Praise for Laura Caldwell’s IZZY MCNEIL novels

Red, White & Dead

“A sizzling roller coaster ride through the streets of Chicago, filled with murder, mystery, sex and heartbreak. These page-turners will have you breathless and panting for more.”

—Shore Magazine

“Chock full of suspense, Red, White & Dead is a riveting mystery of crime, love, and adventure at its best.”

—New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds

Red Blooded Murder

“Smart dialogue, captivating images, realistic settings and sexy characters… The pieces of the puzzle come together to reveal the secrets between the sheets that lead Izzy to realize who the killer is.”

—BookReporter.com

“Red Blooded Murder aims for the sweet spot between tough and tender, between thrills and thought—and hits the bull’s-eye. A terrific novel.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

“Izzy is the whole package: feminine and sexy, but also smart, tough and resourceful. She’s no damsel-in-distress from a tawdry bodice ripper; she’s more than a fitting match for any bad guys foolish enough to take her on.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

Red Hot Lies

“Caldwell’s stylish, fast-paced writing grips you and won’t let you go.”

—Edgar Award–winning author David Ellis

“Told mainly from the heroine’s first-person point of view, this beautifully crafted and tightly written story is a fabulous read. It’s very difficult to put down—and the ending is terrific.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Former trial lawyer Caldwell launches a mystery series that weaves the emotional appeal of her chick-lit titles with the blinding speed of her thrillers… Readers will be left looking forward to another heart-pounding ride on Izzy’s silver Vespa.”

—Publishers Weekly

Claim Of Innocence
Laura Caldwell

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Acknowledgments

1

“I zzy,” my friend Maggie said, “I need you to try this murder case with me. Now.”

“What?” I shifted my cell phone to my other ear, not sure I’d heard her right. I had never tried a criminal case before—not even a parking ticket, much less a murder trial.

“Yeah,” she said. “Right now.”

It was a hot August Thursday in Chicago, and I had just left the civil courthouse. I had taken three steps into the Daley Center Plaza, looked up at the massive Picasso sculpture—an odd copper thing that looked half bird, half dog—and I actually said to it, “I’m back.”

I’d argued against a Motion to Dismiss for Maggie. She normally wouldn’t have filed a civil case, but she’d done so as a favor to a relative. I lost the motion, something that would have burned me in days of yore, but instead I was triumphant. Having been out of the law for nearly a year, I’d wondered if I had lost it—lost the ability to argue, to analyze information second-to-second, to change course and make it look like you’d planned it all along. I had worried that perhaps not going to court was like not having sex for a while. At first, you missed it deeply but then it became more difficult to remember what it was like with each passing day. Not that I was having that particular problem.

But really, when I’d seen the burning sun glinting off the Picasso and I stated boldly that I was back in action, I meant it figuratively. I was riding off the fact that although Maggie’s opponent had won the motion, and the complaint temporarily dismissed, Judge Maddux had said, “Nice argument, counsel” to me, his wise, blue eyes sparkling.

Judge Maddux had seen every kind of case in his decades of practice and every kind of lawyer. His job involved watching people duke it out, day after day after day. For him to say “Nice argument” was a victory. It meant I still had it.

As I walked through the plaza, the heat curling my red hair into coils, I had called Maggie. She was about to pick a jury at 26th and Cal on a murder case, so her voice was rushed. “Jesus, I’m glad you called,” she said.

Normally, Maggie Bristol would not have answered her phone right before the start of a criminal trial, even if she was curious about the motion I’d handled for her. But she knew I was nervous to appear in court—something I used to do with such regularity the experience would have barely registered. She was answering, I thought, to see how I was doing.

“It went great!” I said.

I told her then that I was a “lawyer for hire.” Civil or criminal, I said, it didn’t matter. And though I’d only practiced civil before, I was willing to learn anything.

Since leaving the legal world a year ago, I’d tried many things—part-time assignments from a private investigator named John Mayburn and being a reporter for Trial TV, a legal network. I liked the TV gig until the lead newscaster, my friend Jane Augustine, was killed and I was suspected in her murder. By the time my name was cleared, I wasn’t interested in the spotlight anymore.

