of his fingers.

Ouch.

At least they'd eliminated a suspect. Sure, they hadn't really thought that Tempest was actually responsible for the murders. It had been a convoluted theory, he had to admit now. He'd leaped a bit, which wasn't like him. The missing money shouldn't have led him to think of murder, but it was understandable, he supposed. He'd been pouring through the information specifically looking for new suspects, and so he'd found one. The human mind did that. If directed to find something, it found it.

Anyway, he didn't need to be thinking about this right now. He needed to be deciding if he wanted pizza or Thai food. Both would leave him leftovers, but the pizza would probably leave more. Plus, he could eat it for breakfast. Still, it seemed less nourishing than the prospect of a nice coconut milk curry with vegetables swimming in it.

The elevator opened and he stepped out onto his floor. He walked down the hallway, still thinking about dinner options.

He had a specific app on his phone to order pizza. He could order the Thai online too, but he didn't have an app for it. He'd have to use his computer. And he didn't like the online ordering because sometimes they screwed up what he asked for. It was better to call. But he hated calling and having to interact with a person. It was exhausting, dealing with all the stupid questions like, "How are you?" And wondering the proper response to, "Have a nice day." Was it, "You have a nice day as well"? Or just, "You too"? Did the latter sound too clipped? Would they think he was rude and spit in his food?

He turned the corner and his apartment was in sight.

Otis was standing in front of the door.

No. Otis couldn't be here. How did Otis even know where he lived?

Iain narrowed his eyes at the man and stalked down the hallway. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you don't like it when I show up at your home?" said Otis. "Cause that's what you did to me."

Iain stopped directly in front of the man. "I didn't know you lived there."

"Bullshit," said Otis. "You moved in on my woman—"

"Your woman?" Iain let out a mirthless laugh. "You want Harley, you're welcome to her." He shouldered past Otis and put his key in the door to his lock. "I'm not standing in your way." He tried to get inside the apartment and shut the door again.

But Otis got his foot in the door. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Go away," said Iain. "I'm exhausted, and I don't have time for this."

"Yeah, you're tired, because you were up all night fucking my girlfriend."

Iain sighed.

"Let me in," said Otis. "You and I are going to have a conversation."

"I don't want to," said Iain.

"I don't care. I'm not leaving." Otis put his weight against the door, which Iain was still trying to close. The door gave a few inches.

Iain backed away from the door. "Fine."

Otis stumbled inside, losing his balance from the sudden lack of resistance. Otis righted himself. He glared at Iain.

Iain moved around him and shut the door. He surveyed the other man. "Let's talk, then."

Otis pointed at him. "You're going to leave Harley alone."

Iain laughed again. "Oh, believe me, I do try. She always calls me with some sob story or shows up trying to steal my canned goods. If your girlfriend needs money for food, how come you're not helping her? Why does she have to come to me?"

"What are you talking about?"

Iain hung his head, chuckling sardonically. "She probably didn't need money for food. Hell, maybe she shook me down for cash for new clothes. I wouldn't put it past her."

"I seriously have no fucking clue what you're saying."

Iain raised his gaze. "It doesn't matter. You're the one who wanted to talk. What did you want to talk about?"

"To tell you to stay away from her."

"Okay, well, you've delivered that message, so maybe you'll be on your way?"

Otis squared his shoulders. "No, I don't think so, but I'm not getting the impression that you really will stay away from her."

"I just told you, she calls me, not the other way around."

Otis didn't seem to know how to respond to that. His nostrils flared. "How do you even know her?"

"Oh, we go way back. To high school," said Iain. "I'm the guy she calls when she needs something. I'm the guy she called when she had problems with her husband, the one who ended up dead. She tell you about that?"

Otis's face twitched. "She said he was a bastard."

"He was," said Iain. "You remind me of him."

"What the fuck?"

"You're possessive and controlling and an idiot."

"Hey." Otis advanced on Iain. "Don't you start insulting me. You don't have any right. You're the worst kind of scum, sleeping with another man's girl."

Iain was getting pretty sick of this conversation. He was going to have to get rid of Otis. There was an easy way to do that, but it wasn't an honorable way. There was something primal to this exchange, some sort of caveman man-to-man business, and Iain felt the pressure to adhere to those rules. Not that he wanted to fight over Harley. Still, he was doing it. Some part of him hated her, but some part of him didn't, some part of him felt she belonged to him just as much as Otis here did. It was interesting, Iain thought, that he was always so aloof and out of it, but that deep down, he was just as primitive and idiotic as any other man. He took a step forward. "The way I figure it, I have the prior claim."

"You have the what?"

"I mean, she's not really your girl," said Iain. "The way I figure it, I was there first. Before any of the rest of you."

"Any of?" Otis looked thoroughly confused. "What?"

"The way I figure it, you're the one who's sleeping with my girl," said Iain. "So, I think you need to get out of my apartment. I think you need to forget all about Harley and move the hell on."

"No way," said Otis. "I came here to make sure that you understood that Harley was mine. And I'm not leaving until—"

Iain lifted his suit jacket, exposing his gun, which sat in a holster just under his ribs. Iain had never pulled the gun in duty, not once. He'd been lucky not to end up in those kinds of situations very often. He solved murders, but he'd never had a suspect threaten him with deadly force. He'd trained, though. He was sure he could use it if he had to. Not that this was the same. This was the dishonorable way of getting rid of Otis. This was the way that broke the primitive rules.

Otis gave him a look of disgust. "You going to shoot me?"

"I want you to leave," said Iain, nodding at the door.

"You're a cop. You're not going to shoot me."

Iain took his gun out of its holster. He disengaged the safety and gazed at it in his palm. "Did Harley tell you how Dale died?"

Otis glanced at the door, then at Iain's face, and then back at the gun. "She, uh, said she shot him."

"Yeah," said Iain. "Self-defense, right?"

Otis looked at the gun again. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you should leave," said Iain, lifting his gun and using the barrel to scratch the back of his head. "And leave Harley alone too. You never know what might happen if you keep bothering her."

Otis licked his lips. He glanced at the door again. And then at the gun. And then he pointed at Iain. "This isn't over, you asshole." He swept out of the door.

* * *

Elke got the keys to her new apartment that night, the one in the same building as Iain. She wasn't planning on moving in officially until the weekend, when she'd have more time, but she found she couldn't stomach the idea of going back to that house she'd shared with Felix. Every time she did, it was utterly depressing. So, she went home, packed up several suitcases with her clothes, got the air mattress from the storage closet, and went back to her new place.

She blew up the air mattress in the empty bedroom and lay around in her pajamas, watching Netflix on her laptop, and she felt freer and happier than she had in months.

Moving out had been a good idea.

Even though the air mattress was a bit of a step down from her mattress, she fell asleep pretty much right away, and she dreamed about Thanksgiving when she was a kid, the whole house smelling like apple and pumpkin pie. When she awoke with a start, she'd been just about to take a huge bite of stuffing and gravy.

But the dream faded like smoke in the wake of a gunshot.

A noise had awoken her. A toilet flushing. Close.

At first, she thought that it must be the apartment next door, and that she would just have to get used to these sorts of noises now that she lived right next to other people instead of in her own freestanding house.

But then she heard the faucet come on, and she was certain that was coming from the master bathroom, the one right off her bedroom.

It was dark in her room, but there was light coming in the west window from the streetlights outside, and she only had the slat blinds that had come with the apartment closed against the light. In the scant light, she tried to see inside the bathroom.

It was dark in there. She couldn't see anything.

Then the bathroom door opened.

Her heart began to pound in her chest.

A shadowy figure stepped out of the bathroom. She couldn't make out features, but it looked like a man, a tall man, with broad shoulders and short hair. The door to the bathroom was across the room from her, and he seemed to be staring right at her.

Her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure he could hear it.

He didn't move.

She kept expecting him to do so, to lunge for her. When he did, she would go for her phone, which was lying next to the air mattress on the floor. She would grab her phone, and she would call 911. She could get it now and do that, but she didn't want to, because she felt like maybe if she just lay here and kept completely still, maybe he would go away. Maybe he wouldn't notice her. Maybe he would think she was asleep.

Seconds ticked by.

He still didn't move.

Why didn't he leave?

Because he wasn't going to leave. There was a reason he was in her apartment, and it probably wasn't a good one. She'd prosecuted cases against men like him before and she knew why men broke into women's apartments. He was probably going to rape her or kill her or maybe both.

Or—another horrible thought—maybe he was one of those men she'd prosecuted. Maybe he'd gotten out on parole and he was coming after the lawyer who'd convinced a jury to put him away. He would want revenge against her.

But either way, it probably amounted to the same thing. Rape wasn't about sex. It was about power. If he wanted revenge, he'd probably rape her first and then kill her.

She almost hoped he was a random crazy. There was a chance then that he might kill her first and rape her dead body, and then she wouldn't have to live through—

But this was insane. Her phone was right there.

Her heart was beating even faster. Her breath came in small gusts. She was sweating under her armpits and where her thighs met.

Slowly, slowly, she inched her hand over the side of the air mattress, feeling for the phone.

She didn't feel anything.

Wasn't it there?

Oh, shit. She forgot. She'd plugged it in on the counter in the kitchen. It had a low battery, and she'd picked it up right before bed and marched it out to the counter and plugged it in. She could see it right now, see it on the counter, its screen glowing the time comfortingly.

She didn't have her phone.

And now, the figure at the door to her bathroom moved.

She let out a tiny strangled noise in the back of her throat. She didn't mean to do it, but it came out anyway.

The figure moved across the floor toward the bed.

She couldn't move. She was frozen. But her breath started to come in funny little wheezes, and she seemed powerless to stop that.

He reached the foot of the air mattress and peered down at her, a hulking featureless shadow. Now, she saw that he was wearing something over his face, a black ski mask that obscured his features.

Her heart leapt. If he was hiding his face, then he might let her live. She wasn't going to die.

And suddenly, with that thought, she could move again. She vaulted out of the bed and rushed for the door.

He moved fast too, lunging for her. His hands brushed her waist, her hips.

She kicked at him.

His hands slid away.

She cried out, something like triumph, and she ran out of the room. She ran up the hallway, pumping her legs, and she burst out of the door to her apartment.

The light was on in the hallway.

She gasped.

Fuck. Her phone. Her phone was still on the counter in her kitchen. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the shadowy figure barreling after her.

But there was no one there.

Still, she wasn't going back in there. She'd find a phone somewhere. She could pound on someone's door—

Iain! Iain lived here. She'd find him, and Iain had a gun. He was a police officer, and he would—

She didn't know what floor he lived on.

She couldn't stay here. The man inside might be coming at any minute, and she needed to move. She ran down the hallway, skidding to a stop in front of the elevators. She hit the button to go down and paused there, waiting, anxious.

He appeared at the end of the hallway. In the light, she could see that he was clad in all black, from his mask to his boots. He wore a black sweater and black jeans. He was coming down the hallway for her.

Idiot, take the fucking stairs!

She ran past the elevator to the door to the stairwell, the emergency exit sign glaring out at her as the door banged closed behind her. She ran down the stairs, clutching the railing and hurling herself down. She went all the way to the bottom floor, where she tumbled out sweating and out of breath and terrified.

A woman was just coming in the front door. She looked at Elke, wide-eyed.

"Phone," said Elke, panting. "I need your phone."

The woman handed it over, looking frightened. "Are you okay?"

Elke didn't answer. She dialed 911 and held the phone to her ear, all the while keeping her eye on the stairwell, ready for the masked man to burst out at any second.

But he never did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"He must have come down the elevator and gotten away while you were coming down the stairs," said the officer who was now with Elke on the elevator in her apartment building. "We'll go up and check your apartment, though, make sure he's not there."

"Thanks," she said.

"Any idea who this guy was? What he wanted?"

"No, I really don't," she said.

"Well, he was probably trying to rob you. We'll look around and see if anything is missing. If so, you can fill out a report."

"There's nothing in the apartment to steal," she said. "I haven't even moved in. I have some clothes and an air mattress."

"No electronics? A phone? A computer?"

"Oh," she said. "Well, I guess so."

"People are desperate," said the officer. "They may have cleaned up certain streets in this city, built fancy apartments and that kind of thing, but there's still a lot of drugs going through Haven Hills. People with drug addictions, all they can think about is their next fix."

Elke supposed the guy could have been a druggie, looking for something to steal. But she didn't think so. "He didn't act that way. I think he deliberately woke me. I think he wanted me to know he was there."

"What? You didn't say this before."

They had reached her floor now. The elevator door opened and they both got out.

"Didn't I?" said Elke. "I thought I said that the toilet flushing woke me up."

"No, I don't think so," said the officer. "But it's fine. Tell me now."

"He was in my bathroom, the one off the master bathroom. He flushed the toilet and then he ran the water. I woke up, and at first I wasn't sure if the noises were coming from my own apartment, but then I realized that they were."

"And then he stood across from your bed watching you for a while."

"Yes."

"Well, it still could be a robbery. If this guy was on something or jonesing really bad, he might not have been thinking clearly. Maybe that's why he used your bathroom."

"It felt different to me. It felt menacing."

"Of course it did. You were vulnerable and in bed."

She guessed that was true, but a robbery still didn't quite ring true for her. She pointed. "This is my apartment."

"Oh, great," said the officer. He stopped and knelt down to examine her doorknob. "Looks to me like he picked the lock. I can see some faint scratches here from lock-picking tools."

"So, that's how he got in, then." She hugged herself. "Is it really that easy to pick a lock?"

He straightened, shrugging. "It's a skill, like anything else, I guess. Truth is, if someone's determined to get into your house, he's probably going to get in. Think about how hard it is for you to get inside your place if you're locked out."

Well, it was easier in a place with windows, but she saw his point. She supposed she hadn't thought of it before.

The officer drew his gun and nodded at her. "You wait out here while I sweep the place and make sure it's clear, all right?"

"All right," she said.

He opened the door and went inside.

She heard him moving around in there, going from room to room. In a few minutes, he called out to her that it was all clear and she could come in. She stepped into the apartment. It was bright inside now, all of the lights had been turned on by the officer checking it out.

The first thing she did was to cross to the kitchen, which was divided from the living room by a marble breakfast bar. Her phone was still there, plugged in. She snatched it up and then went back to the bedroom.

The officer was there, holding up her laptop. "Didn't take this."

She showed him her phone. "Or this either."

"Well, then, I'd say you were lucky," said the officer. "He didn't take anything, and he didn't hurt you."

She swallowed. "But that doesn't make any sense."

The officer set her laptop down on the air mattress. "You have any angry exes? Someone who might want to scare you or stalk you?"

"No," she said. "I mean, I suppose I do have an angry ex, but I know where he is, and this couldn't have been him."

The officer cocked his head and pointed at her. "Hey, that's right. I knew you looked familiar. You're that attorney who used to work in Gathopolis. You work for the new CRU."

"Yes," she said. She sighed. "I did have a thought that maybe this was work related. I've prosecuted a lot of criminals. Maybe they hold a grudge."

"Could be," said the officer. "Or maybe it's someone who doesn't want you investigating the Mukherjee case. It's before my time, but everyone's worked up at the department about it. They all think you're making a mistake and that those kids were guilty as sin."

"Everybody?" she said.

He patted her on the shoulder. "Maybe you should find another case."

* * *

Elke yawned as she came in to the office the next morning.

Amos was already there. He usually greeted her with a big smile. He was a bubbly guy. Sometimes, he even had donuts. But this morning, his smile seemed a little forced. "Hard to get up this morning?" he said.

"I had a hell of a night," she said. "Someone broke into my apartment."

His jaw dropped. "No!"

She nodded. "Yeah. And I filed a report and everything, but there's nothing to go on. He wore a mask, and it was dark, and I have no idea what he looked like. He didn't take anything. He didn't try to hurt me. It's really weird, like he was just there to screw with my head."

"You poor thing." Amos got up and opened his arms. "You need a hug?"

She laughed a little. "That's okay."

"Oh, come on," said Amos. "Hugs are good." He stepped closer.

She laughed more, but surrendered, letting herself become engulfed by Amos's arms. She even hugged back. He let go of her.

She smiled at him. "Thanks. You know, the officer at the scene said that it might be related to the Mukherjee case. Maybe someone's trying to scare me off of it."

"You think so?" said Amos, who wasn't smiling anymore.

"Well, I got that weird email," she said. "Which maybe isn't related, but..."

"You know something weird happened to me last night," said Amos.

"What?"

"I don't know, maybe it was all in my head, but there was this guy named Dick on the elevator, and he was just... creepy somehow."

She arched an eyebrow. "Creepy?"

"Well, he was trying to pick me up, and at first, I thought that's all it was. You know sometimes when a guy comes onto you, it's just... off somehow?"

"Sure," said Elke. She got that, although she thought Iain would probably discount it as meaningless.

"But then he said something about the case, asked me if I thought it was a good idea to be working it."

Elke made a face. "That's not good. Did you get his last name?"

"No, I didn't, and I'm way ahead of you. First thing I did was go through the directory of everyone who works in the building. Nobody named Dick, nobody named Richard. I thought if I could figure out where he worked, I could avoid him, you know? But I don't think he does work here."

Elke bit down on her lip. "That makes it even more suspicious, doesn't it? Like he came here specifically to antagonize you."

At that moment, Frankie came in, looking out of sorts as usual. She was clutching a cardboard coffee cup, but she seemed to have spilled some on her coat. "Good morning," she said. "Sorry I'm late. It was Thad's bus."

"Not a problem," said Elke. "I'm running late myself." To Frankie's credit, she hadn't brought her son into the office again, and she'd cleaned the place where Thad had written his name on the wall.

"You know, I was looking for more on Rory Gutierrez, and I'm fairly sure we're missing the last page of the transcript of her interview," said Frankie.

Elke furrowed her brow. "Really? I thought I read over that."

"Well, on the top it says that there are four pages, and we only have three. I'll show you." Frankie started to head past them, probably going for her office.

"No, that's fine," said Elke. "I can look in my file. I'll call over and see if someone can help us out with that."

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were all gathered in the conference room, including Amos.

Elke paced. "And so, when I called over there, they confirmed that there was a missing page, and that it was in their file. I asked if they could send it over, and they said they were really busy and didn't know if they'd be able to get to my request until next week."

"What?" said Frankie, putting her hands on her hips.

"So I said that I would send someone over to fetch the page," said Elke. "And to make a copy, if need be. And they said that they'd misplaced the file and they didn't know where to find it."

"But they had it to know that there was a missing page," said Amos.

"Yes, I pointed that out to them," said Elke. "They said, 'Yes, we just had it, but we can't find it now. We'll let you know when it turns up.'" She folded her arms over her chest.

"I can't believe these files aren't digitized," said Iain. "It's not as if this case was investigated before computers. That transcript was computer generated. There's a file somewhere."

"Even worse," said Elke. "They could probably email it to us, but they're deliberately blocking us." She turned to Iain. "I don't suppose that you've got any good will over there? You used to work in the police department. Could you go and smooth things over with them?"

Iain shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, I could try if you want, but honestly I'm not good at smoothing things over with people, and I'm not sure anyone in the department particularly likes me."

Elke sighed. She should have known that Iain wasn't good at making friends. "Well, we need the file, but this is bigger than that, because of what's happening to Amos and me."

"Yes, I'm confused," said Iain. "How does someone on the elevator and having your apartment broken into relate to this?"

"Well," said Elke, "the officer who took my statement last night said everyone in the department was upset about our investigation into the Mukherjee case. And thus far, they haven't been helpful. Hell, we still haven't gotten those DNA results."

"You think that a police officer is harassing you?" said Iain.

"You think I'm reaching?" said Elke.

Iain took a deep breath. "I don't know. It seems extreme. Besides, it doesn't seem right for a police officer to be essentially breaking the law."

Elke laughed softly. "Right, no police officer ever does that," she said sarcastically.

Iain raised his eyebrows. "Well, I guess you have a point. Still, aren't there other options we should be pursuing?"

"Like it's related to the real murderer," said Amos. "That was what I thought last night."

Elke nodded. "Of course, you're right. This could be because we've put pressure on our suspects."

"It's not likely to have been either Squires or Kelley," said Frankie. "They're in jail."