So the reporter thing hadn’t worked out, and the work with Mayburn was streaky. Plus, lately it was all surveillance, which was a complete snooze. “I miss the law,” I told Maggie from the plaza. “I want back in.”

Which was when she spoke those words—I need you to try this murder case with me. Now.

I glanced up at the Picasso once more, and I knew my world was about to change. Again.

2

O ver the years, it became disquieting—how easy the killing was, how clean.

He had always lived and worked in an antiseptic environment, distanced from the actual act of ending a life. They were usually killed in the middle of the night. But he never slept on those nights anyway, even though he wasn’t there. He twisted in his bed. The only way he knew when they were dead was when he got the phone call. The person on the line would state simply, “He’s gone.”

He would thank them, hang up and then he would go on, as if he hadn’t just killed someone.

But then he’d reached a point when he wanted to make it real. He wanted to see it.

And so he went to watch. He remembered that he had walked across the yard, toward the house. In the eerie, moonless night it seemed as if he heard a chorus of voices—formless cries, no words, just shouts and calls, echoes that sounded like pain itself.

He had stopped walking then. He listened. Was he really hearing that? Something rose up inside him, choked him. But he gulped it down. And then he kept moving toward the house.

3

A h, 26th and Cal. You could almost smell the place as you neared it—a scent of desperation, of seediness, of excitement.

Other parts of the city now boasted an end-of-the-summer lushness—bushes full and vividly green, flowers bright and bursting from boxes, tree branches draping languidly over the streets. But out here at 26th and Cal, cigarette butts, old newspapers and crushed cans littered the sidewalks, all of them leading to one place.

Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building was actually two buildings mashed together—one old, stately and slightly decrepit, the other a boxy, unimaginative, brownish structure better suited to an office park in the burbs.

The last time I’d been here was as a reporter for Trial TV, covering my first story. Now I flashed my attorney ID to the sheriff and headed toward the elevators, thinking that I liked this feeling better—that of being a lawyer, a participant, not just an observer.

I passed through the utilitarian part of the building into the old section with its black marble columns and brass lamps, the ceiling frescoed in sky-blue and orange. As I neared the elevator banks, my phone vibrated in my bag, and I pulled it out, thinking it was Maggie.

But it was Sam. Sam, who I nearly married a year ago. Sam, the guy I’d happily thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Sam, who had disappeared when we were engaged. Although I eventually understood his reasons, I hadn’t been able to catch up in the aftermath of it all. I wanted more time. He wanted things to be the way they’d been before. We’d finally realized that the pieces of Sam and Izzy, Izzy and Sam no longer fit together.

I looked at the display of the phone, announcing his name. I knew I had to get upstairs. I knew I was involved with someone else now. But I hadn’t talked to Sam in a while. And the fact was, his pull was hard to avoid.

I took a step toward a marble wall and leaned my back on it, answering the phone. “Hey. How are you?”

“Hi, Red Hot.” His nickname for me twinged something inside, some mix of fond longing and gently nagging regrets. We had a minute or two of light, meaningless banter—How are you? Great. Yeah, me, too. Good. Good. Then Sam said, “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, but I’m in the courthouse. About to try a case with Maggie.” I told him quickly about Maggie’s phone call. I told him that Maggie’s grandfather, who was also her law partner, had been working extra hard on the murder case. Martin Bristol, a prosecutor-turned-criminal-lawyer, was in his seventies, but he’d always been the picture of vigor, his white hair full, his skin healthy, still wearing his expensive suits with a confident posture. But that day, Maggie said he’d not only seemed weak but he’d almost fainted. He’d denied anything was wrong, but Maggie sensed differently. And now here I was at 26th and Cal.

“You’re kidding?” Sam had always been excited for me when I was doing anything interesting in the legal realm. It was Sam who had reminded me on more than one occasion over the last year that I was a lawyer—that I should make my way back to the law. “This is incredible, Iz,” Sam said. “How do you feel?”

And then, right then, we were back to Sam and Izzy, Izzy and Sam. I told him the thought of being back in a courtroom was making my skin prickle with nerves but how that anxiety was also battling something that felt like pure adrenaline. I told him that adrenaline was something I had feared a little, back in the days when I was representing Pickett Enterprises, a Midwest media conglomeration.