"They might have contact with someone on the outside," said Iain. "The fact that they're locked up works in their favor. It makes them look less guilty."

"True," said Elke. "But it could have been Wheeler or Chapman in my apartment last night. The intruder was about the right height and build for either of them."

"It was definitely a man, though?" said Frankie. "It wasn't Rory?"

"She could have hired someone," said Elke.

"Or she could have a male friend who does her favors," said Iain.

"But if they wanted to scare me off the case," said Elke, "why not do something overt, like write a message on the wall or something?"

"Could be utterly unrelated," said Iain. "Maybe the person had something to do with your own personal life. Forgive me if I'm overstepping, but your ex-husband is still connected to a network of drug dealers and other unsavory types? Maybe he sent someone to look in on you."

Elke felt her stomach turn over.

"Anyway," said Iain, "if something happens again, you should call me. I'm in the building, I can be there right away."

"Yes," said Elke. "My phone wasn't with me, and it's amazing how difficult it was to think while all of it was happening. I'll call you next time."

"Especially since we can't be sure that someone from the department isn't involved," said Iain. "We really can't trust anyone."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Elke stood at the counter in the records room. "I'm just here to see if you've found the Mukherjee file," she said.

"We did, actually," said the woman behind the counter. From her voice, Elke was pretty sure it was the same woman she'd talked to on the phone.

"Really?" Elke was surprised. "Well, that's excellent news. Maybe things aren't going as badly as I'd feared. Could I have it, please?"

"Sorry, can't," said the woman.

Things were going as badly as she'd feared. "Why not?" she said darkly.

"Well, someone else checked it out," said the woman.

Elke was going to lose it. "Someone else..." She sucked in a long breath. "You know what? Never mind. Don't you have a digital copy of these files somewhere? Can't you simply email it to us?"

"If I could have emailed it you, I would have."

"Would you? Would you really have?" Elke wasn't so sure.

"Absolutely."

"Fine. Who's checked out the file?"

"I don't have any obligation to tell you that."

"I can't see why anyone else would want the file," said Elke. "My office is investigating this case, and we need to have priority because of that. No one else is investigating the case."

"That might be true," said the woman. "But I still don't have to tell you who has the file."

Elke stared her down. "You know what I think?"

"I'm sure I don't."

"I think you've got the file back there somewhere, and you're keeping it from me because you're under some misguided impression that I'm trying to do harm to someone. You're convinced that the real killers are in jail and you think I'm going to free guilty murderers."

"Look, all I know—"

"I can assure you, I have no intention of doing that. I'm trying to find the truth of the case. That's all. The truth."

"Okay," said the woman.

"It's my job to find the truth. And so I'm not leaving until I have that file."

The woman pursed her lips.

Elke raised her eyebrows.

They stared at each other for several moments.

"I'm going to stand right here," said Elke. "Until you figure out where you stashed it, and—"

"Fine," said the woman, her voice almost a whine. "I really don't have the file. Someone did check it out."

"Who?"

"The officers who investigated the case in the first place. James Meyer and Michael Banks."

* * *

"Are you Banks and Meyer?" Elke peered around a partition on the main floor of the police department. There were partitions and desks scattered all over the place in what didn't even seem like a discernible pattern to Elke. The place was packed, and everyone seemed busy. On the other side of this partition were two desks back to back, and two men were sitting at them, both busily typing on their computers.

One looked up at her voice. "Michael Banks," he said. "Yeah, that's me. You need something?

"Actually, yes," said Elke.

"Make it quick. I'm working a serial killer case here, not a lot of time."

Elke pursed her lips. "I was told you have the Mukherjee case file."

"Haven Hills Ripper," said Banks. "Maybe you heard of him?"

Meyer looked up too. "You're the woman running that CRU business."

"I am," said Elke.

"You got some nerve, lady," said Banks. "You really going to come over here and look in our faces and tell us you think we put the wrong people away?"

Elke sighed. "Nothing's been decided. We're still investigating things."

"Look," said Meyer. "How could you possibly look at this case and come to any other conclusion?"

Elke took a deep breath. "Well, there's a number of things. Primarily, I suppose, the accused have an alibi."

"By their own admission they were home for at least an hour," said Meyer.

"With the bodies," said Banks. "Who does that?"

Elke shrugged. "They said it was dark."

"You think they wouldn't have smelled something? Besides, why didn't that tip 'em off? Why didn't they think it was weird the house was dark?"

"I think they were used to sneaking around after her parents had gone to sleep," said Elke. "It is odd that they didn't notice the blood, especially the spatter near the doorway. But I think it's possible that they didn't. And, with all due respect, I think you've hung the case on that one thing. You probably both thought it didn't feel right, and you condemned them both right then."

Meyer shook his head. "You're making it sound bad. But if you'd ever been a cop, you'd know that sometimes you trust your gut."

"Yeah, and we both had a gut feeling about this case," said Banks. "And the evidence backed us up. I mean, it's the family gun. You going to tell me some intruder knew how to get it out of the safe?"

Elke remembered defending gut feelings to Iain. Funny that she was here, on the other side of the argument now. "We think that maybe Dr. Mukherjee got it out himself, and it was taken from him somehow."

"That's stupid," said Meyer.

"That's convoluted," said Banks.

Elke licked her lips. "I'm not saying that we should never trust our gut, but I am saying that we have to look at the evidence. And besides the fact they walked past the crime scene, there isn't much in the way of evidence. Saanvi and Kevin don't even have a motive."

"There's always some reason to kill your parents," said Banks. "You only hurt the ones you love." He smiled.

"All right, well, perhaps we're wrong," said Elke. "If we are, I think we'll come to the same conclusion you have."

"You already think they're innocent," said Meyer. "Who is it you think did it instead?"

"They don't have to prove that," said Banks. "All they gotta do is find some reasonable doubt, right?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, we happen to think that a pair of thieves, who were active at the time and who executed at least two other sets of victims in their homes while they were robbing them, are more likely the killers. This fits their profile. We're simply waiting on the testing of the DNA samples."

Meyer and Banks stared at her, stony faced.

"If the DNA matches, you couldn't argue with that, could you?" she said.

They didn't reply.

"All I want to do is make a copy of one page in that file. We're missing the end of the transcript of the interview with Rory Gutierrez."

"If it's all about the thieves, why are you looking at Gutierrez?" said Banks.

"Just covering our bases," said Elke. "Listen, this isn't personal."

"The hell it's not," said Meyer.

"Just one page," said Elke. "Please."

Meyer and Banks exchanged a glance. And then Banks's shoulders slumped. He handed the file over. "Knock yourself out, lady. Whatever you want. Not like we can stop you, anyway."

* * *

When Elke got back to the office, she was greeted by the first good news she'd gotten in a while. Squires was out of solitary. Finally. She went to get Iain, and the two headed to the prison to talk to him.

When they arrived, he was already waiting for them in a conference room, his hair wetly combed against his scalp. He had an earnest look on his pasty face, and he said he was glad they were there.

Elke wasn't sure what to make of that. She sat down with Iain and she said, "Well, we have a few questions for you."

"Okay," said Squires. "But maybe I can save you some time. You're here to ask about the Mukherjee case, right?"

"That's right," said Elke.

"Well, I want to confess," said Squires. "I did it. But Alan wasn't there. It was just me. Alan had nothing to do with this. He never liked it that I killed people. Alan, he's a gentle soul. He's really not a murderer. I'm the one who does that."

"Confess?" said Elke. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Squires. "I don't know if that means I got to go to another trial or something?"

Elke was thrown for a loop. She glanced at Iain, to see if he was similarly out of sorts, but he seemed cool and collected as usual. She half-hoped that Iain would take over, start asking questions, but he was quiet.

"I guess it doesn't really matter," said Squires. "I ain't ever getting out of here anyway."

"Well, why don't we talk about the crime?" said Elke. "How did you do it?"

"I shot them on their couch," said Squires. "I didn't even much care about robbing them, to be honest. I just like killing a little too much. I don't know. There's something not right about me, I guess."

"Uh, you can't walk me through what happened?" said Elke. "What door did you come in?"

"I can't remember," said Squires. "That doesn't seem to have made an impression on me. But I do know that I brought my own gun, and then he tried to go for his. He had a safe with a gun in it. And I got that one from him, and I shot him with it. And his wife. But, you know, I don't know if I want to talk too much in detail about it right now. Truth be told, I ain't proud of what I done."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Well?" said Elke to Iain as they drove back to the office. "Aren't you pleased? You thought it was him all along."

Iain, who wasn't driving this time, but sitting in the passenger's seat of Elke's car, seemed very interested in his fingers. "You don't seem pleased."

"I guess I am," said Elke. "I mean, he's confessed. That makes it easy. And a criminal like him who's already behind bars is good for publicity. It seems like a win for us all. Next case, we can pick something less controversial."

"So, you'll just take his word for it, then?"

She glanced at him and then back at the road. "You don't believe him?"

"Do you?"

"Why won't you answer any of my questions?"

"Sorry."

Silence.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "He knew about the safe."

"I'm fairly sure that information was released to the papers," said Iain. "They said that Saanvi and Kevin got the gun out of the safe and then killed her parents."

"So... what are you saying?"

"Well, he didn't seem to know anything else about the crime," said Iain. "And his type, he's the kind who kills for the thrill of it, that's evident by the fact that he always wanted to do it, and Kelley never did. That killing was unnecessary, but Squires did it anyway. If he's a thrill killer, that business about not being proud of it is bull. He's proud, and he remembers. I've seen videos of his confessions to the other murders he committed. He kept his mouth shut for a long time on that, but once he knew that they had him and that he was going away, he really opened up. He went through all of it in detail. Every minute of the robbery, how much the victims begged for their lives, all of that. If he did this, he would remember."

"So, you're saying he didn't do it?"

"I don't know," said Iain. "It seemed so much like the profile of these two. I think we have to wait for the DNA test to come back."

"Okay," said Elke. "Okay. But if we really do have a confession here, and we're sitting on the fact we've solved the case, then that's not great."

"With the way everyone's set against Saanvi and Kevin, we'd be better with DNA evidence, wouldn't we?"

She nodded. "That's true. We would."

* * *

Elke spent the entire weekend packing up the house she'd shared with Felix. She threw nearly half of it away, and designated the rest to be given away to Goodwill. She wouldn't have nearly the space at her new place as she did here. But she didn't mind that. She liked her new place. She liked how it was all hers. She hadn't lived on her own since she was just out of college, and there was something about it that made her feel young, almost reborn.

The old house was depressing, and not only because she had to pack and clean the place, but because it reminded her of Felix and everything she'd lost.

When she was away, she didn't think of that as much.

She was beginning to realize that was what moving on was, in reality. It wasn't that the pain of something horrible went away, it was only that she thought about that something less and less.

But when she did think about it, it still hurt.

Losing Felix was always going to devastate her. But she didn't have to think about it anymore. She could focus on work and decorating her new apartment.

While packing, she thought about the case, and she hoped that it turned out that Jeremy Squires really was responsible for the murders. She was already exhausted when it came to this case, and she was ready for it to be over. When it came down to it, Squires made the most sense. He was a thrill killer. He had killed before. He had confessed. It had to be him.

Because neither Rory Gutierrez or Wheeler and Chapman made as much sense.

Rory's motive was thin, she thought. Of course, the girl didn't have an alibi and wouldn't give them a DNA sample. So that didn't look good for her.

Wheeler and Chapman could have done it, but they almost seemed too obvious. They were assholes, but they were intelligent assholes. So, it seemed like they would have realized that they had come out in public and called for Dr. Mukherjee's death. And they wouldn't have done it because they simply weren't that stupid. But she couldn't be sure. They had been younger then. Maybe they had been stupider.

She supposed that it could also be Dr. Oliver. Maybe he'd had a closer relationship with Tempest than he'd let on. Maybe he'd actually been jealous and that jealousy had twisted into some kind of rage. But he did have that alibi, and it seemed pretty airtight.

She didn't even want to think of the other option, that the killer was someone they had never even thought of. If the DNA came back negative for Squires, they were going to have to look into other similar crimes in the area and see if they couldn't tie it to someone else.

Of course, there was a final option, and that was that Saanvi and Kevin actually were guilty. If that was the case, then they'd done all of this for nothing.

She didn't have any control over any of it while she was moving out, though, so she did her best not to think too hard on it. Instead, she focused on packing up everything she could and getting herself moved out of that house.

At the end of the final day, she called her real estate agent. "I've changed my mind," she said. "I don't want to rent out my house after all."

Renting it out meant she'd still own it. It meant she'd have to come back and look at this place over and over. And every time that she did, she'd be reminded of Felix, and it would hurt again. She didn't want to hurt anymore. She wanted to be free.

"You'll lose money if you sell," said Lulu.

"I know that," said Elke. "That's okay. I want rid of this place. Price it so it sells fast, okay?"

* * *

Elke felt lighter when she went back to work, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. So, when she called everyone together in the conference room, she was almost bouncy as she asked where they were and what was going on.

"I guess we're nowhere," said Frankie. "I mean, we think it's Squires, but we're not sure. So we don't have anything definite right now."

"Well, I was thinking about all of it over the weekend," said Elke, "and I really think it's got to be Squires. None of the other options make nearly as much sense. What about you, Hudson? You feel any differently about it than you did?"

Iain shrugged. "Not really, to be honest."

"So, you still don't think it's him."

"It doesn't matter what I think," said Iain. "My opinion has no bearing on the actual truth of the case."

Elke sighed.

"Uh, guys?" said a voice from the doorway.

They all looked up.

It was Amos with an envelope. "Just got this," he said. "It's from the lab."

"DNA results?" said Elke. "Finally?"

"Looks like," said Amos, handing the envelope over.

Elke ripped it open and spread it out on the conference table. Everyone gathered around and peered down at the paper.

For several minutes, it was quiet.

"No fucking way," Elke finally said softly.

"Not him," said Frankie. "Not either of them. There are two markers, and neither of them match either Squires or Kelley."

"And they ran it against the database," said Iain, pointing at the bottom of the paper. "And it doesn't match anyone whose DNA we already have on file."

"Well, at least it's not Saanvi's or Kevin's then," said Elke, wandering over to the board and staring up at the suspects listed. "Thank goodness for small favors."

It was quiet for a minute.

"So, this DNA definitely belongs to the murderers?" said Frankie. "Could it belong to someone else?"

"Well, there was the theory that it might have belonged to movers," Iain said.

"Oh, yeah," said Elke. She had forgotten about that. "So this DNA maybe doesn't mean anything. Maybe it's still Squires."

"If it is," said Iain, "we need a lot more than his wimpy confession to pin it on him. He needs to give us the exact details of the murder."

"Well, how do we get him to do that?" said Elke.

Frankie raised a finger. "I've got an idea about that."

"Okay," said Elke. "Hit me."

* * *

Frankie slapped a copy of the DNA results down in front of Squires. "You're not a match."

"What the hell is this?" Squires peered down at the paper. Then he looked up at Frankie. "And who are you?"

"She's my associate, Frankie Hart," said Elke from the corner of the room. She hadn't bothered to sit down at the table, letting Frankie be the one who engaged with Squires.

"You didn't do it," said Frankie, sitting down across from him. "We know that. So, why'd you say you did?"

"What do you mean, you know I didn't do it?" Squires gave them a confused look. "I don't see what you're saying."

"This is DNA taken from the crime scene at the Mukherjee house," said Frankie. "It doesn't match you. You didn't do it. Why'd you say you did?"

Squires sat back in his chair. "Hell."

"Did you commit this crime or not?" said Elke. "You told us you did."

"I just didn't want anyone to find out about Lila," he said.

"Lila?" said Frankie. "Who the hell is Lila?"

"Lila is Alan's wife," said Squires. "He's devoted to her. They have a daughter together. She's grown up and on her own now, but she's still Alan's world. I couldn't take all that away from him, not after being associated with me is what got him into jail in the first place. So, I lied and said I did that crime."

"I don't get it," said Elke.

"See, I remember that murder. I remember hearing about it on the news the day after it happened. So, I remember where I was that night," said Squires.

"You weren't murdering the Mukherjees?"

"No," said Squires. "I was with Lila. We were kind of having a thing on the sly. Alan didn't know about it."

"I see," said Elke.

"When Lila got pregnant, she wanted to keep the baby."

"So, hold on, you're saying that Lila's baby was yours?" said Elke.

"Yeah, I knew it was probably my kid, because she and Alan weren't really doing it at the time."

"If Alan and his wife weren't... intimate, then wouldn't he have been suspicious?" said Frankie.

"Well, Alan's kind of dumb about that stuff," said Squires. "I love the guy, don't get me wrong, but he's not the brightest bulb in the box. She convinced him that the baby was his, and then she didn't want anything to do with me anymore." He shrugged. "Which was fine, because I don't kink that way for pregnant chicks."

Elke worked hard not to make a disgusted face.

Squires studied his knuckles. "It all worked out, you know. Then you come sniffing in here for an alibi, and I know if I give it to you, it would just kill Alan. I can't do that to the guy. You're not gonna tell him, are you?"

Elke sighed. She shook her head at Frankie. "Let's get out of here."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

On the drive back to the office, Frankie got a call from her son's after-school program, and she dropped off Elke in a rush, no explanation.

Elke went back up to the office, feeling dejected.

"Not Squires," she told Iain, who was in his office scrutinizing the DNA sheet.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," said Iain. "DNA doesn't lie."

"But maybe this DNA isn't connected to the killer," she said. "Right?"

"Maybe," said Iain. "If it is, though, it rules out Gutierrez. It's male. White male."

She snatched the sheet from him and looked at that. "Okay, you're right. So, what? That leaves us with Chapman and Wallace, then? It's them?"

"Well, we don't have their DNA," said Iain. "They've never been arrested, and they've never given a sample. So, we can't be sure."

She handed the paper back to him. "I would so love it if it were them. Really would love it. They are such jackasses, and I want them to be guilty."

"So, we get a DNA sample, then," he said. "We see if they are."

"Right," she said. "That simple." She sighed. "It's only that it's not them, is it? I mean, does the crime scene indicate that it could be them?"

Iain raised his eyebrows. "I don't know."

"Well, let's just talk it through. We know that the Mukherjees were moved, don't we?" she said.

"Yeah..." Iain got out his file and went through it until he could find the crime scene photos. He spread them out on the desk. "We know they were moved."

"What we don't know is how all that went down," she said. "Were they moved to the couch to get them out of the way?"

"Not if the killers weren't trying to rob them," said Iain. "I thought that because I thought that it was Kelley and Squires."

"Why move them to the couch, then?"

"To talk to them, maybe," said Iain.

"If it was Gutierrez, she'd want to talk to them."

"She'd want to talk to Dr. Mukherjee, anyway. Tell him off for keeping her from graduating. But it's not her. It's male DNA."

"If the DNA is even related," said Elke. "Oh, no, wait! That missing page of the transcript interviewing Gutierrez?"

"Yeah? What about it?"

"She mentioned a boyfriend in it. Maybe the boyfriend helped. Maybe it's his DNA."

"And the other set of male DNA?"

"Maybe that's a mover," said Elke.

Iain blew out a long, slow breath. "I don't know." He shook his head and got up from the desk. He paced. "At first, I was thinking that the thieves came into the house and did a sweep. When they found the victims in the house, they moved them to the living room to keep them occupied. But maybe moving them to the living room was the point all along."

"Okay," she said. "But why?"

"I..." He stopped pacing and turned to her. "Maybe to shoot them. Maybe it's that simple. Maybe they didn't want to talk or anything like that. I mean, if it's Chapman and Wheeler, this would essentially be a hate crime, wouldn't it? What are hate crimes usually like?"

"Violent?" said Elke.

"Presentational," said Iain. "They said it themselves. They said he should be strung up. Lynched. Hung and put on display. Well, sitting two people on a couch and putting bullets into their skulls? That's putting them on display."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Frankie ushered Thad back the hallway to her office.

Elke was coming out of Iain's office down the hall.

"I'm sorry," Frankie called. "I had to pick him up. He was fighting, and they said he couldn't stay. He'll keep himself busy, though, I swear. He won't be in the way."

Elke looked uncomfortable.

"Do you want me to take him home?" said Frankie. "I mean, if there's nothing else for us to do today—"

"I actually was kind of hoping you could look into Gutierrez a little more. I had a chance to look at the missing page of the transcript, and she's saying there that she wants to speed the interview up so she can get home to her boyfriend. I was hoping you could track down the boyfriend, whoever that might be."

"Okay, I can do that," said Frankie.

"With your son here?"

"I can use the computer to do research or call people on the phone. He's not going to stop me from doing that."

Elke hesitated. "He can't be here every day."

"No, I know that." Frankie lifted her chin.

"Fine," said Elke. "But keep an eye on him."

Frankie ushered Thad into her office. She sat down behind her desk, feeling bone tired. Elke didn't have any kids. Elke didn't understand. And even parents who did have kids didn't understand, because their kids weren't on the spectrum like Thad. He was a challenge. She loved him, but she didn't always understand him, and she didn't always cope well with him.

She gazed at her small son. He was a beautiful boy, and she adored him. "Why were you fighting, honey?"

Thad shrugged. "I don't like it there."

"That's not an answer to my question."

"Yes, it is."

"No, Thad, sweetheart, I asked why you were fighting. Was someone mean to you?" According to the monitor, Thad had started hitting another little boy out of nowhere, for no reason. Frankie couldn't believe that was true.

"Yeah, but that's not why," said Thad.

"I don't understand. Who was mean to you? The boy you were hitting?"

"No, I just picked him because he was littler than me, and he probably wouldn't fight back."

"Thad!" She was horrified. What a truly awful thing to say. He sounded like a tiny psychopath.

"I know it's not nice, but I figured I had to do something really bad to get kicked out of there."

Oh, now she understood. "You picked the fight on purpose?"

"Because I hate it there, and I don't want to go back. And if you make me go back, I'll do it again. I'll hit girls next time."

Frankie put her head in her hands. What was she going to do with Thad?

"Why couldn't I just come here after school?"

"Because this is not an appropriate place for kids, and you'd be in the way."

"I wouldn't be in the way," said Thad. "I could be really, really quiet. No one would even know I was here."

"No, Thad. It's out of the question. You heard what my boss just said. She said you couldn't be here every day. I'm lucky she's even letting you be here this afternoon."

Thad stuck out his lower lip.

There was a knock at Frankie's office door. She looked up to see that Iain was standing there.

"Hi," he said. "I have the missing page from the interrogation with Gutierrez. Elke left it in my office. I tried to give it to her, but she said that you were on it, so..."

"Oh, thanks." Frankie got up and went across the room to take the piece of paper from Iain. She stared at it, the words swimming in front of her. How the hell was she going to concentrate on work when she was so worried about Thad? Maybe she should have taken him home after all.

"Hi," said Thad. "What's your name?"

Iain glanced down at him. "Iain. You must be Thad."

"How'd you know my name?"

"You wrote it on the wall over there." Iain gestured with his head and eyebrows.

"Oh, yeah," said Thad. "What do you do here?"

"Thad." Frankie shook her head at him. "Don't bother Detective Hudson."

"Whoa, you're a detective?" Thad's eyes got big.

Iain laughed. "It's okay. He's not bothering me." He turned back to Thad. "I'm a detective, all right."

"You solve crimes?"

"Yup," said Iain.

"Like on TV?"

"Like on TV."

"That's really, really cool. What kind of crimes do you solve? Do you find things that are stolen or do you bring back kidnapped kids or what?"

"Murder, mostly," said Iain. "Although, now I work here with your mom, and we make sure that the crimes were solved right the first time, so it could be any crime at all."

"Huh," said Thad. "Is it hard? Do you like it? Do you always wear a suit? Are you a policeman? Why don't you wear a police uniform? Do you have a badge?"

Frankie let out a nervous laugh. "Thad, calm down." When Thad got excited about something, he didn't know when to stop. He didn't notice social cues.

But Iain just held up a hand. "It's not an easy job, but I do like it. And I usually wear suits. And yes, I'm a policeman. And I do have a badge. Would you like to see it?"

"Yes," said Thad.

Iain got it out and handed it over.

"It's so shiny," said Thad. "Hey, did you know why cops are called cops? Some people think it's because of copper badges, but that's not true."

"Really?" Iain appeared very interested. "Are you sure?"

Thad nodded, excited. He loved talking about this stuff. "I am. Totally positive. It's an Anglo-Saxon word, a verb, 'cop,' meaning 'to catch or grab or capture.' And the police were called coppers, because that's what they did. They caught people. Eventually, it got shortened to 'cop.' But it used to be really derogatory and you wouldn't say it to any police officer or you'd make them really mad. It was like a bad word."

"That's really interesting," said Iain.

"Thad," said Frankie. "Remember what we talked about?"

Thad kept going, oblivious. "Now, the thing is, the metal copper did get involved with it, but that was after the fact. See, it was so offensive to call a policeman a copper that they made it illegal in England to even say it. So the criminals started carrying around copper instead to show it to the police instead of saying it."

"Wow," said Iain. "That is so interesting."

"You don't have to humor him," said Frankie. She turned to Thad. "Remember, not everyone finds this stuff as interesting as you do."

"I do, though," said Iain. "Seriously." He grinned at Thad. "It's good to have a wide knowledge base if you're a detective. You never know what kind of situation you're going to end up in."

"Really?" said Thad, smiling.

"Yeah," said Iain.

"Can you tell me more stuff about being a detective?"

"No, he's working right now," said Frankie. "You can't bother him."

"I'm taking some documents to Amos to file right now," said Iain. "He could walk out with me, and I could tell him some stuff on the way. If it's okay with you."

"You don't mind?" said Frankie.

"Not at all," said Iain. "Thad here seems like a neat kid."

Thad grinned. "You seem like a cool adult."

Iain laughed. "Come on." He gestured and Thad hopped up to go after him.

* * *

"Wait, who are you?" said Mariah Williamson over the phone. "I talked to a guy before?"

"Yeah, that was my associate, Iain Hudson," said Frankie. She was in her office, cradling the receiver of the phone between her head and shoulder as she scribbled Mariah's name on a piece of paper. "He gave me your number. We had a couple more questions about Rory Gutierrez."

"Okay," said Mariah. "But I don't really have time to—"

"Just quickly," said Frankie. "Did Rory have a boyfriend?"

"Um, I don't know if you'd call him a boyfriend exactly, but there was a guy that hung around here sometimes."

"Do you remember his name?"

"Seth."

"Last name?"

"Uh, Green? No, that's that actor." Mariah hummed softly on the other end, thinking. "I think it was Long."

"You're not certain?"

"It was a long time ago."

"I don't suppose you have any way of contacting him?"

"Uh, no. I haven't talked to him in years. But, you know, sometimes I see him around town. I don't think he moved away or anything. Actually, I think he might work at that Mexican restaurant in town. Maybe he even owns it? I'm not sure."

"Which Mexican restaurant?"

"Del Taco. He got married a few years back, and one of my friends was invited to the wedding. She said it was a sea theme, with shells and stuff."

"So, you do know him?"

"No, not really. I mean, I guess we have some mutual friends. We all hung out back in college. Sort of. I mean, there was a large circle of people we associated with back then. But now, we're all scattered mostly."

"You think that friend might have contact information for him?"

"I don't know, maybe. But I haven't talked to her in over a year. I could send her a message on Facebook if you want?"

"No," said Frankie. "That's fine. I'll let you know if I need you to do something like that." She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone.

Well, she might have a name. She turned to her computer and tried looking him up. She found about four Seth Longs in the area, all with phone numbers.

She figured she'd just start calling them one after the other.

The first Seth Long was in his sixties and had never heard of Rory Gutierrez.

The second Seth Long was about the right age, but he had just moved to the area a year or two ago, and wasn't the one she was looking for.

When she called the third Seth Long's number, a woman answered. "Oh, Seth's my husband. What's this about?"

"I'm looking into an old murder case, and he may have some information for me if he's the right Seth Long," said Frankie.

"He's not here right now, or I'd put him on. How would we know if he's the right Seth Long?"

"Well, did he go to Haven College?"

"Yeah, but he dropped out," she said.

"Would he have been hanging out with students from the college about twenty-five years ago?"

"Maybe?"

"Did he know someone named Rory Gutierrez?"

"Wow, I have no idea," she said. "I'll ask him, though, when he gets home, and I'll have him call you either way, okay?"

"Sure," said Frankie, and left her contact information.

She called the fourth Seth Long, and another woman answered. "Yeah?"

"I'm looking for Seth Long."

"Seth's dead."

"Oh." Frankie was taken aback. "That's awful. I'm so sorry."

"Eh, good riddance to the bastard. He was a terrible man, and a terrible husband. I don't miss him."

"Okay," said Frankie as politely as she could. "Could you tell me roughly when he was born? Would he have been in his twenties or thirties in the early 1990s?"

"What? No. He just died this fall. He was twenty-five."

"Oh, okay. Not the Seth I'm looking for. Thank you for your time." Frankie hung up.

She hoped it was the third Seth Long, but she wasn't holding her breath. If he was at all involved in the crime, he probably wouldn't want to talk to her, so she didn't really expect a call back from him. She wondered if calling later in the day would be better. If he did work at that Mexican restaurant in town, though, he might work late hours.

Hmm. Maybe she should just go by the restaurant. Of course, she couldn't do that right now. She had Thad to think about. Maybe tomorrow, though. Should she try early or late? She wasn't sure. She'd maybe come in to the office tomorrow and see if she got a call back from Mr. Long. If not, she'd head out and look for him.

* * *

Amos was doing his last walk around of the office, looking to see if anyone was still there, as usual. He turned a corner and there was Iain, who gave him a salute and then headed for the door.

Amos was about to follow him out, but then he realized it was about the same time as it had been the other night when he'd run into Dick, and he didn't want to see that guy again, so he sat down at his desk and screwed around on the Internet for about fifteen minutes. Figuring that had been enough time, he got his things together and left the office.

He was doubly freaked out about Dick now that he'd heard about the guy in Elke's apartment. That was legit creepy. Amos was thinking about getting new locks put on his door. Or maybe putting them on himself? He wasn't really a handyman or anything, but he'd gotten a pretty extensive set of tools from his dad for Christmas last year, and he should maybe put them to use.

His parents knew he was gay and they were fine with it. He'd officially come out to them as a high school senior, right before the prom. His junior year, he'd taken his best friend Mindy to the prom, which had been fun and all, but his senior year, he'd developed this crazy crush on a guy name Raphael—partly because of his exotic name, and partly because he was one of a few other gay guys in his high school—and he wanted to ask Raph out to the prom, but he knew he couldn't unless he told his parents he was gay.

They hadn't been particularly surprised.

"Yes, sweetie, we sort of figured," his mother said, giving him a hug.

"Whatever makes you happy, sport," said his father, patting him on the shoulder.

It was true that his being gay was not exactly out of left field. Amos had a love for bright clothes and musical theater and had a voice that sounded like a throaty alto. He also squealed sometimes.

Okay, a lot.

Still, his father still seemed to have some idea in his head that Amos was going to morph into Chuck Norris or something. Not that there weren't gay guys who weren't pretty Chuck Norris-y. Not as many as Amos would have liked, he supposed. Not that he really dug Chuck Norris or anything, because the guy was old, and his face was—well, there was stuff going on there. But anyway, the point was, his father was always giving him these super guys' guys presents, and if Amos said anything about it, his father said that he was just trying not to cave to harmful stereotypes about gay men.

Which then made Amos feel like a walking stereotype, because he didn't have a lot of traditionally male interests. He didn't like cars or sports or building things.

He wondered if he only liked the things he liked because it was easier for him if people knew he was gay right off. It just made all the awkwardness go away. Like, sometimes, he'd get into conversations with other gay friends who said they had issues with girls getting the wrong idea and wanted to date them, and Amos never had that problem. His friends would laugh and call him something like "flaming," and Amos would laugh too.

But then he felt self-conscious about it all.

Maybe he should learn to use power tools. It would give him some depth.

Probably it would make him sexier too to other guys. Guys with power tools were totally hot.

So, yeah, anyway, he was going to change the locks on his door and maybe add like fifteen deadbolts while he was at it. Or two. Or whatever.

He left the office and shut the door behind him. He locked up the office door, turned around—

And came face to face with Dick.

"Hey," said Dick.

"Hey?" said Amos, heart stuttering in his chest.

Dick smiled. "I thought I'd come looking for you tonight. You usually are at the elevator by now. I thought maybe you were working late and that you might want some company."

Amos swallowed. "You know when I'm at the elevator?" His voice was a squeak.

Dick shrugged. "Maybe I watch you sometimes." He stepped closer to Amos.

Amos backed up and collided with the door. Hell, why was it that whenever he was around this guy, he always felt trapped?

Dick grinned. "I saw your picture in the paper when they ran that story about the new CRU unit, and I thought you were cute. But I probably would have forgotten all about you until they ran that story about the Mukherjee case. And then..." He lifted his finger. "I remembered you. And, uh, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since."

Amos yanked his phone out of his pocket. "Look, you need to back off," he said, but his voice was still squeaky.

Dick chuckled. "Playing hard to get, huh? I like that."

"No, I'm serious. I don't know who it is that you're involved with—if it's the police department or Rory Gutierrez or Joseph Chapman and Zachary Wheeler or even Joshua Oliver. But you're not scaring us off this case. We're going to find the truth. So, just back off." He brandished his phone. "If you don't, I'm going to call the police."

Dick let out another laugh, but this one was more like a delighted giggle, like a child who'd just received the toy he'd been asking for at Christmas. "Oh, you're really adorable when you're scared, Amos."

"Back off." Amos tried to draw the unlock pattern on his cell phone, but he messed it up. His fingers were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

Dick leaned in close, bracing an arm against the door and looking at Amos's lips. His voice got low and rough. "Very, very adorable. Even a little sexy."

Amos shoved Dick. Put his hands in the middle of the other man's chest and pushed as hard as he could. He dropped his phone in the process.

Dick stumbled backwards. "What the hell was that?"

Amos reached down to get his phone.

Dick swiped it up off the floor. "Why'd you push me like that? I thought we had a connection."

"No," said Amos, who was strangely out of breath, as if he'd been running a marathon, even though all he'd done was shove the guy. "We don't. Give me back my phone."

"Give me back my phone," mimicked Dick in a high pitched voice. He laughed. And then suddenly, he stopped laughing. His face went blank and empty, and that was somehow more terrifying than when he was mocking Amos. "Fetch, pretty boy," he said, and tossed the phone down the hallway.

Amos hesitated for a second, and then he made a mad dash down the hallway to get the phone.

When he picked it up, he looked back down the hallway.

Dick was gone.

Amos clutched his phone, shaking from head to toe. This was not cool. This was incredibly not cool. He looked at his phone and then managed to get the unlock pattern drawn. He called Elke.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"There's nothing more you can do?" Elke was saying. She and Amos were down at the police station. They'd filed a formal report against Dick, but they didn't have much to tell the police. They'd given a physical description, but they didn't know his last name, and they didn't know anything else about him. He'd harrassed Amos, but he hadn't directly threatened him or anything like that.

Elke felt bad for the guy, because he was obviously freaked out, but he could only describe why he felt that way as a general idea that the guy was bad. His gut told him.

Earlier, she'd dismissed the officers' gut who had gone after Saanvi and Kevin, but she was utterly convinced by Amos's description that this Dick person was bad news. She wasn't sure what distinguished one from the other. But she supposed that when it came to putting a person away for the rest of his natural life, you should have more than a gut feeling. A lot more. That was the only thing that was fair.

"I'd suggest not leaving the office alone again," said the officer to the two of them. "And if you see him again, call us. We can intervene and get him out of your hair."

"But you can't arrest him?" said Elke.

"Not on this," said the officer. "You're a lawyer, right? So far, he hasn't broken any laws."

"He was threatening toward Amos. And he may be the person who broke into my house."

"He may be, but we can't know that," said the officer.

Elke sighed. She put her arm around Amos. "We'll make sure someone walks you out at night. And I think it would be a good idea if you didn't come in alone in the morning either."

Amos nodded. "Okay."

"I'm sorry about this," she said, leading him out of the police station. "You shouldn't have to go through this simply because of the case we're looking into. It's not fair. If you want out, I'd understand. You didn't sign on for a dangerous job."

"No, it's okay," said Amos. "I can handle it. I mean, it's like they were saying in there. He hasn't really done anything to me."

"Doesn't mean what he's doing is okay," said Elke.

"No, I know that," said Amos.

They emerged into the cold air outside. Elke hunched her shoulders under her coat. Amos tugged on a pair of gloves.

"You okay to go home?" said Elke. "You could come back to my place if you want. I mean, I'm just moving in, and I don't have the other bed set up or anything, and everything's bare bones, and I know you don't know me—"

"It's cool." Amos grinned. "I'm all right. He's never come to my house. Maybe he doesn't know where I live."

"But he knew where I lived," said Elke. "Maybe he's following us around?" She looked over her shoulder, suddenly feeling a prickle at the back of her neck. He could be watching them now.

Amos shivered. "I hope not."

"Me too," said Elke.

They parted ways and both went back to their respective apartments. When Elke got home, she barricaded the door with boxes of stuff. Three boxes deep. "Get past that," she muttered.

* * *

"Hi there, Harley," Iain said into the phone. Why did I pick up? he wondered. He should get off the phone as quickly as possible. This woman ruined his life, and he let her. He needed to get away from her. He knew this, had always known it, somewhere in the center of himself. Something drew him to her, but it was the destructive side of himself. He sometimes thought the destructive side of himself was so strong because the ordered side of himself was so strong. He needed the balance to function. "Look, it's not a good time."

"What are you doing?"

"None of your business," he said.

"Oh, Iain, are you still mad at me about Otis, because I thought we were past that."

"Right, because you made me feel guilty for being distant, and so I forgot all about the fact that you're a liar."

"What?"

"You said you didn't know that it would upset me, but you hid from me the fact that he lived there when I brought you home from the drunk tank. So, you knew I'd be upset."

"Sure," she said. "But I thought you'd be more upset because you'd think he wasn't good for me or something. Not because you'd be jealous."

"Please, Harley," he said. "I need to get off the phone."

"I know it's shitty of me, but I kind of liked that you were jealous," she said. "I mean, I don't know what's wrong with me, but I seem to be attracted to that in men."

"Harley, I'm getting off the phone."

"Don't," she said. "Come over."

"No," he said. "I'm not. I have to work in the morning, and I've been half-asleep at work too many times due to your shenanigans. I need my rest tonight. Forget it."

"I only want some help. I'm changing the locks so that Otis can't get back into the house, and I thought you could—"

"Come over and do manual labor for you? No, thanks. I'm through doing you these favors."

She was quiet.

"If that's all, I'm hanging up now."

"I thought we were friends," she said.

"Your idea of a friend is someone who drops everything when you snap your fingers. Sorry, sweetheart, but the sex is good, but it's not that good." He hung up. He took a deep breath. Good. That had felt very nice.

His phone was ringing again.

It was Harley.

He silenced the ringer.

He went into the kitchen and got out a bag of microwave popcorn. He took the wrapper off.

His phone rang again.

Harley.

He silenced it again. He contemplated the popcorn. Did he really want a snack, or did he just want something to distract himself from the conversation with Harley?

A text came through. That was out of line. You shouldn't say stuff like that to me.

He read the text and then shoved his phone into his pocket.

Another text.

He told himself to ignore it, but he couldn't. He pulled out his phone.

As he was reading, another text came in. They came in a fury.

You're the only person on earth that really gets me.

I thought that meant something.

You mean something to me. You mean a lot to me.

He grimaced.

Another text. Besides, I'm the best you've ever had and you know it.

The phone rang again.

Wearily, he answered it. "Stop it, Harley."

She was crying. "Fuck you. Fuck you, Iain Hudson. You're just like all the other fucking men in my life. You want me in some box, and you don't want me to come out of it. You've got it in your head that all we do is have sex, and it's never really been about sex between us, Iain. Hell, you know all my fucking secrets and you're the only person that I trust, and you treat me like trash."

He winced. "Stop crying."