“You’ve always been a thrill seeker,” Sam said. “You jumped in with both feet when Forester starting giving you cases to handle.”

We were silent for a second, and I knew we were remembering Forester Pickett, whom we had both worked for, whom we had both loved and who had been dead almost a year now.

“You didn’t even know what you were doing,” Sam continued, “yet you just charged in there and took on everything.”

“But when I was on trial or negotiating some big contract and the adrenaline would start surging, sometimes it felt like too much. And now…” I thought about trying a case again and I let the adrenaline wash over me. “I like it.”

“You’re using it to fuel you.”

“Exactly.”

This was not a conversation I would have had with Theo, my boyfriend. It was not a conversation I would have had even with Maggie. It felt damned good.

I looked at my watch. “I need to go.”

A pause. “Call me later? I kind of…well, I have some news.”

I felt a sinking in my stomach, for which I didn’t know the reason. “What is it?”

“You’ve got to go. I’ll tell you later.”

“No, now.”

Another pause.

“Seriously,” I said. “You know I hate when people say they want to talk and then don’t tell you what they want to talk about.”

He exhaled loud. I’d heard that exhale many times. I could imagine him closing his green, green eyes as he breathed, maybe running his hands through his blond hair, which would be white-gold now from the summer sun.

“Okay, Iz,” he said. “I know this isn’t the right time for this, but…I’m probably moving out of Chicago.”

“Where? And why?”

But then I knew.

“It’s for Alyssa,” I said, no question mark at the end of that statement. I suddenly knew for certain that this news of his had everything to do with Alyssa, his tiny, blonde, high-school sweetheart. His girlfriend since we’d called off our engagement.

And with that thought, I knew something else, too. “You’re engaged.”

His silence told me I was right.

“Well, congratulations,” I said, as though it didn’t matter, but my stomach felt crimped with pain. “So when is the big date?”

He didn’t say anything for second. Then, “That’s why I had to call you. There’s not going to be a date.”

I felt my forehead crease with confusion. Across the foyer, I saw a sheriff walking toward me with a stern expression. I knew he would tell me to move along. They didn’t like people standing in one place for too long at 26th and Cal.

“There’s not going to be a date,” Sam repeated. “Not if you don’t want there to be.”

4

I got in the elevator with two sullen-looking teenagers. I needed to focus on Maggie’s case and put my game face on. I couldn’t think about my conversation with Sam right now, so I tuned in to the teenagers’ conversation.

“What you got?” one said.

The other shrugged. “Armed robbery. My PD says take the plea.”

“Why you got a public defender if you out on bail?” The first kid sounded indignant. “If you can get bail, you can get a real lawyer.”

The other shook his head. “Nah. My auntie says she won’t pay no more.”

“Damn.” He shook his head.

“Yeah.”

They both looked at me then. I tried to give a hey-there, howdy kind of look, but they weren’t really hey-there, howdy kind of guys. One of the teenagers stared at my hair, the other my breasts. I was wearing a crisp, white suit that I’d thought perfect for a summer day in court, but when I looked down, I realized that one of the buttons of my navy blue blouse had popped open and I was showing cleavage. I grasped the sides of the blouse together with my hand, and when the elevator reached my floor, I dodged out.

Although I was still in the old section of the courthouse, that floor must have been remodeled a few decades ago, and its hallways now bore a staid, uninspired, almost hospitalish look with yellow walls and tan linoleum floors. I searched for Maggie’s courtroom. When I found it and stepped inside, I felt a little deflated. Last year, when I’d been here for Trial TV, the case was on the sixth floor in one of the huge, two-story, oak-clad courtrooms with soaring windows. This courtroom was beige—from the spectators’ benches, which were separated from the rest of the courtroom by a curved wall of beige Plexiglas, to the beige-gray industrial carpet to the beige-ish fabric on the walls to the beige-yellow glow emanating with a faint high pitch from the fluorescent lights. A few small windows at the far side of the benches let in the only other light, which bounced off the Plexiglas, causing the few people sitting there to have to shift around to avoid it.