"Everyone treats me like trash. I thought Otis would be different, but he's just a tamed-down version of Dale. And I'm beginning to think you are too. You're all just versions of him. Why do I only want controlling, possessive men?"

"Hey, take that back. I'm nothing like him." He threw the popcorn on his counter.

"You are. You've got that weird obsessive thing going on."

"I'm not obsessed with you." But even as the words came out of his mouth, he wondered if it were true. "And I'm not controlling. Or possessive."

"No?"

"Okay, well, maybe a little possessive, but it's not possessive to not want to share your girlfriend."

"I didn't think I was your girlfriend."

"You're not."

"See? Controlling. You control what our relationship is. You set these boundaries, and I'm never allowed to cross them, and—"

"Screw this, Harley. I'm not doing this. I'm not coming to your place, and you can throw as many tantrums as you want—"

"I'm not throwing a tantrum."

"Don't involve me again if there's another man, okay? You do want you want, but I don't need to know about it."

"Seriously? That's your solution?"

"I'm done. I'm going to hang up again."

"You're ashamed of me, aren't you? You think I'm white trash, and you'd never let me be your real and proper girlfriend. You'd never take me out to dinner or introduce me to the people you work with. I'm your dirty little secret."

He clenched his jaw.

"You know what? Forget it," she said. "I don't know why I bother talking to you. I don't know why I bother with anything." And then she hung up.

Iain let out a sigh, and he wasn't sure if it was in relief or in worry. If she really did stop bothering with him...

It would be a good thing. Definitely good. He wanted rid of her, for sure. Of course he did.

* * *

Iain was in the office when Frankie came in the next morning early with Thad in tow. She went into her office and got something and then ushered Thad out quickly again.

She came back a bit later, by herself, and she was looking around for Elke, who still wasn't there. Neither was Amos, for that matter.

Iain stood in the hallway, wondering if he should keep his thoughts to himself. He was never sure if his ideas were welcome or not, and he felt he misunderstood social cues so badly that he muddled regular conversation a lot. He'd liked Frankie's kid a good bit, though. The little guy was pretty awesome. Iain tended to like kids, though. They were fairly straightforward, and they didn't seem to understand all the social cues either.

Of course, when he'd been a kid, he hadn't had an easy time getting along with other kids.

He cleared his throat. "I don't know why Lawrence is so weird about you having him up here."

"Probably because he wrote on the wall," said Frankie. But she smiled at him. "Thanks. I appreciate you saying that."

Iain felt good. Maybe it was okay what he'd said. "Sometimes people are afraid of kids," he said. "Maybe Lawrence is."

"No, I think it's about me," said Frankie. "She's never liked me."

"You knew her before working here?"

"We've worked opposite sides of cases before," said Frankie.

"Right," said Iain. "Well, still, she should be more understanding if you have to bring him in sometimes."

Frankie shrugged. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't know what to do with that kid. We can't find an after-school program for him to go to, and my husband and I are at our wit's end. He's got to take the afternoon off work because Thad's got nowhere else to go."

"Where was he going before yesterday?"

"He had an after-school program, but he hates it, and he sabotaged it on purpose," she said. "It was horrible what he did. He's being punished, but if he doesn't have to go back there, he thinks he wins. And I can't send him back, because they don't want him back."

Iain chewed on his lip. "You know, I went to a place once to do a presentation for kids. They had different programs. Preschools, day care, an after-school thing. It was, uh, for kids with autism?"

Frankie raised her eyebrows.

"He is, um, on the spectrum, right?" said Iain.

"Well, he's very high functioning, and we're not sure if segregating him with kids who might not be as well adjusted as he is would be a good thing."

Iain nodded. "Right." He scratched the back of his head and started to turn away. But then he stopped and looked back at her. "I don't know if you can tell, but I am too. I mean, when I was a kid, I didn't really get diagnosed, but in college, I sort of figured it out, and... I'm not saying I know what it's like to be your kid, but I do think that it's easier to be around people who understand you sometimes? I went to speak at that place because they bring in adults with autism to talk to the kids there about how they can grow up and do anything they want. So, it's not like a place where they try to limit kids or anything." He let out a breath. "Sorry, I guess it's none of my business." He turned away again.

"Hudson?" said Frankie. "Iain?"

He turned back around.

She smiled. "Thanks for that. It's good to hear your perspective. Can you give me the name of the place you're talking about?"

"Sure," he said, and he smiled too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Elke and Amos came in a little late. She'd met him in the parking lot and walked him in. He seemed grateful for the company.

"Everything go okay at your place last night?" she asked him as they entered the office.

"Sure," said Amos. "Well, I kind of messed up my door a little bit. I bought some deadbolts to put on, and I thought I could just put them on myself, but it's kind of hard to use a saw when you don't know how."

"A saw?"

"A hole saw. My dad gave it to me," said Amos. "I should have called him and asked for help, but I felt like an idiot. It looks really simple and all, but I swear, it's complicated."

"So, how badly is your door messed up?"

Amos cringed. "It's, uh..."

"Does it still lock?"

"Sure, it locks. You can kind of reach your hand through and unlock it, but—"

"Amos!" She shook her head at him. "You can't stay there until you get that fixed."

He nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course I'm right." They had reached his desk now.

He went behind it and set his coffee down.

"Listen, if you can't find anywhere else to stay, you call me, all right?" she said to him. "We might not know each other well, but we work together, and this is all happening because of work, so call me."

"What's happening?" said Frankie, who was coming back to the door in her coat, her purse slung over her shoulder.

Elke turned to her. "Where are you going?" It was probably something with her kid again. Geez. What a nightmare. On the one hand, Elke didn't want to be a bitch about her son, and she knew kids needed attention, but this was becoming an everyday thing now.

"I'm going out to look into a lead on Gutierrez's boyfriend," said Frankie.

"Oh," said Elke, feeling abashed. "Well, that's great. Good luck."

"Thanks," said Frankie. "But what's going on with Amos?"

"Oh, right. That weird Dick guy was waiting for him outside the office last night. He was incredibly creepy."

"No," said Frankie. "You've got to report that jerk."

"We did," said Amos. "But I don't know if it did any good."

Frankie turned back to Elke. "You haven't had any more problems at your place, have you?"

Elke shook her head. "Seems to be done with me for now."

"You think it's related to the case?" said Frankie.

"He said something about the Mukherjee case," said Amos.

"Did he threaten you? Tell you to back off of it?" Frankie asked.

"He was really vague," said Amos. "Almost as if he was trying really hard not to say anything incriminating, but still trying to really mess with my head."

"Ugh," said Frankie. "This is so scary. Why is he targeting you guys?"

Amos shook his head.

Elke shrugged. Then she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I hope he wouldn't go after you. You have a family."

Frankie looked unsettled.

Elke sighed. "We need to unravel this case. You get out there and find out what you can about Gutierrez. I'm going to see if Hudson's up for going to see Wheeler and Chapman today."

"On it," said Frankie, and she was out the door.

Elke said goodbye to Amos and went back to her office to get settled in. Once she'd checked her email and finished her coffee, she wandered over to Iain's office.

He was looking down at the crime scene photos of the bruises, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

She knocked on the door.

He didn't look up. "Yes?"

"Good morning, Hudson."

Still didn't look up. "Morning."

Okay, fine. What should she expect from the guy? "I was thinking that we could go to talk to Wheeler and Chapman today."

"Why?" He shuffled the photos. Still didn't look at her. "That's not going to get us anywhere. They've both already told us that they didn't do it, and they say they have an alibi, so what do we think we'll get from them?"

"DNA samples?"

"They said no to that too," he said.

"Well, we could put pressure on them," she said.

"How?"

She wasn't sure. "I don't know. I... What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out these bruises." He looked up at her then. "I think these are the key to the entire case."

"Maybe I'll go see Wheeler and Chapman on my own."

He looked back at the photos. "No, don't do that. If they actually are the killers, you could be in danger. Better to go with someone else."

"I can take care of myself."

"Sure." He looked up, and she could see that he wasn't debating the point. "But I have a gun."

"So, come with me."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. Not yet. I don't think we should approach them unless we have some other kind of evidence. If we know it's them, we can rattle them."

She folded her arms over her chest. "Who's the head of this unit? Me or you?"

"What's Frankie got on Gutierrez?"

"She went out to chase down a lead. And you didn't answer my question."

"Are you ordering me to come along? Is that it?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, forget it. Hudson, you're exasperating."

"People tell me that." He went back to the photos.

* * *

When Frankie had tried the number for the third Seth Long again that morning, his wife hadn't been nearly as friendly. She'd said that Seth had said he didn't know any Gutierrez, and that Frankie shouldn't call back.

But Frankie didn't like the woman's tone. Possibly the wife suspected Seth of lying and wasn't comfortable with that. Possibly, it was something else. But it was enough that Frankie decided to set out for Del Taco that morning. She'd specifically asked if Seth Long was at home, and his wife had said he was at work. Frankie hoped to find him.

The restaurant was decorated in bright greens and yellows, with sombreros on the walls. When Frankie stepped inside, she was greeted by the sound of classical guitars and Spanish singing. She'd been here once or twice, but never early, although she'd seen the breakfast menu on the back of the regular menu. It looked a lot like the regular menu, only with eggs and bacon inserted into burritos and enchiladas and nachos.

The host was a man in a black shirt with a silver tie. He was a little overweight and his thinning hair was slicked back against his skull. "Just one?" he said, getting a menu out of a stack on his podium.

"Actually," said Frankie, "I'm not here to eat. I'm looking for Seth Long. Does he work here?"

"He does," said the host. "He's one of the managers."

"Could you take me to him or see if he'll come to me?"

"Uh, I could try. Who should I say wants to see him?"

"I'm with the District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit," said Frankie.

The man furrowed his brow. "Is he in trouble?"

"No, I just want to talk to him." She smiled.

"Huh." The man in the silver tie disappeared into the restaurant.

Frankie waited.

Minutes passed.

She took off her coat and draped it over her arm.

More minutes ticked by.

She sat down on a chair that was set up near the entrance for overflow seating in case there was a wait for a table.

The man in the silver tie came back.

She stood up.

"He says he'll be out in a minute," said the man.

She sat back down.

Time passed.

A couple came in and the man took them to get seated.

Frankie got up again. This was ridiculous. Seth Long was avoiding her. She was going to march into the restaurant and find him right now. She turned to do just that.

But a man was approaching her. He was also wearing a black shirt and a silver tie, but he was a few years younger than the other man and he had broad shoulders. Peeking out at the bottom of his sleeves she saw tattoos that protruded onto his wrists. Some also climbed up his neck.

"Seth Long?" she said.

"Did Andrea tell you I worked here?"

"No. Who's Andrea?"

"My wife. If she didn't, how'd you know?"

"Is it important?"

He sighed. Then he gestured. "If we go through here, we can go in the storage room. It'll be a better place to talk."

"Okay, sure," she said.

He led the way past empty booths and then back a hallway. They went through a door marked Employees Only. Inside, there were shelves lined with big cans of tomatoes, bags of dried beans, and stacks of tortillas in plastic. He closed the door behind them and stood in front of it, surveying her, waiting.

"Um, well, I guess your wife did tell you I was looking for you."

"Rory Gutierrez, yeah," he said. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. It's not a part of my life I particularly want associated with my wife, if you know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean."

He gave her a funny look. "What is this all about? Because, okay, I did some things back then that I'm not proud of, but I'm through with all that now. I'm married. I got two kids. I run this restaurant. I'm not that guy anymore."

"What guy?"

"What is this about?"

She took a deep breath. "Well, it's about the Mukherjee murders."

"Oh," he said, looking relieved. "This isn't about meth?"

"Meth?" She was thrown.

"Are you a cop?"

"I'm a lawyer," she said.

He pressed his lips together.

"I'm not interested in drugs, if that's what you're asking. I'm investigating a murder case."

"Right, well, I didn't have anything to do with that."

"But Rory Gutierrez might have."

"Nah." He shook his head. "That girl had problems. I mean, big problems, but she, uh, she wouldn't have done anything like that."

"You dated her?"

He laughed a little. "I wouldn't really call it that."

"What would you call it?"

"Maybe we hooked up now and then, I don't know. There were people then, girls, lots of girls." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I kind of... used to sell... things."

"Meth?"

"Amongst other things, yeah. But I don't do that anymore, and I was never anything big time. I didn't make a lot of money doing it, but it was good to pay the bills for a while, because I was too fucked up all the time to hold down another job. I don't know if you've ever done meth?"

"Uh, no." She laughed a little.

"Well, it's not like getting drunk. It's like, you take some, and a day passes, and then you still have some, so you take more, and then another day passes, and before you know it, it might be a week when you factor in the comedown. So, uh, it's not exactly easy to remain gainfully employed when you have a meth habit."

"I see," she said.

"Anyway, Rory bought stuff from me sometimes. Uh, she wasn't my girlfriend or anything, but I do remember that we hung out a bit for a while."

"Hmm," said Frankie, tapping her lip. "So, Rory had a bad drug habit?"

"Yeah," said Seth.

"Thanks," said Frankie. "This was helpful. This was really helpful."

"Wait, that's it? That's all you wanted?"

"Yeah," she said. "If I have more questions, I'll find you." She cocked her head. "Oh, would you be willing to give us a DNA sample?"

"For what?"

"To rule you out in the murder, of course."

"Are you kidding? Why would I have killed them?"

She got the kit out. "I just swab inside your cheek." She raised her eyebrows. "If you didn't commit the murder, you've got nothing to worry about."

He looked annoyed, but he nodded. "Fine, fine. You can have a sample."

* * *

"So, anyway, I think that maybe the drug thing is what Rory was hiding," said Frankie. She was in Elke's office, reporting on what she'd found out about Rory from Seth.

"Huh," said Elke. "Could be. Or it could be that the drugs made her so desperate, she went after the Mukherjees."

"You mean for money?"

"I don't know. If this Seth guy was part of it, then we really can't be sure what it was all about. Maybe they were out of their minds on drugs, and they decided that they needed to go and scare the Mukherjees. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Well, I got his DNA, and I dropped it off at the lab, so if it's him, we'll know soon."

"Great," said Elke.

"I did try to talk to her," said Frankie, "but she wasn't in her office. I can check back later if you want."

"Sure, sounds good."

Frankie started for the door. "Anything else?"

"Actually, hold on a second, Hart," said Elke.

Frankie paused.

"I, um, I'm sorry if I've been too hard on you about your son?"

"Oh, no, it's fine," said Frankie. "This is no place for him. You're right."

"Maybe not, but it's obviously not easy for you trying to take care of him and juggle work here."

"Actually, I've just called a place that Hudson recommended, and I think it's going to work out fine."

"Hudson had something to say about this?"

Frankie laughed. "Actually, yeah."

Elke considered. "Well, what do you know? I wouldn't think he'd know much about kids."

"He was actually pretty good with him," said Frankie.

"There's more to him than we know," said Elke, also grinning.

"Yeah."

The two women smiled at each other for several moments. And then it started to feel awkward. Frankie looked away.

"Well," said Elke.

"Yeah," said Frankie. "I'm going to..." She gestured behind herself.

"Oh, of course," said Elke. "Don't let me keep you."

They exchanged another smile, this one a bit uncomfortable, and then Frankie fled.

* * *

Iain was sick of staring at the stupid pictures of the bruises. He wasn't getting anywhere with them. His mind was drawing a complete blank. He kept thinking of stupid things like maybe they had matching pairs of exercise equipment that somehow made bruises under their chins. He couldn't think of any exercise equipment that would actually do that, of course, and if that actually were it, then the bruises would have nothing to do with the case.

He shoved the photos back into the file and got up from his desk. He started to pace. He tried to clear his mind. Sometimes, when he needed to understand something, it was better not to think of anything. It was better to simply quiet his mind and let meaningless things trickle through it. From that meaningless stream, he sometimes got exactly what he was looking for.

But it wasn't easy to clear his mind.

Thoughts kept popping up. He worried that he'd left his refrigerator door open, and he remembered that he needed to put coffee on his grocery list.

And then his cell rang.

Groaning, he went over to check who was calling.

Harley.

Oh, God, not at work.

But it wasn't like he was actually busy at the moment. He flopped back into his desk chair and answered the phone.

"So, I know you can't come over and help me change my locks," she said. "You made that clear the other night."

"I'm working right now, Harley."

"Okay, fine. But could I maybe borrow some tools?" she said.

"Are you kidding me?"

"It won't bother you. If you're at work, you won't even have to see me. I'll let myself into your place and get them myself. You just have to tell me where they are."

"I don't know about this, Harley. You're going to take my tools? When are you going to bring them back?"

"Whenever you want."

"Tomorrow?"

"Oh, my God, you are such a control freak. Can't even handle letting go of a couple screwdrivers."

"Don't you have screwdrivers yourself?"

"Well, no, not really, because Otis took them. They were his. I mean, I think some of them were mine, but they were all mixed together, and he took all the tools. Which is exactly why I need the locks changed, so he can't come over and take more of my stuff."

He shut his eyes.

"I promise to take really good care of them."

Oh, man, he hadn't even considered the idea she could damage his stuff.

"Just say yes. Please?"

He groaned. "Okay, fine, but you bring them back the minute I want them back, and if they're so much as scratched, I'm going to be pissed."

"They won't be, I promise."

"Better not be."

"Where are the tools?"

"They're in the—"

Harley screamed.

"Harley, what happened? Did you see a spider or something?"

Harley's scream was getting further and further away, as if she was moving from the phone. "Let go of me!" came her distant voice. "Stop it, you bastard."

"Harley?" He sat up straight. What the hell was going on?

But then the phone cut off, and he couldn't hear anything else.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Iain stalked into Elke's office. "I've got an emergency. I need to leave."

"Okay," she said. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. He didn't want to get into it. On the one hand, he was terrified, because he didn't want anything to happen to Harley. But at the back of his brain, he wasn't sure if this wasn't one of her little mind games, if she was setting him up for something. He didn't trust her.

"You look white as a sheet, Hudson. Talk to me."

"No, I just need to go. Is it okay?"

"Of course, but maybe I can help."

"No, I don't think so." He turned his back and started out of the office.

She came after him. "Is someone hurt?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe."

"Who?"

"A girl I sort of... see," he said, moving faster up the hallway.

"Okay, what happened?"

"She was on the phone with me, and she started screaming." He turned to look at her. "I need to go."

"Maybe we should call the police," said Elke. "This could be related to what's going on with Amos and me."

He hadn't thought of that. He rubbed his forehead. "Hell, you don't think so, do you?"

"Well, this morning, Hart went out and interviewed Rory's ex-boyfriend, who apparently was a drug dealer in his former life. If he did it, and he knows that we're closing in on him, maybe he's escalating his behavior to try to get us off the case."

Frankie poked her head out of the door of her office. "Sorry, couldn't help but overhear. Seth Long gave us a DNA sample. If he was guilty, he'd probably have resisted, right?"

"Or he felt pressured," said Iain. "And he's desperate right now, so he's escalating. This guy really could have Harley." Damn. He was terrified now.

Amos appeared at the end of the hallway. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Call the police," said Elke.

"No," said Iain.

"No?" said Elke.

"Look, Harley maybe has a history with the local police," he said. "Once they find out it's her, they're not going to help."

"Why not?" said Frankie.

"It has to do with her abusive ex-husband ending up dead. It's a long story," said Iain.

Elke looked confused. "Okay, but she could be in danger right now, and you need to make sure that she's safe."

"Maybe I can take care of it on my own," said Iain. "If I go now, and I look for her—"

"Hudson—"

"No," he said. "Look, if this is about the case, the guy is going to get in touch with me one way or the other. He's going to try to manipulate me using Harley. If that happens, and I'm in over my head, then I'll be in touch, and then you call the police, okay? But maybe... maybe it's not even related." Maybe it's a big prank, he thought hopefully. Maybe Harley had done all this to scare him, teach him a lesson for the other night. Please be that.

He didn't wait for anyone else to argue with him. While they were talking about this, they were losing time, and he couldn't afford that. He tore out of the office instead. Waiting for the elevator took too long. He dashed down the stairs. His car was parked at his apartment, so he ran the block to the building, and then rushed across the parking lot to his car. He drove out of there like a bat out of hell.

He figured that it was most likely that Harley had called him from her place, so he went there first.

It took a while to drive from town to the outskirts, even though he went faster than the speed limit and ran stop signs. If he got pulled over, he'd show his badge, he reasoned. He just kept going as quickly as he could.

Finally, he pulled into the tree-lined cul-de-sac where Harley lived. The house looked fine. The doors were closed. The porch was tidy. No outward sign of anything wrong.

He got out of his car and sprinted up to the garage. He peered in the window. Harley's car was gone.

Damn, maybe that meant she hadn't been here when she called. Maybe she'd already been at his place. He kicked himself. If so, he'd been there, downstairs getting his car.

He tried her front door. It was locked. He had a key on his key ring. He fumbled for it and let himself in.

Inside, it was quiet. He checked the living room. No one there. It was a little messy, the coffee table cluttered with mugs and cups and the remains of frozen dinners. He went into the kitchen. Dirty dishes in the sink. Counters covered in a fine dust of flour. Refrigerator humming away. No one was there.

Damn it. She had been at his place, hadn't she? That sounded like her. She'd let herself in, looking for tools, and hadn't been able to find them, so she'd called him. She would have never called to ask permission to take something from his place. He should have known better than to think that she would. Of course she had been at his place. That was probably how the bastard had found her. Dick, if that was even his real name, had probably been watching his place. Hell, what was he going to do?

He checked upstairs anyway.

No one was there, and there was no sign that anything was wrong.

He rushed back down the stairs and out the front door and back to his car.

He sped through town again, heading for his apartment.

He seemed to get stuck at every single red light he came to. He clutched the steering wheel, swearing at each traffic light, willing it to turn green. He had been so close at the office. His apartment was a block away from the office. He could gone have right up the stairs and maybe he would have been able to stop all of this. Maybe he would have found them.

But by now, they were probably gone. Who knows where that Dick guy had taken her? They didn't know anything about him.

He went up to his place, anyway.

She'd been there. His door was unlocked, and there were signs of a struggle in his living room. She'd put up a fight, yanking the throw blankets off his couch, knocking over his coffee table and a potted plant. There was no blood, though, so that was a good sign.

And, still, it could be... staged. Maybe she'd made it look like this had happened just to get under his skin.

But he couldn't take the chance. No, he had to err on the side of caution here. He'd try to cover both his bases, though. He'd have Elke call it in, and tell the police what was going on. But he'd go to Bob's Bar and Grill, where she liked to hang out and see if she was there having a drink and laughing at him for freaking out.

He got out his phone and dialed.

But before he could hit the send button, his phone rang in his hands.

He didn't recognize the number.

This was it. This was the communication from Dick. He'd tell him that he needed to get them to back off the Mukherjee case if he ever wanted to see Harley alive again. What the hell was Iain going to do when he said that?

He was going to go along with it, of course. Harley's safety first, then the case. He couldn't afford to think differently.

"Hello?" said Iain.

"Hi there, Iain," said the voice on the other end. It sounded familiar.

"Otis?" said Iain.

"Yeah, it's me. Harley's with me."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Hell, she was with Otis?

He'd thought this was about the case, but he'd been wrong. This was Otis being an asshole. He took a shuddering breath and turned in a circle in the middle of his living room. "Okay, Otis, what do you want?"

"I want Harley back as my girl. I want to move back into my house."

"You think doing this is the best way to get that?"

"I think I should get what is mine. And she's mine."

"She doesn't belong to anyone, Otis. You tell me where you are. Where are you?"

"That doesn't matter, does it?" said Otis. "I just want to know who the hell you think you are, you jackass. You think you can threaten me? Because I've left notes that if anything happens to me, you're the one who did it. Just like you killed her husband."

Iain gritted his teeth, flashing on moving Dale's body in Harley's living room. Move the wall hanging too. It's got the blood spatter. He shook himself. "You don't know shit about that, and don't act like you do. Where is Harley?"

"How the hell should I know?"

Iain stopped, froze. Why would Otis say that? "She's not... You said that she was with you."

"Yeah, I said that because she's with me, like she's my girl. She's not with you, she's with me."

"What the fuck? You mean you didn't take her?"

"Take her? What do you mean?"

Iain felt like he was losing his mind. "Are you screwing with me?" His voice came out throaty and strained. "You really don't have her?"

"Is she missing or something? Is she okay?"

"Fuck you." Iain hung up the phone. Okay, hell, where was Harley?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Iain sprinted across the parking lot back to his car. He had been planning on doing something before Otis called him and threw him for a loop. What was it?

His phone was ringing.

He slowed to take it out and look at it. It was Otis again. Maybe it had been a bluff, and Otis was going to pony up the information on what he'd done with Harley. He answered. "Yeah?"

"What's going on with Harley?'

"I don't have time for this."

"Is she hurt? Is she in danger? Is it because of you, because you're a cop? You asshole."

Iain hung up again. His head was starting to throb. He felt a little dizzy. He was the center pole of a merry-go-round, and the world was spinning past him too fast. He didn't know what to do.

He gripped his phone, stared around the parking lot.

Where was his car?

He couldn't remember where he'd parked it.

Gah.

Okay, this shouldn't be hard. He always parked in the same spot in the parking lot. Not because the spots were assigned or anything, but because he was a creature of habit, and he liked his spot. He knew where that spot was. It was in front of a big bush—in the spring it got white blossoms on it, but now it was bare branches—and it was right over...

He turned. But his car wasn't there.

No, right, he hadn't parked there, because he'd been in a rush, and he'd taken the first space that he could, which was...

Crap, he couldn't remember.

His head pounded.

He looked down at his phone in his hands. He had been going to call someone.

Elke. So she could call the police, because he needed help to find Harley. Right. He started to dial, but then—out of the corner of his eye—he spotted his car.

And there was movement in the window.

What?

Someone was in his car.

Usually he locked his car, but maybe he'd forgotten on his way up. He did it with the clicker on his keychain, and maybe he'd forgotten to hit the button when he'd gotten out of the car. He'd been in a rush after all.

He started toward the car. He put his phone in his pocket and got out his gun instead. He disengaged the safety and made sure it was ready to fire.

His head pulsed bright, hot pain through his head, down his neck, and into his shoulders. His heart sped up. He moved slowly and deliberately, and his focus narrowed in on the car.

Five steps away.

Whatever was in there was thrashing, moving too fast to get an idea of what or who it was.

Four steps away.

Flashes of white against the driver's side window.

Three steps away.

His palms slick against the grip of the gun. What if he dropped it?

Two steps away.

No, he wasn't going to drop it. In fact, he raised it, his finger tensing against the trigger.

One step.

Now, one hand holding the gun, one hand on the door.

Now, a face against the window, a muffled yell.

Now, he recognized her.

He yanked open the door, and Harley tumbled into his arms. She had a white handkerchief in her mouth. It was tied at the back of her head. Her hands and her feet were tied too. She flailed against him, yelling behind her gag.

His legs buckled.

They both went down on the pavement.

He set down the gun. He got out the pocket knife he always carried and he cut through the handkerchief.

Harley stopped yelling. She gazed at him with wide, scared eyes. She was crying.

He got the gag out.

She let out a loud sob.

He shut his eyes. "You're okay."

"Iain!" Her voice was distorted by her tears.

"You're okay." He stroked the back of her hair. He wasn't sure if he was soothing her or him.

* * *

Iain was sitting on his couch, and he had his arm around Harley, who was clinging to him.

Elke, Frankie, and Amos were all in the living room too. Elke and Frankie sat opposite them on a love seat. Amos sat in a recliner.

Iain squeezed Harley's shoulder. "Tell them what you told me."

"Again?" said Harley, peering up at him. She hiccuped. She'd only recently stopped crying.

He nodded. "Let them hear it."

Harley sniffed and then looked out at the others. "He said that I had to deliver a message, and that message was that you had already—" Her breath hitched, an involuntary remainder from so much crying. "Sorry."

"It's okay," said Iain, kissing her forehead.

"Already found the murderers and to stop sticking your noses where they don't belong," she finished.

"He said that?" said Elke.

Harley nodded. "Yes. He made me memorize it."

"What did he look like?" said Amos. "Did he have dark hair?"

"He wore a mask," said Harley. "Like one of those ski masks? I could only see his eyes and his mouth." She furrowed her brow, thinking. "He was white, though. He was Caucasian, I'm sure of it."

Iain shook his head at her. "Don't worry about that. You can't be sure what you saw. You could have seen anything."

"No, I'm positive," said Harley, sitting up straight and pushing out of his arms.

"Okay, good," said Elke. "But it's not much to go on. It's just like when he broke into my house. He wore a mask."

"Which begs the question, why is he letting me see his face?" said Amos, looking disturbed.

"That's strange," said Elke. She looked at Iain. "What do you think?"

Iain didn't know. "Maybe they're not the same person?"

"You don't think so?" said Amos.

"I'm just throwing things out," said Iain.

"Because you know what I think?" said Amos. "I think he's planning on killing me."

"Maybe," said Iain, "Dick is actually an associate of the killers, someone we don't know, but we'd recognize the guy who took Harley or the one who took Elke—he's one of our suspects. So he wears a mask, but—"

"I wouldn't have recognized him," said Harley.

"We could have shown you pictures," said Iain. "You could have identified him from there."

"Well, Seth Long didn't know he was a suspect when someone broke into my place," said Elke. "So that tends to point toward Wheeler and Chapman."

"But Dick is gay," said Amos, "and I don't think Wheeler and Chapman would associate with a gay guy."

"Maybe he's only acting gay," said Iain.

"You know who did know he was a suspect when your house got broken into?" said Amos. "Dr. Joshua Oliver, that's who."

"Dr. Oliver has an alibi," said Frankie.

"Well, so do Wheeler and Chapman," said Amos.

"Not really," said Elke. "The rally was over by 10:00."

"I still think it's stupid to discount him," said Amos. "Dr. Oliver had an affair with Tempest. He has the best motive of anyone. He got fed up with Tempest not leaving her husband and offed them both. And now, he's sending Dick after me, and he's going after your girlfriend and Elke, and no one's even taking him seriously as a suspect."

"He's still on the board," said Elke. "He's not eliminated. It could be him."

"We need evidence," said Iain. "Alibis mean nothing."

"Well, can we get a DNA sample from Dr. Oliver, then?" said Amos.

"Sure," said Elke. "I'll go talk to him myself." She turned to Iain. "And I think we have to try to get something from Wheeler and Chapman at this point. Hart and I will go together if you really think it's not safe for me to go alone."

Iain shook his head. "I should come."

"You need to stay here with... um, Hallie?" said Elke.

"Harley," corrected Harley. She turned to him. "You're leaving me?"

Iain put his arm around her again. Frankly, he didn't want to let her out of his sight at the moment.

"Maybe we could just wait until tomorrow?" said Frankie. "We can all calm down, get a good night's rest, and then Amos and I can go see Dr. Oliver, and you can go see Wheeler and Chapman."

"I think that's a good idea," said Elke.

* * *

Elke felt antsy the rest of the day, and she thought she was going to need something to occupy her once she got home. So, she decided that she'd make a big, complicated dinner for herself that night. She decided to make spinach pie, which took multiple steps. It required brushing individual sheets of filo dough with butter, which took ages. It would be enough to occupy her for most of the evening.

Sure, she'd never made the dish for just one person, and sure, it used to be one of Felix's favorites, so it wasn't going to be emotionally easy, exactly, but she figured she might as well get all that over with. She couldn't avoid every dish she'd ever cooked for the man, and she wasn't going to stop eating food just because Felix had liked it. That was ridiculous.

So, after work, she headed to the grocery store to look for the ingredients she needed. She had made the dish so many times that she didn't even have to write them down. She decided on fresh spinach because it would take longer to cook. She wanted to waste as much time as possible. In the produce section, she selected several bunches of spinach. She got the kind she'd have to separate and wash. That would take up even more time. Perfect.

Then she went over to the bin of onions. Did she want a white onion or a red onion? She liked the look of a red onion, but no one would see the onions underneath all the filo dough. In fact, no one was going to see this except her, so she might as well get the cheapest onion, which was a yellow one.

"Ms. Lawrence?"

Elke looked up, yellow onion in hand.

A woman stood in front of her. She had dusky skin and she was wearing a red sari under her winter coat. "It is you."

"Um, excuse me? If we've met, I'm afraid I don't remember."

"My name is Sai Mukherjee," said the woman. "I don't believe we have met. I'm Abeer Mukherjee's sister."

"Oh," said Elke, swallowing. "I see. How-how are you?"

Sai laughed bitterly. "That's what you have to say to me? How do you think I am?"

Elke decided not to answer that question. She remembered that Saanvi's father's side of the family thought she was guilty, and they hadn't supported her. Sai probably wasn't pleased that they were investigating the case again.

"How could you do this?" said Sai. "Do you have any idea what your investigation is doing to my family?"

"Listen," said Elke, "have you considered the possibility that Saanvi is innocent? Wouldn't you be pleased to know that your niece wasn't responsible for the murders?"

"That brat," said Sai. "She was so spoiled, and she never took her heritage seriously. My brother let her run wild. She was immoral and irresponsible. She and that boyfriend of hers are guilty. We've always known they were guilty."

"Well, if evidence came to light—"

"She didn't come to her father's funeral, did you know that?"

"Well, I think she was in police custody right after the murders and then was arrested, so I'm not sure she would have had the chance."

"This was right after his death, before the arrest."

"She was being questioned by the police even before. She was a person of interest—"

"Don't defend that bitch."

Elke opened her mouth to say something, and then she shut it again. Why was she arguing with this woman? She was clearly in pain. She was too emotional to think rationally or change her mind. Elke was wasting her breath. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry enough to leave well enough alone and keep your nose out of where it doesn't belong?"

Elke stiffened. "What did you say?"

Sai pointed at her. "If you let a murderer out of jail, that will be on your conscience for your whole life. That will be a stain on you that you will carry into the next life."

"Excuse me," said Elke. "I have to go."

"You're walking away from me?"

"I'm very sorry for your loss. I can hardly imagine how painful it must be to lose a brother," said Elke. "And to know that he was violently taken from this world, that is even worse. It must be excruciating, and I feel for you. I really do. But I don't know that there's any point in continuing this conversation." She backed her cart away from the woman.

"Walk away like a coward, then," said Sai.

Elke decided not to respond. She angled her cart down the aisle and fled.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

"Well," said Elke, assembling her groceries on the counter as she spoke into her phone. She had put her earphones and mike on so as to be hands free. "I think we've possibly got another party who might be interested in derailing us from the case."

"Who?" said Iain on the other end.

"The Mukherjee family. Abeer's family."

"Why do you say that?"

She related what had happened to her at the store.

Iain was quiet after she was done.

"Well? What do you think?"

"I don't know," he said. "If it's someone outside of the murder, then that's essentially a separate crime. We've got enough on our plate with the crime we're trying to solve without dragging something else into the mess."

"Do you think I should say something to the police?"

"We think the police could be involved," said Iain.

"Yes, but if it's the Mukherjees, it's not the police."

He sighed. "I have a headache."

"Sorry."

"No, I've had one all day, since what happened with Harley."

"Oh, I shouldn't have called you. How is she?"

"Fine now," he said. "Shaken up. But she went home an hour ago."

"She did? She's not with you anymore?"

Iain was quiet.

"I mean, I guess that's fine. I'm just surprised is all."

"I should probably have gone with her," he said. "I should go now. I should put the new locks on her door."

"She's putting on new locks?"

A heavy sigh. "It's a long story."

"Because of what happened today?"

"No, because of something else."

None of her business, in other words. "Well, if you're good at that, maybe you can help Amos. He's trying to change his locks and having trouble. Or maybe he just wanted to add deadbolts, I don't know."

"I, um, I guess I could do that at some point." He sounded hesitant.

She sighed. "I'll let you go. I just thought I'd run that past you. See you in the morning to go talk to Wheeler and Chapman."

"Yes, in the morning."

They said goodbye, and then hung up.

Elke took off her earphones and set her phone on the counter. She gazed at the ingredients for the spinach pie. This was going to be a good bit of work. But that was good. She needed something to distract herself with.

She remembered that the last time she'd made this, Felix had helped. He would always volunteer to help if it meant that he got a spinach pie. She was loathe to make it because it was so much work, and his help was usually the only thing that convinced her.

But better not to think of Felix, even though moments like that—the two of them in the kitchen together—were the most bittersweet for her. They had been happy together, that was the hell of it. They had been happy, and he had been lying to her.

No, she wouldn't think of him. She wouldn't think of the case, and she wouldn't think of Felix.

Instead, she began rinsing spinach in the sink. She rinsed each leaf and then went hunting for her salad spinner. She hadn't unpacked it yet, which meant it was in one of the boxes marked "kitchen stuff," of which there were three. She found it in the second box, and then spun out the spinach.

It was quiet right now. Maybe she should put on some music.

Strangely, as if on cue, there was a noise. A kind of scraping, creaking noise, like a door opening.

She stiffened, looking around. Where had that noise come from?

She felt cold all over now.

She strode across the room and checked her door, making sure all the locks and deadbolts were engaged. Then she moved a bunch of boxes in front of the door to make a barricade again.

There.

That was safe enough.

She went back to the kitchen. She got out her cutting board and chopped up the onion. Then she got out two skillets. In one skillet, she started to cook the onions. In the other, she put in some Italian sausage to brown.

Now to start on that filo dough. She needed to melt butter first, so she went to the refrigerator.

Hand on the fridge handle, she had another thought. She wondered if the noise hadn't come from outside her apartment.

What if someone was in her apartment already? She'd been gone all day, and she couldn't barricade the door when she was gone. The person who'd gotten in before had already shown himself adept at picking locks. He could have gotten in when she was away, and he could be hiding somewhere.

She swallowed.

She looked around the kitchen for a weapon of some kind.

There. Knife. She slid her biggest, scariest knife out of the knife block on her counter. Brandishing it like a killer in a slasher movie, she crept out of the kitchen.

She surveyed the living room. There was a closet down by the door. He could be hiding there. Everything else was out in the open.

She tiptoed over to it, not wanting to let him know she was coming.

She put her hand on the door to the closet. The door was on a track, and it slid open, folding at the same time. She decided to open the door as quickly as possible. Surprise him.

She jerked it open.

Nothing in there.

She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

Okay, maybe she was being silly. Maybe there was no one in her apartment. That noise? It could have been anything.

But she couldn't deny what had happened today. Iain's girlfriend had been captured and terrorized. She hadn't been hurt, but maybe the guy was escalating toward that. Scaring them hadn't worked, maybe now he would hurt them.

She tightened her grip on the knife and turned away from the closet.

Then, nervous, she turned back. Just to be sure, she ruffled through the two coats that were hanging inside. She nudged the boxes on the floor with her foot. Empty. Really and truly empty.

Okay. Okay.

Calm down, Elke, she told herself.

But her pulse was starting to race.

She crept across the living room to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. There were two back there, one that would be her office/exercise room and the other where she slept. There was nothing in the office yet except some boxes. She never went in there.

But she did now.

She pushed the door open. It made a squeaky noise as its hinges ground against each other. Was that the sound? And had she just let the intruder know she was coming?

She winced.

She flicked on the light.

The light bulb came on and then popped out, burning out.

Right at this second you do that? she thought, the edge of hysteria starting to lap at her consciousness.

Now the room was dark, and she couldn't see anything. She could go and get another light bulb, but she'd have to get up on a chair to change it. And she could just imagine how that would go. She'd be up on the chair, unscrewing the light bulb. A shadow would move in the corner. The man would come forward, and she'd only be able to make out his eyes under the ski mask. Maybe his teeth, too, because he would be baring them as he came for her.

Something monstrous in the darkness, ready to hurt her.

She slammed the door to the office, letting out a whimper.

From the kitchen, the sounds of sizzling.

Hell, she was burning her spinach pie.

She slid down the wall, sobbing, clutching the knife. Now, she was facing her bathroom, the guest bathroom, and it was dark inside.

Suddenly, something burst out of the bathroom door.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

She struggled to her feet, trying to bring up the knife.

It was a figure clad in black, wearing a ski mask.

Her fingers fumbled, she lost purchase. The knife fell, thudding softly into the carpet.