Maggie was in the front of the courtroom on the other side of the Plexiglas at one of the counsel’s tables. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, and with her curly, chin-length hair, she almost looked like a kid swimming in her too-loose, pin-striped suit. But Maggie certainly didn’t act like a kid in the courtroom. Anyone who thought she did or underestimated her in any way ended up on the losing end of that scuffle.

No one was behind the high, elongated judge’s bench. At another counsel’s table were two women who must have been assistant state’s attorneys—you could tell by the carts next to their tables, which were laden with accordion folders marked First Degree Murder, as if the verdict had already been rendered. The state’s attorneys were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. The room, I realized, was soundproof. The judge probably had to turn on the audio in order for anything to be heard by the viewers.

I walked past the spectator pews and pushed one of the glass double-doors to greet Maggie. The door screeched opened half an inch, then stopped abruptly.

Maggie looked up, then pointed at the other door. I suddenly remembered a law professor Maggie and I had at Loyola Chicago. The professor had stood in front of an Advanced Litigation class and said the most important thing she could teach us, if we planned to practice in Cook County, was Always push the door with the lock. I’d found she was right. At the Daley Center, where most of the larger civil cases were held, there were always double doors. One of them always had a lock on it, and that one was always unlocked. If you pushed the other, you inevitably banged into it and looked like an ass, and in the world of litigation, where confidence was not only prized but required, you didn’t want that.

From what I had learned through Maggie, though, Chicago’s criminal courts didn’t run like anyone else’s, so I hadn’t thought about the door thing. More than anything, though, I was probably just out of practice. I gave Maggie a curt nod to say, I got it, then pushed the correct door and stepped into the courtroom.

The state’s attorneys turned and eyed me. One, I guessed, was in her forties, but her stern expression and steely glare made her seem older. She wore a brown pant-suit and low heels. The woman with her was younger, a brunette with long hair, who was probably a few years out of law school—enough time to give her the assurance to appraise me in the same frank way as her colleague, but with a lot less glare.

Maggie stepped toward me, gesturing toward the woman in brown who had short, frosted hair cut in a no-nonsense fashion and whose only makeup was a slash of maroonish lipstick. “Ellie Whelan,” she said, “and Tania Castle.” She gestured toward the brunette. “This is Izzie McNeil. She’ll be trying the case with us.”

Both the women looked surprised.

“With you and Marty?” Ellie said, referring to Maggie’s grandfather.

Maggie grunted in sort of a half agreement.

“Haven’t I met you?” the brunette said to me, her eyes trailing over my hair, my face.

“Yeah…” Ellie said, doing the same.

I used to have to make occasional TV statements in my former role as an entertainment lawyer for Pickett Enterprises. But after Jane Augustine’s murder last spring, my face had been splashed across the news more than once. Sometimes I still drew glances of recognition from people on the street. The good thing was most couldn’t exactly place me.

I was about to explain, but Maggie said, “Oh, definitely. She’s been on a ton of high-profile cases.” She threw me a glance as if to say, Leave it at that.

I drew Maggie to her table—our counsel’s table, I should say. “Where’s your grandfather?”

Maggie’s face grew serious. She glanced over her shoulder at a closed door to the right of the judge’s bench. “He’s in the order room. Said he wanted a little time to himself.” She looked at her watch. “The judge gave us a break. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing.” Maggie called her grandfather by his first name during work hours. Maggie and her grandfather had successfully defended alleged murderers, drug lords and Mafioso. They were both staunch believers in the constitutional tenets that gave every defendant the right to a fair arrest and a fair trial. Those staunch beliefs had made them a hell of a lot of money.

I put my hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait, Mags,” I said, my voice low. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

She blew out a big breath of air, puffing her wheat-blond curly bangs away from her face. “I really don’t know. He’s been working around the clock on this case. Harder than I’ve ever seen him work.”

“That’s saying something. Your grandfather is one of the hardest-working lawyers in town.”