The masked man was on top of her. He tackled her and she felt backwards onto the floor.

He put a hand on her neck, holding her in place.

She screamed.

"Let it be," he rasped. "Stop investigating the case."

She reached up with one hand and grasped at his mask.

He punched her in the stomach.

She grunted, letting go of him.

He leaped off of her and ran.

She got to her feet, feeling for the knife on the floor. She ran after him, bringing the knife along.

He was in the living room, throwing boxes out of the way to get to the door.

"Who are you?" she yelled.

He didn't even look at her.

She ran for him, slashing the air with the knife.

He toppled the final box and began to work at the locks.

She caught up to him, still slashing the air.

He ducked out of the way, feeling for the doorknob.

She advanced.

The door opened.

He fell out in to the hallway.

"Who are you?" she yelled again.

He got to his feet and ran.

She watched him go and then tugged the door closed. Her throat hurt.

Smoke was pouring out of her kitchen.

She set down the knife and buried her head in her hands for a second. Then she rushed into the kitchen and turned off all of the burners on the stove. The onions were black. The sausage was burnt and spatters of grease had gone all over the surface of her stove and the back splash behind it.

Damn.

There was her phone, sitting on the counter. She seized it and called the police.

* * *

"You're kidding me," said Iain when she met him in the office the next day. "He was in your apartment? Waiting there the whole time?"

She nodded. "Yeah, apparently so. I don't know what to do. I don't feel safe there anymore. I need some kind of lock that can't be picked, but I did a lot of googling last night at the hotel, since I wasn't staying at my place overnight, and I don't think that exists."

"Yeah," he said. "I figure anything that was supposed to be unpickable would just be a challenge to people who do that sort of thing."

She rubbed her face. "This can't go on."

"Are the police offering you anything?"

"They said that they can't give me a uniform on my door twenty-four/seven and I understand that."

"Bullshit," said Iain. "They're just being asses because they don't like us looking into the Mukherjee case."

"But someone is supposed to be checking on my place periodically."

"Oh, well that'll make sure no one can get in again." He was sarcastic.

"You don't think this could be the cops, do you?"

He massaged the bridge of his nose. "I really don't know at this point."

She hugged herself.

"You sure you're in any shape to go and see Wheeler and Chapman today?"

"Yes," she said. "I want to make some progress on this case. I want this over. I can't stand it anymore."

"Right," he said.

"How about you? Were you up all night changing the locks on your girlfriend's doors?"

"I was," he said, "but I'm fine. I'm sharp. And she's not really my girlfriend."

Elke laughed. "Okay. Sure. I'm not trying to pry."

"When do you want to go? Now?"

She blew out a huff of air. "No, let's settle in and have coffee at least. Work our way up to it."

"All right," he said.

She looked around the office. "Where are Hart and Amos?" Actually, she was probably supposed to meet Amos at the door. Damn it, was he down there waiting for her?

"I don't know," said Iain, shrugging.

She grabbed her coat. "I'll be back." She shrugged into it as she went for the door.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Frankie stopped into Rory Gutierrez's office on the way into work that day. She figured she might as well meet with the woman again, see if she could use what she knew about Rory's drug problem to shake anything loose.

"You again," said Rory when she saw her. "What do you want today? You here to lie to me and tell me you're my friend again?"

"I don't think I said that last time," said Frankie. She sat down in front of Rory's desk. "Listen, we've talked to Seth Long."

Rory licked her lips. "What did you want to talk to him for?"

"Well, you told the police twenty-five years ago that he was your boyfriend. We wanted to know if he was connected."

"I've told you, I had nothing to do with the Mukherjee murders," said Rory.

"Yes, but you're hiding something." Frankie leaned forward. "Maybe it wasn't about the grade or about graduating. Maybe it was about money. Maybe you decided to get back at Dr. Mukherjee by going to his house and shaking him down for cash. Maybe things got out of hand. I don't think you meant to kill him—"

"I never went to that house."

"Did Seth? Did you send him there? Did he do it for you?"

"What?" Rory was flabbergasted. "That's ridiculous. I mean, first of all, Seth never did anything for me. I did favors for him, not the other way around."

"What are you hiding, Rory? Until you tell me, I can't let this go."

"I wasn't there. That night, I was somewhere else."

"Where were you?"

"I don't want to tell you that."

"It's your alibi. I need your alibi to rule you out."

"Isn't there some rule that you don't have to speak if it's going to incriminate you? Pleading the fourth or something."

"The fifth," said Frankie. "And that only works on the stand in a courtroom."

Rory groaned. "But if I tell you this, then am I going to get arrested?"

"Are you going to confess murder to me? If so, I can't make any guarantees."

"No, I didn't kill anyone. I never hurt anybody."

"Then what did you do?"

Rory sat back in her chair and became very interested in her knuckles. "At first, it seemed like it was nothing, you know? Like, I wanted the drugs, and I also hung out with this crowd of guys who had drugs. We'd all get high together and stuff would sometimes happen, but it was just... I didn't have feelings for them or anything and they didn't have feelings for me, but it felt good, and we were all adults." She laughed softly. "I mean, we weren't really adults. I guess we thought we were adults, but we were still kids. I was a kid."

"I'm not sure I'm following you," said Frankie. "What 'stuff' happened?"

"Like sex," said Rory, and then raised her gaze to Frankie. "Okay? Like that."

"Okay." Frankie furrowed her brow. She'd thought Rory was going to confess to a crime.

"So, at first, it all seemed normal. Not a big deal. I hooked up with Seth a few times casually like that. And then one time, I didn't have any money, and he sort of intimated there might be other things I could do if I wanted to get the drugs."

"Seth did?"

"Yeah," she said. "But it was someone else, this guy named Ray, who started sending me out to his friends."

Frankie's lips parted.

"I didn't put it all together at first, because I thought I was just getting this sweet deal. Like all I had to do was spread my legs for people I would have screwed anyway, and then I got free product. But eventually, Ray started getting... violent, and then it became kind of obvious that he was a pimp and I was..." She shook her head.

"Oh," said Frankie. Prostitution? All this time, that was what Rory was trying to hide?

"I'm not proud of it," said Rory. "Actually, you have no idea how deep my shame goes about it. Eventually, I got into rehab, and I got help, and I turned my life around. But that's always this dark spot in my past. I never wanted anyone to know about it."

* * *

Elke had been downstairs for nearly ten minutes looking around for Amos and Frankie. She couldn't find either of them anywhere, but she had managed to scare up a text from Frankie, who told her she'd been interviewing Rory Gutierrez. Fine. That took care of her. But Amos was nowhere to be found, and he wasn't answering his phone.

She remembered that his door had a big hole in it, and that he couldn't lock himself in.

She wondered if Dick had left her place and gone to Amos's.

Of course, Amos had said he was going to stay with a friend. Maybe he'd done that, and maybe he hadn't charged his phone. Maybe that was why she couldn't get through to him, and why he hadn't gotten up. He probably would have had to rely on an alarm on his phone if he wasn't sleeping at home.

That explained it all well enough, but she was worried.

She thought maybe she should call the police, see if someone could go in and check on him. She dialed the phone as she rode the elevator back up to the office.

She explained what was going on on the ride up. By the time she'd gotten back up there, the conversation was basically done.

They were going to send a uniform by his place, but they didn't seem too concerned. They said she was probably overreacting and that he'd overslept. She hoped they were right.

Iain met her at the door. "I've figured it out," he said.

"Amos isn't here, and he's not answering his phone," she said.

"The bruises," said Iain. "I know what they're from."

"I called the police, but they didn't seem very concerned. Do you think we should go over there ourselves? I can find his address in the personnel files."

"I can't believe I didn't see it before." Iain shoved the crime scene photos in her face. "It's so incredibly obvious."

"Iain, this is Amos we're talking about."

"No way is it Rory Gutierrez. She wouldn't have been strong enough to press the barrels into their skin and leave a bruise."

"Barrels?" In spite of herself, Elke was interested in the bruises. She snatched the photos away from Iain and squinted at them.

"A gun," said Iain. He gestured on himself, pointing his finger under his jaw. "Right here. Barrel of a gun, right under the chin. They were both forcefully taken to the living room at gunpoint. Those are the bruises. They were made by having a gun pressed into their throats."

"The bruises are from guns?"

"Yeah," said Iain. "I think so."

"So what does this mean?"

"It means there were more guns in play than the one in the safe, I think," said Iain. "Because how could they have gotten the gun in the safe away from Dr. Mukherjee otherwise? And it strongly points to two gunmen, who used the guns to manipulate the victims before they killed them."

"Wheeler and Chapman," said Elke.

"Yes."

"Good thing we're going to see them today, then," she said.

"We have to get that DNA sample," said Iain. "We have to nail them."

Elke shook her head. "You said they'd never give it to us."

"I know." He ran a hand through his hair, turning away from her. "We need to convince them..."

"How?"

He turned to her. "I don't know. You're the one who's good with that kind of stuff. I'm crap with people. Can you figure out something?"

Elke sucked in a deep breath. "I'll do my best."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"Well," said Frankie, coming into the conference room, where Elke and Iain had their heads together, bracing their arms on the table. "I found out what Rory Gutierrez was hiding."

Neither looked up.

"She was a prostitute," said Frankie. "She had sex for drugs. She says she had a pimp named Ray."

She waited.

Elke finally turned to look at her. "We figured out the bruises. We're pretty sure Wheeler and Chapman are the killers."

"Great," said Frankie. "What are the bruises?"

Elke gestured to her chin with one finger. "Gun barrels right here."

"Oh, of course," said Frankie. "How did we miss that?"

Iain peered around Elke. "I know, right? I mean, I should have seen it right away."

"How does that rule out Rory?" said Frankie.

"We figure she wouldn't have been strong enough to leave bruises," said Elke.

"What about Seth Long?" said Frankie. "I mean, not that it matters, because I believe Rory. I think she was just trying to hide something shameful from her past. I don't think she killed the Mukherjees."

Elke furrowed her brow. "I guess it could have been Seth Long? Hudson?"

"Anything's possible," said Iain. "That's why we need DNA."

"Yes," said Elke, "but I'm building this whole interrogation approach around the idea that they're guilty, and if they're not, it's not going to work, and we're going to be back at square one."

"Um?" said Frankie. "Where's Amos?"

"Oh, crap," said Elke. "I forgot about that. I can't find him anywhere. I called the police and they said they'd send someone by his apartment. Can you call and check in with them and see if they found anything out?"

"You think something might have happened to him?" said Frankie.

"We can't be too careful," said Elke. "I'm hoping he just overslept."

Frankie nodded. "I'll go check on that now." She headed out of the conference room and started for her office. Then she paused. "Oh, what about Dr. Oliver? If I can't find Amos, you want me to go talk to him alone?"

Elke cocked her head to one side. "Dr. Oliver... what about Dr. Oliver?"

Iain held up his hand. "Look, we know this." He raised a finger. "Wheeler and Chapman are gun nuts. They had that poster on their wall when we went to see them, remember?"

"Yeah," said Elke.

"So," said Iain. "They're more likely to have had the guns to go into the house with in the first place."

"That's true," said Elke.

"Actually," said Iain, "maybe it's more than that. They knew that Dr. Mukherjee had a gun in his house."

"You're right," said Elke, raising her eyebrows. "They knew he'd been interviewed in that magazine and they didn't like that he'd been featured."

"They might have planned to use his own gun against him."

"So, don't go see Dr. Oliver?" said Frankie.

"Maybe Dr. Oliver is a red herring," said Elke.

* * *

"You're lucky we could make time for you today," said Chapman, as he let Elke and Iain into the same studio area where they'd met with the two suspects before. He was smoking a cigarette, and he blew out smoke into Elke's face, making her cough.

She hacked away, and her composure was completely destroyed.

Iain patted her on the back.

She straightened, squaring her shoulders. They were supposed to be freaking these guys out, intimidating them, but she looked like an idiot. As she straightened, she spotted something sitting out on the edge of a desk. Lock picks. She had looked them up online after the police officer had told her that her lock had been jimmied open with a set. That was what they looked like, all right, long skinny pieces of metal with various tiny teeth on the end. She licked her lips.

Oh, these guys were brazen. They'd set them out on purpose.

Wheeler, who was sitting next to the desk, reached out and picked up them. "You looking at these?"

Her mouth was dry. "Lock picks."

Wheeler smiled. "You know what they are. Most people don't."

She sucked in breath, and anger surged within her. These guys had been terrorizing her in order to try to get her to back off the investigation. They'd all but admitted it. "I know about lock picks.

Chapman gestured to some chairs. "Why don't you have a seat? I'm sure you didn't come here to chat about Zach's little hobby."

She sat down. Chapman sat down too, next to Wheeler. She had brought a briefcase with her, and she opened it up, scooping out several fat folders. She made a show of going through them. There was nothing in the folders except blank pieces of paper, though. She had decided it would worry them more if it looked as if they had loads of information on them. She wanted to make them worried. She wasn't sure about convincing them to give a DNA sample, but she thought if she rattled them enough, then maybe she could get a confession, which would be better.

She knew Iain wouldn't agree. He didn't think confessions were worth much.

And true, they'd already had one false confession.

But these guys weren't the kind to take credit for a crime they didn't commit.

"Well," she said. "We're basically only here because we want you to confirm a few details for us in the murder."

Wheeler lit up a cigarette as well. "What murder?"

"The Mukherjee murder, of course," said Elke.

"Oh, you're here about that again?" said Chapman. "I thought by now you would have realized it had to be the daughter. No one else could have done it. Hell, who else knew where the gun was?"

"Oh, yes. That was pretty brilliant. When did you think of using his own gun on him?" said Elke.

"Did you plan that all along?" said Iain. "Did you force him to take the gun out of his safe and hand it over?"

"Wait a second," said Chapman, "you don't think that we killed those people. Seriously?"

"We're certain that you did," said Elke. "In addition, you've been harassing myself and my colleagues and their significant others. The lock picks are indicative of that. Did you really think you could scare us off the case?"

Wheeler laughed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Hypothetically," said Chapman, "if someone were to have put a little pressure on you to keep your nose where it belonged, they might have gotten into your apartment any number of ways. A set of lock picks doesn't prove anything."

Elke sorted through the pieces of paper silently.

Wheeler and Chapman exchanged a glance. Did they look nervous?

"If you had anything on us," said Wheeler, "you'd be arresting us."

"Oh, would we?" said Elke mildly.

Chapman stubbed out his cigarette. He leaned back in his chair and eyed them.

"We know you did it," said Elke, "and we understand why."

"We didn't do anything," said Wheeler.

"Well, someone did," said Elke. "Let's say someone did it because they wanted to make an example out of Dr. Mukherjee. He was a murderer, after all, or near enough. How many innocent babies had he sent to their deaths?"

Wheeler shook his head.

Chapman didn't say anything.

Elke leaned closer. "Am I right? You said it before, didn't you? He deserved it."

"That doesn't mean we did it," said Wheeler.

"That man had the audacity to act as if he'd done nothing wrong. He wasn't even apologetic. He told those white girls that they should kill their babies. Kill their white babies."

"Look, we're not idiots," said Chapman. "We watch cop shows. We see what you're trying to do."

"And it's not going to work, because we didn't do anything," said Wheeler.

"You think we're just going to confess because you act like you sympathize with us?" said Chapman.

Elke went back to her file. This wasn't going the way she'd hoped it would. "Last night," she said into the blank file, "I was attacked in my own apartment, and I nicked the person who attacked me with a knife. We have his blood. We have his DNA. And so we know."

Wheeler lit another cigarette.

Chapman stubbed out his. He sniffed hard and wouldn't meet their gaze.

"Don't worry about it, brother," said Wheeler in a quiet voice. "She's lying."

"I assure you, I am not," said Elke. Damn it, how did they know?

"You ain't got anything to worry about, anyway," said Wheeler. "You weren't anywhere near her place last night."

"Right," said Chapman, nodding. "I was at home with my wife last night. And if you had any proof of anything otherwise, you'd have a warrant."

"Which you don't," said Wheeler. "And we've been very cooperative talking to the two of you, but we're thinking maybe it's time to wrap this conversation up."

Elke was feeling frustrated. Why wasn't this working? She glared at them. "Who's this Dick person? Is he an associate of yours? And if you have anything to do with the disappearance of Amos Bradley, so help me—"

"Dick who?" said Chapman.

"We don't know any Amos either," said Wheeler. "You can't go throwing around absolutely unfounded accusations like that. Now, I think we asked you to leave."

Abruptly, Iain stood up next to her. "Sure thing, gentlemen. We'll get out of your hair."

What? Elke looked up at him in confusion. Why was he saying that?

Iain gestured at the ashtray where the men had stubbed out their cigarettes. "That looks like it needs to be emptied in the trash. You're done with those butts, right?"

"What business is that of yours?" said Wheeler. "We'll dump it when we want to."

"I just mean that you're done with those cigarette butts is all," said Iain, picking up the ashtray. "Aren't you done with them?"

Oh, Elke knew what he was up to now.

"Of course we are, you asshole. They're smoked down," said Chapman.

Iain picked up the ashtray. "I'll dump it in the trash for you on the way out."

Elke slammed the file folder shut and stuffed it back in her briefcase. She took out the baggy she'd brought to collect a DNA sample.

"Wait a second," said Wheeler.

Iain dumped the ashtray into the baggy. "Once you've discarded something, you don't really have any right to it anymore, gentlemen."

Wheeler was on his feet, rushing for Elke. "You give that back, bitch. You're not taking it out of here."

Iain stepped into his path, pulling his gun out at the same time.

When Wheeler saw the weapon, he stopped, eyeing it warily. He raised his hands.

"I hope you weren't threatening Ms. Lawrence," said Iain.

"Fuck you," said Chapman.

"Have a nice day," said Iain, nodding at her to leave.

She hurried out of the room.

Iain backed out after her.

* * *

Amos woke up feeling groggy and disoriented. He tried to roll over in bed, and that was when he realized his arms were tied behind his back, and that he wasn't in bed.

His eyes snapped open and his heart started to speed up. Even so, his heart was going sluggishly, and he felt very, very strange. He felt like he was drunk, even though he hadn't had any alcohol to drink since the weekend.

Tied up and drugged, he thought in a panic.

He thrashed at his bonds—well, he tried to thrash. Whatever drug was keeping his heart from pounding was making it hard for him to move too. He moaned.

His head hurt.

He was in a dark room. He couldn't make anything out except a window behind him. It was shrouded in dark, thick curtains, but grayish daylight filtered around the edges.

He seemed to be tied to a wooden chair, like one that would sit at a kitchen table. His arms were tied to the back, and his feet were tied to the legs at the bottom. Whoever had done it had used plastic zip ties. They dug into his skin painfully when he tried to struggle against them.

He wanted to scream, but he didn't.

It was unlikely that anyone would hear him except the person who'd done this to him, and he figured that would only make his captor angry. He needed to play this smart.

Only, he wasn't sure what the smart thing was to do. It wasn't as if he'd ever had training in being captured and tied up in a basement.

Basement? How did he know that? There was nothing in the room to indicate that... Except that the window, while full sized, seemed high on the wall, almost to the ceiling. And that there was the telltale musty smell of a basement.

The floor under his feet was carpet, though.

A finished basement, like in one of those split-level houses, where part of the basement floor was above ground.

Did knowing that help anything? If only he could tell someone where he was.

That sparked a bright bit of memory in his brain for a moment, but then it was gone again. He groped for it, and only flashed on waking up in his bed in the dark with the knowledge that someone else was in the room with him. He'd groped for his phone, but...

And then all he remembered was a little sting in his arm, like a bee sting.

That must have been a needle. That must have been how he got drugged.

Damn, what was this? Why was he here? Where was he?

Amos felt like crying. He didn't do that either. Wouldn't help anything.

"You're awake," said a voice from the darkness.

Amos twisted in his chair, but the scant light from under the curtain blinded him. He couldn't see anything else in the room except darkness.

Suddenly, light.

He jerked back around.

Dick was standing on the other side of the room next to a light switch. He smiled. He looked eager.

Amos swallowed.

Now, he could see that he was in a tiny room, some kind of storage room. There were metal shelves on the walls, and they contained camping equipment. Tents and sleeping bags, lanterns and small bottles of propane.

This was someone's basement. But where the hell was he?

"I've been watching you, waiting for you to wake up," said Dick. "I'm waiting because I wanted to talk to you first. I would have left you to wake up on your own, but then you might start yelling, and I can't really have that. Before I leave again, I'll gag you so that you can't make noise. I'd stay with you longer, but I have to leave for the afternoon. We'll get started tonight, though."

Amos felt fear go through him like a rush of icy water.

Dick chuckled. "Go ahead. I know you're dying to ask."

"Started with what?" Amos's voice was hoarse.

Dick grinned. "With what I've wanted since the first time I saw you in that newspaper. I'm going to make you mine. I'm going to take you into myself."

That didn't sound good. At all. Amos was pretty sure that meant... meant... Dick was going to kill him. "Look." He licked his lips. "I don't have a lot of influence over the people in the CRU, but if you let me try, I think I can convince them to drop the Mukherjee case."

Dick rubbed his chin. "Why do you think I would care about that?"

"Because that's what this is about." Amos paused, suddenly unsure. "Isn't it?"

"This is about a lot of things, but I couldn't care less about the Mukherjee case."

Oh, shit. It wasn't related. Iain had been right. The masked guy that had taken Harley and broken into Elke's place, that wasn't Dick. Dick wasn't after him because of the case. Dick was after him because... "Why?"

"Why?" said Dick. "Because you're pretty, and I want you. Because I saw you in the paper and I had to have you. I tried to talk myself out of it. You're connected to the police, and that seemed like a stupid idea. But..." He shrugged. "I don't know, I guess the danger of it made it seem more exciting, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it, and so..." He spread his hands.

Amos felt like vomiting.

"Are you afraid?" said Dick, who sounded hopeful at the prospect.

Amos didn't answer. He was thinking about how he'd purposefully steered clear of the Rainbow, trying to be safe. He was thinking about how, in the end, it hadn't made any difference.

The Haven Hills Ripper had found him anyway.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

"I don't even know what you were thinking," Iain was saying. He and Elke were coming back into the office. He had been quiet on the way back, and he hadn't wanted to talk to Elke about how the interview had gone. She was his boss, and he didn't want to criticize. After all, he couldn't have done a better job at talking to them. He was sure he would have botched it somehow.

"I guess I was thinking that there's still so much we don't understand about that night," Elke said. "We have theories, but we can't be sure exactly how the Mukherjees were killed. I wanted them to explain it to us. I wanted them to confess."

He took off his coat as he made his way past Amos's desk. It was still empty. That wasn't a good sign. "I understand that. But you have to realize that's something we'll probably never know."

"Why not?" She gave him a frustrated look.

"Because they're going to maintain their innocence," he said. "It doesn't make sense for them to confess and lay it all out for us. They're going to claim they didn't do it, and that they don't know how it went down. They're too smart to confess."

She sighed. "I guess you're right, but still... it feels unfinished to me."

"What feels unfinished?" Frankie poked her head out of her office.

"The case," she said. "We got the DNA, and so we've just got to wait to make sure that we have a match with Wheeler and Chapman. But it still feels like there are so many questions."

"Maybe we need to be looking into Dr. Oliver, then?" said Frankie.

"Maybe," said Elke. "I mean, what else should we be doing? Should we be looking at other cases?" She bit down on her lip. "Any word from Amos?"

"No," said Frankie. "The police went by his place. They said there was no sign of a break in, but they didn't find him either."

Elke rubbed her forehead. "If Wheeler and Chapman took him, wouldn't they be in touch with us now? They'd want to make a deal, right? We back off them and they give Amos back?"

"Unless they were telling the truth when they said they didn't know anything about Dick," said Iain.

"Maybe we need to go by Amos's place ourselves," said Elke.

* * *

Frankie peered through the hole in Amos's door. It was eye level for her, above Amos's first deadbolt. She put her hand through the hole and reached down to unlock the deadbolt below. "Well, it wouldn't be hard for anyone to get in, that's for sure." She was concerned for Amos. Things were looking worse and worse.

"Maybe he went to a friend's house and slept through his alarm," said Elke. "Or maybe his phone's out of power. He could be fine."

"Should we go ahead in?" said Frankie.

"That's why we came, isn't it?" said Iain.

"Amos!" called Elke. "If you're in there, say something. We're coming in."

There was no answer.

Frankie pushed open the door.

Amos's apartment was a one-room studio. The living room area was demarcated by a couch and chair and a weathered wooden crate that had been repurposed as a coffee table. There were throw blankets and matching pillows and clusters of candles. The place was tidy. It didn't look disturbed.

The kitchen area was divided off by a breakfast bar with stools. The stove was clean. The sink was empty. The counter had been wiped down.

The bedroom area was along the far wall. It looked tidy as well, except for one thing.

The bed wasn't made.

As far as signs of a struggle, it wasn't much, but judging from the state of the rest of the apartment, Frankie was fairly sure that it was a sign. She turned to the others. "Amos doesn't seem like the type to leave his bed unmade."

"No," said Elke. "He doesn't." She let out a heavy sigh. "Oh, no. Something happened to him."

Iain was already across the room, looking down at the bed."You have gloves, either of you?"

"Sure, for collecting DNA samples," said Frankie, taking the kit out of her bag.

Iain took some rubber gloves and tugged them on. He moved the pillow on the bed. "Hey, look at this."

"What?" said Frankie, hurrying over.

Iain pointed. "That's his phone under the pillow."

"He wouldn't have left his phone," said Elke.

Iain picked up the phone. He turned it on. "Huh. That's interesting. It's recording."

"What?" said Elke, coming closer to look over his shoulder.

"It's recording," said Iain. "It's an app that records to .mp3. Looks like it's been recording for hours."

"You think Amos did that on purpose?" said Frankie.

"He recorded his abduction," said Elke. "Start it at the beginning."

Iain touched the screen of the phone. He manipulated the controls of the app for a few minutes and then sound began to come out of the speaker.

Sounds of muffled movement was all they heard for several moments.

Then the sound of Amos's voice, crying out in pain. "What was that?" said Amos's voice. "What are you doing to me? Who are you?"

"Shh," said another voice, a male voice. "Shh, beautiful."

Amos yelled. "Help! Help me! Someone help me!" But his voice faded out, getting less strong. And then he was quiet.

"That's it," said the other voice. "Hush now." The voice began to hum to himself, and there was the sound of Amos's body being dragged off the bed and away.

After that, nothing but silence.

"We show this to the police," said Elke. "Let them say then that there's no sign of foul play."

Iain set the phone down. "Right. We need to call this in."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Elke found herself frustrated with the forward motion of Amos's abduction. The police came, and they took lots of things out of Amos's apartment, and they logged it and bagged it and they promised to file reports.

But now it was evening, and nothing was happening.

Frankie'd had to go home an hour ago. She had a family to worry about. Elke and Iain, however, hung out in the police station.

Iain paced a lot, but he was quiet.

She kept asking him questions about procedure, and he answered as best he could, but he said that he wasn't as familiar with the procedure in a missing person's case as he was in a homicide case.

But Amos wasn't missing. He'd clearly been abducted. Shouldn't something more be done?

Iain agreed that there should, but he said that until there were some solid leads, he didn't know what they should do. Amos had been taken, but they didn't know by whom. They didn't know where Amos had been taken. He wasn't sure what the police could do right now. Furthermore, the officers had lots of other cases demanding their attention. It was a hard truth to accept, but there might be nothing more they could do for Amos right now.

"I don't accept that," Elke said. "And you shouldn't either. Come on, Iain, you're an amazing detective. You have to find him."

"I don't know if I can," said Iain.

"I'll help you," she said. "Where do we start?"

Iain stopped pacing and sat down next to her. "I don't know."

"Where would you start if this was your case?"

"I..." He tilted his chin up and gazed off into the distance. Then he looked back at her. "I've never worked a missing persons case."

"It's a kidnapping, damn it."

"Well, it's not kidnapping," he said. "There's no ransom note."

"Okay," she said. "Then he probably wasn't taken for money. Why else do people take other people?"

Iain thought about it, and then made a face. "I think we both know the answer to that question."

"No, or I wouldn't have asked."

"If it's not money, it's for personal gratification. It's typically sexually motivated."

"Dick did seem to be flirty, from what Amos said. It's probably Dick, right?"

"Probably," said Iain. "But we don't know who Dick is."

"So, sexually motivated. Like he's going to—" She broke off. "Oh, God. You remember when Amos wanted to know why Dick was letting him see his face?"

Iain nodded.

"He's going to kill him," said Elke.

"Maybe," said Iain. "That kind of murderer, a sexually motivated thrill killer, he might stalk victims before taking them. But the key there is that there would be more than one victim. Those kinds of killers aren't satisfied with doing it once."

"So, a serial killer," said Elke. "Like the Haven Hills Ripper?"

Iain eyes widened. "Hell, that does fit, doesn't it? Son of a bitch."

"Guess who's working that case?" said Elke.

* * *

James Meyer and Michael Banks looked even less pleased to see Elke than the last time she'd approached them.

"What's wrong this time?" said Banks. "We don't have any more of the Mukherjee case files, we swear."

"No, this isn't about that," said Elke. She took a deep breath. "Listen, I know that things have been a little tense between us in the past, but I wonder if we could put that aside?"

Meyer looked at Banks. "Sounds to me like she wants something and she's buttering us up."

"Sure does," said Banks. He eyed Iain. "And you? Hudson? What have you got to say about this?"

"We just thought maybe we could collaborate," said Iain. "We think our executive assistant may have been abducted by the Haven Hills Ripper. He was taken last night, and if he's with the murderer, he's likely running out of time."

"Or he's dead already," said Banks.

"What?" said Elke, her voice shrill. How could Banks have said that so casually? And besides, Amos couldn't be gone. Not Amos. She didn't know Amos very well, but she liked him a lot. And he didn't deserve this. They had to find him.

Banks turned to her, and there was sympathy in his eyes. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking. It felt like we were talking shop amongst individuals, not with someone who cares about the victim."

"Cares about...?" Elke put her hand to her chest. "Oh, God. Amos has a family. Parents. Maybe a boyfriend. Maybe siblings. We haven't notified anyone, and—"

"Let's try to find him first," said Iain, cutting her off. "Listen, Amos fits the profile for the killer."

"The killer takes men from bars out on the south side of town," said Banks. "That where your boy disappear from?"

"No," said Iain. "From his bed."

"Well, that doesn't fit," said Meyer.

"Maybe he's escalating," said Iain. "He's gotten away with three murders thus far. He's probably feeling pretty darned proud of himself. And we know that killers like him like to be close to law enforcement. Picking someone like Amos, who works for the DA, it's likely heightening his excitement. He feels like a god. He can't be stopped."

Banks considered. "Could be."

"We have the abduction on tape," said Iain. "We have the killer's voice."

"Really?" said Meyer. "Can we hear that?"

"Well, the phone was bagged for evidence," said Elke.

"Get it over here," said Banks.

Elke raised her eyebrows. "Me? You think they'll be happy to give me evidence? Because, let me tell you, there's been a pretty hostile reception to my requests since I started working here."

"Right," said Meyer. "Well, we'll get it, then."

* * *

After Dick left, Amos sat there, not doing anything, for a long time. He was too afraid to try anything, and the vestiges of whatever he'd been drugged with were still making him limp and woozy. True to his word, Dick had stuffed a tennis ball in Amos's mouth and tied it in place. Amos couldn't talk. He could barely breathe.

But after some time passed, his desperation began to outweigh any other feeling he had, and he decided he had to try to save himself.

The stakes were about as high as they got. He didn't want to spend his last hours sitting around waiting for his doom. No, he was going to get himself out of there. If he didn't, he was going to die.

So, he worked on trying to move the chair. It wasn't easy. He managed to unbalance it a bit, one leg coming off the floor followed by the other, but he couldn't get the chair to scoot in any direction.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally got the hang of it. Shifting his weight back and forth, he made the chair inch across the floor toward one of the shelves.

Amos saw a long fireplace lighter over there. He didn't know how he could use it, but he thought he might be able to burn through the zip ties. Once free, he could bust out the window and make a run for it.

He kept his eye on that lighter and he moved himself an inch at a time across the floor.

He was about two feet away when he leaned a little too far to the right, and the chair became unbalanced and toppled over with a clang.

His full weight fell on his arm, which was wrapped around the chair and tied in back.

He cried out.

The pain was excruciating. It radiated up to his shoulder and down his fingers.

He needed to get his weight off his arm, but he couldn't move.

He started to sob.

And then he realized he'd made a lot of noise. What if Dick was coming back now? What if he decided that Amos was too much trouble? To heck with it. He'd "take him into himself" now.

Amos stopped sobbing. He threw his weight and rolled the chair.

But now he landed on his hands.

He shrieked.

And then waited, listening for Dick, waiting for the door to open, for Dick's awful smiling face to be there.

How was it going to happen? He'd read about the victims before. They'd had their throats cut. They'd been raped.

He shuddered.

But his hands hurt. His arm throbbed. He thought his arm might be broken.

Damn it.

And then—

Footsteps.

He couldn't even breathe.

It was Dick.

Dick was coming.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

"Donald Pierce," said Meyer. He turned to Banks. "Wouldn't you say so?"

"Oh, definitely." Banks nodded.

"What?" said Elke. "What are you talking about?"

The two had gotten the cell phone in minutes flat. They'd had no problem getting the recording to listen to. Near as Elke could tell, they hadn't even filled out the appropriate paperwork. What the heck was up with that? Inwardly, she fumed, but she was too worried about Amos to let it get to her.

"Let me show you," said Meyer. He pulled up a file on his computer screen and a window with a video popped up. Meyer played it.

It was an interrogation video. A well-dressed man in a suit was sitting on the opposite side of the table. "No problem at all," he was saying, smiling widely. "Anything I can do to help out the police."

Elke gasped. "That's the voice on the phone."

Meyer nodded. "Yeah, exactly." He stopped the video.

"But I don't understand. You interviewed this man already?"

"He was seen at one of the bars two of the nights," said Banks. "We brought him in for questioning. He was very pleasant and very helpful and had no problem giving a DNA sample."

"Which is useless, since the bodies are all soaked in bleach before we get them," said Meyer.

"We had nothing on the guy, but both of us had a gut feeling on him," said Banks. "Of course, you'd say we shouldn't trust our gut, wouldn't you?"

Elke swallowed. "I don't know about that. Surely you have to agree that you need more than your gut."

"Maybe," said Banks, shrugging.

"And maybe it was more that a gut feeling," said Meyer. "This seemed like the type. He talks a good game, lots of charm and bravado, but he has a pretty pathetic life. Works some part time job at a Wal-Mart or something and still lives with his mother. Not all loser types end up turning into serial killers, but a lot of serial killers are frustrated. They have grandiose ideas of themselves and their lives aren't measuring up. If they can't be successful, then they can be powerful, and what greater power is there than the power over life and death?"

"Yeah, okay, there's that," Banks conceded.

"That sounds like a lot more than your gut," said Elke.

"It's still speculation," said Iain.

Banks and Meyer glared at him.

Iain looked away.

"The voice should be enough for a warrant," said Meyer, "but I don't know if it'll be enough to save your friend."

"What do you mean?" said Elke.

"Well," said Banks, "Pierce lives with his mother and sister out to the west of town. But he's likely not keeping his murder victims there. So, we can go search the address, but we might not find anything."

Elke's heart sank.

* * *

Amos's heart banged against his rib cage.

The footsteps were coming closer and closer.

The doorknob rattled.

He whimpered involuntarily, tears springing to his eyes. Maybe he was a coward, but he didn't want to die. Not yet, and not like this. He could only think of his mother, how much this would hurt her, how she would fall to pieces. Amos was her only child. And his dad... it would kill him too.

I have to live, he thought. For Mom and Dad.

But how was he going to do that? He couldn't get the chair upright and Dick was coming in right now.

Except no.

The doorknob was still rattling.

"Hey, Donnie!" yelled a female voice from outside. "You in there? Open the door."

Amos's heart leaped. That wasn't Dick. He was saved. That person out there could get him out. He yelled at the top of his lungs.

Most of it was muffled by the gag in his mouth.

"Donnie, open up!" said the female voice again.

Amos yelled again.

"I don't even think he's in there," the girl said to herself. Then her voice raised. "Mom!"

Another voice, far off. "What are you doing in the basement, Ellie? You know your brother doesn't like you in his things."

"Mom, come here."

The voice got closer. "What?"

Banging on the door. "This door's locked."

"Yes, Donnie keeps his things in there."

"You have the key?"

Amos yelled again. He needed to make them hear him.

"You hear that?" said the girl, Ellie. "Something's in there. I think it's an animal or something. I think Donnie brought home a dog."

"There's nothing in there, Ellie, you idiot girl."

Amos yelled again.

"It's whining!" said Ellie. "Tell me you can't hear that."

"I don't hear a thing," said Ellie's mother. "You're deaf or stupid, I ain't sure which."

"You have the key or not?" Ellie sounded hurt.

"No, I gave it to your brother. He wants his privacy. Says he does projects in there and he's embarrassed for me to see. Truth be told, I hate pretending to be impressed with whatever pathetic project he gets started on. He wants his privacy, fine."

"Mom, for serious, there's something in there."

"You think it's easy being a mother? Just you wait until you have kids. Kids think everything they do is so amazing, and most of the time, it's just crap."

"Mom." The girl's voice was subdued.

"Come away from there. Leave it be."

"If he's got a dog in there—"

"There's nothing in there."

"You remember what happened with the last dog."

The mother's voice was quiet. "That was a long time ago. Now come away from there."

Summoning all his lung capacity, Amos yelled again, determined to make himself heard.

But instead, all he heard were footsteps going away from the door. They were going to leave him in there. He was on his own after all.

* * *

Elke was the one pacing now. "How much longer?"

"I don't know," said Iain. "They've drafted the warrant and sent it off. We're waiting for a signature before they can go."

"But we don't even know if he'll be there. This Donald or Dick or whoever he is could have him anywhere."

"True," said Iain. "But at the very least, maybe they can talk to his mother or something. Find out where else he spends his time."

"Like he's going to tell his mother where his kill site is," Elke scoffed.

Iain was quiet.

Elke stopped pacing. "I'm going there."

Iain got to his feet. "Where?"

"To Pierce's house," she said.

"That's a bad idea."

"You heard Banks," she said. "Amos might already be dead. If he's still alive, then every minute we waste is another minute that could be his last. I can't risk him any longer. I have to do something."

Iain raised his eyebrows. "I would think, given the fact that you've spent your life as a prosecuting attorney, that you'd recognize what you could jeopardize by going in without a warrant."

Her nostrils flared. "Damn it."

Iain sat back down.

She started to pace again. If they screwed this up, then Pierce's defense would have a wide opening to get him off scot-free. But if they did nothing, they could be allowing their friend to die. "It doesn't matter."

"What?"

"Amos's life is the most important thing right now," she said. "The rest of it doesn't matter. I'm going."

Iain stood up again, sighing heavily. "You're not going anywhere alone."

CHAPTER FORTY

With the chair toppled over, there was no comfortable position for Amos. He rolled this way and that, but his weight was always resting on either his hands or one of his arms. Sometimes, he rolled over onto his knees, but then his forehead was pressed into the floor, and it was awkward and painful as well. If it got too painful, he moved.

And that was how he discovered that he could continue maneuvering himself across the room toward the shelves. He could scoot himself across the floor by throwing his weight back and forth like before.

It was slow going. He wasn't sure how long it took, but it felt like eons.

When he made it over to the shelf at last, he realized that the light from around the curtain was fading. It was getting darker. It was the dead of winter, and it got dark early anyway, but the lack of light wasn't doing him any favors. He couldn't see what he was doing.

He threw his weight and managed to slam the feet of the chair into the shelves.

It made an incredible amount of noise, but he wasn't afraid of that. He wanted the mother or Ellie to come back down and realize he was in there and he needed saving.

He slammed the feet of the chair into the shelves again.

More noise.

No one came.

And what was worse, nothing was falling off the shelves, especially not the lighter, which was what he desperately wanted.

Time passed. He kept trying.