“I know!” She bit her bottom lip. “This case just seemed to grab him from the beginning. He heard about it on the news and told me we had to represent Valerie even though she already had a lawyer.” Maggie named an attorney who was considered excellent. “My grandfather went to the other lawyer and talked her out of the case. And he’s been working on it constantly for the last ten months. I’m talking weekends and nights, even coming into the office in the middle of the night sometimes.” Maggie shook her head. “I think he pushed himself too much, and he’s finally feeling his age.”

“That’s hard.”

Maggie nodded, then shrugged. “So that’s basically it. I was ready to handle the opening arguments today after we picked the jury. And we had all the witnesses divided. But we got here and he started talking to our client, and his knees just buckled. He almost went down. I had to catch him.” More chewing her bottom lip, this time on the corner of it. “It was so sad, Iz. He gave me this look… I can’t describe it, but he looked scared.”

I think we were both scared then. Maggie’s grandfather had always held a tinge of the immortal. He was the patriarch of the family, the patriarch of the firm. No one ever gave thought to him not being around. It was impossible to imagine.

“Shouldn’t he see a doctor?” I asked.

“That’s what I said, but he seemed to recover quickly, and he said he wouldn’t go to the hospital or anything. You know how he is.”

“Yeah. It would be tough to force him.”

“Real tough.”

“Okay,” I said, putting on a brusque voice and standing taller. “Well, before we talk to your grandfather, update me on the case. Who is your client?”

Another exhale from Maggie sent her bangs away from her forehead. She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was near us. The state’s attorneys were on the far side of their table now, one talking on a cell phone, the other paging though a transcript.

“Her name is Valerie Solara,” Maggie said. “She’s charged with killing her friend, Amanda Miller.”

“How did the friend die?”

“Poisoned.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It was put in her food. The state’s theory is that Valerie wanted Amanda out of the way because she was in love with Amanda’s husband, Zavy.”

“Zavy?”

“Short for Xavier.”

“Any proof Valerie did it?”

“The husband will testify Valerie made overtures toward him prior to the murder, which he turned down. A friend of Amanda and Valerie’s will testify that Valerie asked her about poisons. Valerie was the one cooking the food that day with Amanda. It was her recipe, and she was teaching it to Amanda. Toxicology shows the food was deliberately contaminated and that caused Amanda’s death.”

“What does your client say?”

“Not much. Just that she didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean not much? How are we going to mount a defense if she won’t say much?”

“We handle this case the same as any other,” Maggie said. “First, we ask the client what happened. Then the client chooses what to tell us. Usually we don’t even ask the ultimate question about guilt or innocence because we don’t need to know. Our defense is almost always that the state didn’t meet their burden of proof.”

“So you never asked her if she did it or not?”

“She says she didn’t. Told us that first thing.”

“If she didn’t, who did?”

“She hasn’t given us a theory.”

Just then, a sheriff stepped into the courtroom. “All rise!”

The judge—a beefy, gray-haired guy in his early fifties—zipped up his robe over a white shirt and light blue tie as he stepped up to the bench.

“The Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session,” the sheriff bellowed, “the Honorable—”

The judge held his hand out to the sheriff and shook his head dismissively. The sheriff looked wounded but clapped his mouth shut.

“Judge Bates,” Maggie whispered. “He hates pomp and circumstance. New sheriff.”

I nodded and turned toward the judge, hands behind my back.

“Counsel, where are we?” the judge said.

Maggie stepped toward the bench and introduced me as another lawyer who would be filing an appearance on behalf of Valerie Solara. That drew a grouchy look from the judge.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let’s get this on the record.” He directed the sheriff to call the court reporter. A few seconds later, she scurried into the room with her machine, and Maggie went through the whole introduction again on the record.

“Fine,” the judge said when she was done, “now you’ve got three lawyers. More than enough to voie dire our jury panels.” The judge looked at the sheriff. “Call ’em in.”

“Excuse me, Judge,” Maggie said, taking a step toward the bench. “If we could have just five more minutes, we’ll be ready.”

Judge Bates sat back in his chair, regarding Maggie with a frown. He looked at the state’s attorneys for their response.

Ellie Whelan stepped forward. “Judge, this has taken too long already. The state is prepared, and we’d like to pick the jury immediately.”

The judge frowned again. I could tell he wanted to deny Maggie’s request, but Martin Bristol carried a lot of weight in Chicago courtrooms, even if he wasn’t present at the moment. “Five minutes,” the judge barked. He looked pointedly at Maggie. “And that’s it.” When the judge had left the bench, Maggie nodded at the door of the order room. “C’mon. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing. It will help that you’re going to try this case. You’re one of his favorites.”

We walked to the door, and Maggie swung it open. Martin Bristol sat at a table, a blank notepad in front of him. He was hunched over in a way I’d never seen before, his skin grayish. When he saw us, he straightened and blinked fast, as if trying to wake himself up.

“Izzy,” he said with a smile that showed still-white teeth. “What are you doing here?”

“Izzy’s looking for work, so I’m going to toss her some scraps.” Maggie shot me a glance. She wanted it to seem as if she was hiring me as a favor, not as a way to save her grandfather.

“I’d really appreciate it,” I said.

“Of course,” Martin said. “Anything for you, Izzy.” His posture slumped again, the weight of his shoulders appearing too much to hold.

“Mr. Bristol, are you all right?”

Maggie took a seat on one side of him. After a moment, I sat on the other side, a respectful distance away.

A moment later, when he’d still said nothing, Maggie put her hand on his arm. “Marty?”

Again, he didn’t respond, just stared at the empty legal pad, his mouth curling into a shell of sadness.

There was a rap on the door and the sheriff stuck his face into the room. “He’s had it,” he said, referring to the judge. “We’re bringing in the prospective jurors now.”

Maggie’s eyes were still on her grandfather. “Izzy and I can handle the voie dire. We may not open until tomorrow, so why don’t you go home?”

He sat up a little. “What have I always told you about jury selection?”

“That it’s the most important part of the trial,” Maggie said, as if by rote.

“Exactly.” He straightened more but didn’t stand.

“I think you should go home. Get some rest.”

His gaze moved to Maggie’s. I thought he would immediately reject the notion, but he only said simply, “Maybe.”

“Let us handle it.” Maggie nodded toward the courtroom. “I’ve already told the judge that Izzy was filing an appearance.”

Again, I waited for swift rejection, but Martin Bristol nodded. “Just this one time.”

“Just this once,” Maggie said softly.

Martin pushed down on the table with his hands, shoving himself to his feet. “I’ll explain to Judge Bates.” He slowly left the room.

Maggie’s round eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, watched him. Then she met my gaze across the table. “You ready for this?”

My pulse quickened. “No.”

“Good,” she said, standing. “Let’s get out there.”

5

“H ow’s Theo?” Maggie asked as the sheriff led a panel of about fourteen potential jurors through the Plexiglas doors and into the courtroom. Theo was the twenty-two-year-old guy I’d been dating since spring.

“Um…” I said, eyeing the potential jurors. “He’s fine. So what’s your strategy here? Did you do a mock trial for this? Do you know what kind of juror you want?”

As was typical, the possible jurors being led in were a completely mixed bag—people of every color and age. I remembered a story my friend, Grady, once told me about defending a doctor who had been sued. As they were about to start opening arguments, the doctor had looked at the jury and then looked at Grady. “Well, that’s exactly a jury of my peers,” the doc had said sarcastically.

When Grady told me the story, we both thought the doctor arrogant, but we understood what he meant. Chicago was a metropolis that was home to every type of person imaginable. As a result, you never knew what you were going to get when you picked a jury in Cook County. “Unpredictable” was the only way to describe a jury in this city.

“We talked to a jury consultant,” Maggie said, answering my question, “but tell me, what’s going on with Theo?”

I turned to her. “Why are you asking this now?”

“My grandfather always taught me to have two seconds of normal chitchat right before a trial starts.”

“Why?”

“Because for the rest of the trial you become incapable of it and because it calms you down.” She peered into my eyes. “And I think you could use some of that.”

“Why? I’m fine.” But I could feel my pulse continue its fast pace.

She peered even more closely. “You’re not going to have one of those sweat attacks, are you?”

I glared at her. But she had a right to ask. I had this very occasional but acute nervousness problem that caused me to, essentially, sweat my ass off. It usually happened at the start of a trial, and it was mortifying. I’d always said it was as if the devil had taken a coal straight from the furnace of hell and plopped it onto my belly.