It got darker. He could barely make out the shapes on the shelves above him.

And now he began to worry, because he knew that Dick had said he would be coming back in the evening. Amos was running out of time. He also suspected that when Dick realized what he'd been trying to do, he would be angry, and that might make it all the worse for him.

But Amos had to try.

So he kept banging the chair into the shelf, over and over and over again.

And finally, he was rewarded with some movement. Sleeping bags tumbled down on top of him, one after the other.

He sputtered, shaking them off, and prepared to try again.

But then he heard something outside the door. Footsteps?

Was it Ellie, come back to rescue the dog she thought was trapped inside or was it Dick, come to end it all?

Amos froze, waiting, feeling the moments ahead of him stretch out, like beads on a string.

How much time did he have left?

But then there was no more noise, no more footsteps.

Amos banged the chair again.

Finally.

He had the lighter.

It was lying on the floor next to his face.

Grunting, he began to turn his body, still attached to the chair. He needed to line his hands up with the lighter.

The only problem was that it was too dark to see the lighter once he moved more than two feet away from it, and so he had to feel around with his hands, which had a very limited circle of motion.

He scrabbled and grunted and scooted and still he couldn't get his hands on that lighter.

He had to get it, though.

He reached out, letting out a muffled cry of agonized frustration.

And someone banged on the window.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Elke and Iain hadn't gone to the front door when they arrived at Donald Pierce's address. Instead, they'd walked around the perimeter of the split-level house, looking around for anything that might be amiss.

They heard a muffled banging noise, and they were able to pin it down to one of the windows. The two knelt down next to the glass, and they heard someone making muffled yells in there.

Elke banged on the window.

There was a long silence, and then an answering yell.

Iain was already at work trying to open the window from the outside. He had the storm glass out, now he was doing his best to get the inside window up.

The window screeched as it was raised. It obviously hadn't been opened in a long time, being a basement window.

With the window open, they pushed aside the thick curtains that shrouded it, and there, on the floor, was Amos.

Iain climbed into the window. It was a tight fit, and he barely made it. Elke started to come after him, but he waved her off.

"It'll be harder to get us all back through," he said.

"Amos, hang on," she said to the other man. "We've got you."

Iain knelt down next to Amos and surveyed the zip ties securing him to the chair. He took out the pocket knife he always carried. "Hold on, let me get these." He cut the ties. He pulled the gag out of the other man's mouth.

"Oh, my God," said Amos.

"Can you stand?" said Iain, taking Amos by the arm.

Amos cried out. "Not that arm."

Iain recoiled. "Sorry."

"I hurt it," said Amos, scrabbling to his feet. He rubbed his wrists and hands. "You guys found me?"

"We did," said Elke. "Now let's get you the hell out of there."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

"I don't have to tell you that what you did was extremely reckless," said DA Andrews. He was in the conference room in the CRU office, and it was early morning a few days later. After all the excitement, they'd been taking it easy for the past few days. Amos hadn't been back to work yet. He was staying with his parents for a while. His arm wasn't broken, but sprained and bruised and he had to wear a sling. Other than that, though, he'd escaped from the Haven Hills Ripper unscathed, the first of the victims to do so. "You should know how hard it is to make a case against a criminal, Ms. Lawrence."

Elke, Iain, and Frankie were gathered in the conference room to meet with the DA.

"Reckless, sir?" said Elke. She was pretty sure she knew what he was talking about, but sometimes playing dumb was the way to go.

"Very reckless," said Andrews. "You went into that house ahead of the warrant, and that was abundantly unprofessional."

"Now, sir, we weren't there in any official capacity," said Elke. "We happened to be strolling through that neighborhood, when we heard noises that indicated to us that someone was in trouble. It was only a happy coincidence that we managed to free Mr. Bradley."

Andrews gave her a sour look. "You think that would hold up with any jury?"

Elke shrugged. "We saved a man's life. And now he can testify against Donald Pierce. I think that makes a better case than the police officers breaking in four hours later when the warrant came through and finding who knows what. Maybe Amos would have still been alive, but maybe not. And maybe they would have found a body, or maybe Pierce would have cleaned it up by then. I think we made the right call."

Andrews pointed at her and then pointed at Iain. "From now on, you stick to your job, which is reviewing convictions, not chasing serial killers, got it?"

"We'll do our best, sir," said Elke.

Andrews sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I can't say I'm pleased with your methods, but I think we're all glad to have the Haven Hills Ripper off the streets, and you did play a part in that. So, I choose to focus on that, which gives it all a positive spin. And I took the liberty of intercepting this." He handed over an envelope.

Elke peered down at it. "Is this from the lab?"

"It is indeed," said Andrews. "Go ahead and take a look. I already have."

Elke tugged out several sheets of paper. She scanned them quickly and smiled.

"What?" Frankie spoke up.

Elke handed over the first sheet. "It's the DNA tests. The DNA in the Mukherjee house matches Wheeler and Chapman."

"Of course it does," said Iain. "We knew it was them."

Elke raised her eyebrows. "Oh, we did, Mr. I-Need-Concrete-Evidence?"

Iain smiled.

"Congratulations," said Andrews. "A warrant has been issued for Chapman's and Wheeler's arrest. And we'll be moving forward to free Saanvi Mukherjee and Kevin Greene from prison. Justice has been served, ladies and gentleman, thanks to you. Not bad for your first case."

Elke smiled. "Well, it's been a little rocky at times."

"But we made it in the end," said Frankie, handing the paper over to Iain.

"Yes, we did," he said.

* * *

They'd been taking it easy, but the news kicked them all into high gear. They needed to prepare their case to bring before the Conviction Correction Panel, which would convene to review their work and make the final decision on Saanvi's and Kevin's innocence. The panel was there to be a check and balance on the CRU's power, so that they couldn't free anyone they chose. Their detective work had to be solid.

They all knew that it was in this case, but that didn't mean that they could slack on presenting it. They worked tirelessly on their assertions, on the evidence that they would produce, and on the arguments they would make. Frankie and Elke would speak to the panel, considering their background as attorneys suited them to the task.

Amos came back to work on the last day they were working on the case. He said that he couldn't handle being away. His parents had wanted to keep him home, but he'd insisted that his dad fix the deadbolts on his door and let him get back to his routine.

"I think it's like getting back on a horse after it throws you or whatever," he said, balancing a box of donuts with his good arm. "However, I can't drive, so I had to take the bus this morning, and if someone wouldn't mind giving me a ride home—"

"I will," said Elke.

"Or me," said Frankie.

"I can help you out." Iain took the box donuts away from him. "You sure you don't want to take a few more days to get rested up?"

"Oh, my God, no," said Amos. "I was going absolutely stir crazy at my mom's house. She kept serving me sandwiches with the crusts cut off, like I was still three years old."

Everyone chuckled.

"Anyway," said Amos. "I figured I'd come back to work and be useful." He wriggled his arm in the sling. "Of course I can't type, and I'm not so much good at doing coffee runs, because I can only carry about one drink at a time, so I don't know how useful I can actually be, but I'm here anyway. Use me."

Elke laughed. "You brought donuts. That is as useful as a person could be. We need fuel." She turned in a circle. "Speaking of which, Hudson? Where did you take the donuts?"

"Conference room," called Iain.

Elke headed that way. "Let's get our sugar on, and then we'll kick this case's ass shut."

"Sounds good," said Frankie, following her.

Amos brought up the rear. "Guys, I've been thinking about the decorations in this office?"

"Yeah, what about them?" said Elke, not turning around. She was heading for donuts or bust.

"Well, they're kind of nonexistent."

"You going somewhere with this?" said Elke.

"Just that maybe if I brought some stuff in, maybe I could, you know, spruce the place up? Would you object to that?"

"Go nuts, Amos," said Elke. "I trust you."

"Yeah, we saw the inside of your apartment," said Frankie. "You have great taste."

"Why, thank you," said Amos.

Elke had arrived at the box of donuts, which was closed on the conference table. She opened it up with fanfare. "Sugar time!"

"I want one of the cream filled ones," said Amos. "You better not take them all."

"You should have first pick," said Frankie.

"Absolutely," said Elke, smiling at him. "We're so glad to have you back."

Amos reached in and snatched out a donut.

"Now," said Frankie, picking up one of the glazed donuts, "what do you think about the section on the crime? Should we include the blow-by-blow or not?"

* * *

"On that Friday night," Elke's voice rang out, "there was no reason to think that anything different might happen." The room wasn't particularly big. It was actually a conference room in the courthouse, usually used for lawyers to confer with their clients. But today, it had contained the Conviction Correction Panel, who sat at long tables set up in a horseshoe. Even though the room was small, there was a bit of an echo whenever Elke spoke, probably owing to the fact that the floor was tile and the walls were unadorned. All the sound bounced off the smooth surfaces. "It was as typical a Friday night as you could ask.

"The only thing that might have made it feel different," Elke continued, "was the fact that it was only the third Friday that the Mukherjee family had spent in their new house. Though they had begun unpacking, and they had most of their clothes in their closets and their sheets on their beds, they were still living out of boxes for the most part. But like any Friday night, Saanvi Mukherjee went out with her boyfriend Kevin Greene. And her parents spent the evening as they usually would, relaxing. Dr. Abeer Mukherjee stayed up late, but his wife Tempest went to bed. At some point, Abeer wandered into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He got out everything that he needed and spread it out on the counter."

Elke paused, and then she set the scene. "A loaf of bread. Cold cuts and cheese. Mayonnaise. Lettuce. They were all sitting in front of him when he heard a noise."

She paused again, giving them all a moment. "At first Abeer probably thought it was his wife. Or maybe he thought it was Saanvi coming home early from her date with Kevin. But soon, he knew differently, when either Zachary Wheeler or Joseph Chapman came up behind him and jammed the barrel of a gun painfully into Abeer's chin. A voice snarled in Abeer's ear. 'Keep your mouth shut, baby killer.'"

Elke surveyed the panel. "Abeer wouldn't have known what to do, but he would have realized that this had something to do with the scandal at his job. Abeer had been helping girls at the college who had nowhere to turn. They came to him, told them of their unwanted pregnancies, and he pointed them to a community resource—Planned Parenthood. He had done it with their best interests at heart, but some didn't see what he had done as noble or helpful. Some people were very, very angry with him. Even still, Abeer would have had no idea how far things were about to go that night. He would have done what he was told, hoping that if he was cooperative, the man would leave.

"Imagine the sinking feeling he must have had when he was herded into the living room, only to see that his wife had been brought there too by another man with a gun. He would have wanted to save her, to do anything to keep her from being harmed. This was the woman he loved, the mother of his child, and he was helpless to do anything except what these men told him to do.

"They forced him to open the safe he kept with his gun in it. The safe was usually kept in his bedroom, but it hadn't been put it in its proper place yet, because the family was still moving in. This house they had purchased, where they dreamed of spending years together, family gatherings at Christmas, perhaps grandchildren running around in their new backyard, this house would never be lived in by the Mukherjee family. It would be sold to cover Saanvi Mukherjee's legal costs when she was falsely accused of a crime she didn't commit. But at that moment, Abeer's fate wasn't yet set, and there was still hope, still that promise of a future in that house, with his gun to protect his wife, instead of having it turned on him and Tempest."

Elke took a deep breath. "Zachary Wheeler and Joseph Chapman made it clear to Abeer and Tempest what they'd done. They were a symbol of everything these two men hated, and they wanted to make an example of them. They sat them on the couch and shot them down as if they were in front of a firing squad. But first, they would have told them that they didn't deserve better. Not only were they facilitating abortions, which Wheeler and Chapman found abhorrent, but they were a mixed-race couple, and that was an abomination in these men's eyes. They killed out of hate and righteous anger. They were brazen, because they didn't truly think what they did was wrong. In the eyes of Wheeler and Chapman, Abeer and Tempest weren't human. They were mongrels.

"And that," she continued, "is why they didn't bother cleaning up after themselves when they left. They wanted the world to see what they'd done. They wanted it to be like a lynching in the town square, and so they left the bodies right where they'd been shot. They didn't realize that they'd left traces of their DNA behind. They thought they could get away clean. But then... one of them must have felt some kind of twinge, some kind of guilt, because before they left, they switched off the light in the living room. So that Saanvi and Kevin didn't see the spatters of blood when they came home later. They tiptoed past the bodies in the living room and were none the wiser.

"But later, when Saanvi found the bodies, that was only the beginning of her nightmare. She had lost her parents, but now she would lose her freedom, and Kevin would as well. Because justice was not done when these two were convicted. They are innocent, and they had no part of the deaths of Abeer and Tempest."

Elke clasped her hands together. "Now, of course, we can't be sure if the events of that evening are exactly as I have recounted them to you today. We will never know exactly how Abeer and Tempest spent their last moments. Only Wheeler and Chapman know that, and they will be facing trial for what they have done. We can't undo what they did to Saanvi. We can't give her back her parents. We can't even give her back the years she spent in prison for a crime she didn't commit, nor can we restore those years to Kevin. We can only do one thing, and that is to set them free immediately, to give them whatever years they may have left. To allow them to walk into the sunlight and start what is left of their lives. And that is what we must do. There is simply no other alternative."

Elke stepped back from the podium, closing her folder. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the panel. The CRU rests."

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Saanvi and Kevin walked out the steps of the courthouse, arm in arm, surrounded on either side by Kevin's parents and Saanvi's grandparents. Pretty much everyone was crying.

It was a chilly winter day, cloudy, but the sun peeked out as they made their way to their freedom.

Elke, Frankie, Iain, and Amos came behind them, and Elke couldn't remember ever feeling quite so good after a verdict before. Sure, there was a satisfaction in putting away criminals, but this feeling was so much more intense. She had a feeling of extreme rightness. She had corrected a wrong that had been done to these individuals, and now things could go back to the way they were supposed to be. It was heady. She really, really liked it.

Even though she'd taken this job with the thought that she'd make a name for herself and go back to prosecuting, she realized that she didn't want to go back to her old job. Instead, she wanted to do this again. She wanted to right more wrongs, free more innocent people. Maybe this was what she'd always been meant to do.

As they all reached the bottom of the steps, they were swarmed by reporters, who stuck their microphones in Saanvi's and Kevin's dazed faces.

"How does it feel to be freed after twenty-five years in prison?"

Saanvi blinked, shielding her face from flashing cameras. She didn't say anything.

Kevin smiled, but he too seemed unable to form words.

The reporters moved their microphones to the parents and grandparents.

"It's amazing," said Clara Greene. "We always hoped this day would come. We never gave up on our son. We knew one day we'd be bringing him home."

"We're so pleased," said Tobias Austin. "Both that our granddaughter is free and that we know who really took our daughter Tempest from us."

The reporters had seen Elke and the others now. They hurried forward to ask questions of them as well. The inevitable question about Felix came first, but while it stung, it wasn't as bad as Elke thought it would be.

She managed a smile. "Well, it turned out my husband was guilty, and I don't defend the guilty. What we do, the CRU, is advocate for the innocent. Today, we freed two innocent people, and that's a good day's work if you ask me."

"What about friction with the DA's office and the police department?" called another reporter.

"I can assure you," said Elke, "there is no friction."

"Can you comment on the arrest of the Haven Hills Ripper? Is that within the purview of the CRU?"

"We fight for justice," said Elke. She smiled. "We're the good guys, and we're just getting started. If there are other people who have been wrongly convicted, we are going to root those cases out, and free those people. But we're not the story here. Saanvi Mukherjee and Kevin Greene are."

The reporters looked back at them, as if they'd just remembered their existence. They all ran back for the two, repeating their first question.

"How does it feel?"

Saanvi blinked. She glanced at Kevin and then back at the reporters. She smiled slowly. "It feels... unreal."

* * *

Elke told the others to take the rest of the day, but to be ready to come back Monday morning to start digging into another case.

She got a phone call from DA Andrews, congratulating her on the first case and on the way she handled the press. He said that he wanted more of the same the next time around.

She drove Amos home to his apartment and made sure he was securely locked inside before heading back to her own. He was still nervous being alone, but she knew the feeling. Every time she went into her own home, she searched the place, knife in hand. She'd even taken to leaving the closet doors open all the time and she never closed the shower curtain.

Also, she'd had a new lock installed. It didn't claim to be unpickable, but it was apparently pretty hard to pick, and that was better than nothing.

Even still, she felt good as she set the knife down in the kitchen and took a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. She had her new apartment and her new job, and she felt transformed. The woman who'd been half of a couple, one side of Felix-and-Elke, that woman felt far away from her.

She was sure that was a good thing.

* * *

Iain rolled over and collided with something in his bed.

Startled, he woke up immediately, only to realize that he wasn't in his bed, he was in Harley's, and that he'd stayed there the entire night, heretofore something he'd never done. Ever. He felt a slight stab of panic and the urge to get up, get dressed, and drive home as fast as he could.

But Harley stirred beside him and sleepily wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him back down next to her. "Morning," she whispered.

He resisted for a moment. But she was warm and soft, and there was something nice about waking up here, about not being alone. So he relaxed.

She snuggled close. "You freaking out?"

"No," he said.

She laughed. "Liar."

He laughed too, and then pulled her close and kissed her neck. "It's fine, really."

She wriggled around to face him. "So, what do you think? We can do this?"

"I don't know yet. I just woke up."

"You said you wanted to have me all to yourself," she said. "And I said if we were going to do that, this would have to be more like a relationship."

He kissed her forehead. "This isn't enough like a relationship for you?"

She stretched, yawning. "I don't know. I think maybe it might be, but only if you stick around and let me make you breakfast. And we drink coffee in our pajamas and laze around the whole morning without taking a shower."

He wrinkled up his nose. "No shower?"

She giggled. "Do I smell?"

He took a deep breath. "All right, no shower."

She smiled in triumph. "Good. Because weird people like us need to stick together. We're good together, Iain, we really are."

He smiled too. "What's for breakfast?"

"Bacon, eggs, home fries, the triumvirate of breakfast," she said.

"Triumvirate? You know that word?"

She punched him playfully, and crawled out of bed.

He lay back on the pillow and watched her shrug a robe over her bare skin. Maybe he could get used to this. Maybe he even liked this.

She grinned on him. "Next time we stay at your place."

His stomach knotted up. "One thing at a time, huh?"

She laughed as she left the bedroom.

* * *

Back before Elke met Felix, when she was single, she used to have a terror of dining alone. She would be worried about what people thought of her, sitting alone at a table in a restaurant with no one to sit with her.

She imagined that everyone who saw her was pitying her. They probably thought that she'd been stood up by someone—a boyfriend or a friend—and that now she was waiting for them, feeling rejected.

Pity made her feel awful, and so she wouldn't eat by herself. She needed to be with someone else to show her face in public.

But that Saturday morning, Elke decided she didn't give a hoot what anyone thought. And she didn't care if anyone did pity her. The joke would be on them. She didn't need any pity. She had things under control, and she wasn't sure she'd ever been happier.

Even in the first days of her courtship with Felix, when the world seemed bright and love was in the air, she had owed her happiness to another person. But this satisfaction she felt now, this happiness, it came from her own efforts. It was hers and hers alone.

She wanted to go out and celebrate. And she didn't need anyone to accompany her.

So, she got up, got dressed, and headed out for the Hearty Skillet, a restaurant that had a brunch buffet to die for.

When she entered, the hostess looked over her shoulder, waiting for someone else. After a long pause, she realized. "Just one?"

Elke nodded. "Just one."

"Follow me," said the hostess.

Elke ordered coffee and orange juice and started to head for the buffet.

Her phone rang.

She sat back down to look at the number. It was Lulu, her real estate agent. "Hello?" said Elke.

"Great news," said Lulu. "We've got an offer on the house."

"Really?" said Elke.

"Yes," said Lulu. "And they've gone a thousand above asking price, which is much better than we'd hoped for."

"That's great," said Elke.

"I'll email you the details, but I thought you'd want to know right away."

"Absolutely," said Elke. "I'm so pleased." The house would be gone, and with it, the last of her ties to her old life. Elke would shrug that off, and she would move into the future. For the first time in a long time, she felt light and airy, as if the house had been a weight on her shoulders that had now been lifted.

She sucked in a breath and looked out the window into the morning sun, smiling.

* * *

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