I paused a moment and searched my body for any internal boiling. “No, I think I’m fine.”

The sheriff barked orders at the jurors about where to sit.

“If it’s a tradition,” I said, “the chitchat thing, then we should do it.”

Maggie nodded.

“So Theo is good,” I said. I got a flash of him—young, tall, muscled Theo, with tattoos on his arms—a gold-and-black serpent on one, twisting ribbons of red on the other. I could see his light brown hair that he wore to his chin now, his gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous face, those lips…

I shook my head to halt my thinking. If I didn’t stop, my internal heat would definitely rise. “Actually, I have more to talk about in terms of Sam.”

“Really? I thought you hadn’t seen him much.”

“I haven’t. He called this morning.”

“Hmm,” Maggie said noncommittally, her hands tidying stacks of documents. “How is he?”

“Engaged.”

Maggie’s chin darted forward, the muscles in her neck standing out. Her eyes went wide and shot from one of mine to the other and back again, looking for signs, I supposed, of impending sobbing. Finding none—I think I was still too shocked—she asked, “Alyssa?”

I nodded.

“Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry, Iz.”

Maggie’s gaze was worried. She knew the ins and outs of Sam and me from start to finish. After Sam and I broke up, she was one of the few friends who understood that I still adored him, even as I felt I couldn’t continue our relationship. Eventually, I put that relationship away, in my past, likely never to be seen in my future. But here it was in my present.

“Where are they getting married?” Maggie asked. “And when?”

“Well, that’s the thing. He says he won’t set a date. Not if I don’t want there to be a date.”

And then I saw something remarkable, something I’d seen only once or twice before—Maggie Bristol, who was never at a loss for words, stared at me, her mouth open. Not a sound emanated from within. Not even when the judge shouted at her.

“Counsel,” the judge called to Maggie again, this time very loud. “Is. Your. Client. Here?” he said, enunciating.

Maggie finally dropped her eyes from me, picked up a cell phone and glanced at it. “Yes, Your Honor. One moment please.” Maggie gestured at me to walk with her.

“Where is your client?” I whispered.

“Our client,” Maggie whispered back. “She gets emotional when she’s in the courtroom so we try to keep her out until it’s absolutely necessary. I have someone from our office sit with her in an empty courtroom, then I text them to get her down here.” She put her hand on my arm. “We’ll have to table this discussion of Sam.”

“Of course. Forget I said anything.”

She scoffed as she led us past the gallery pews, all filled with more prospective jurors. I knew what she meant—it was hard for me to think of anything but Sam. Sam’s voice. Sam, saying he still wanted to be with me after everything.

I forced myself to focus instead on all those people in the pews, watching us like actors on a stage. And in a way litigation was a performance. I knew exactly what production Maggie wanted us to act in right now. She wanted us to make a show of solidarity—the two women lawyers about to greet their female client.

I threw my shoulders back, banned Sam Hollings from my mind again and smiled pleasantly at a few of the potential jurors as I followed Maggie to the courtroom door. I spied a couple of reporters scribbling in notepads. “I’m surprised there isn’t more media,” I whispered to Maggie.

“We’ve been trying to keep it low-key. We haven’t made a statement to the press, and Valerie hasn’t, either.”

As we stepped into the hallway, Maggie was stopped by a man with bright eyes who must have been at least eighty. I recognized him as a famous judge who had stepped down over a decade ago but was always being profiled in the bar magazines as someone who spent his retirement watching over the criminal courthouse where he had presided for so long.

“Hey, Judge!” Maggie said casually, shaking his hand and patting him on the arm. “How’s the golf game?”

“Terrible this summer!”

“It’s always been terrible, sir.”

The judge laughed. Maggie was like this at work—irreverent in a respectful kind of way. But she had an immediacy to her and a clear-cut way of speaking to people like judges, other attorneys and politicos, as if she had been intimately involved on their level for decades.

The judge moved on. A few steps later, I saw Maggie’s receptionist, whom I knew from my frequent visits to Martin Bristol & Associates. “Hi,” I said to her, but stopped short in my greeting when I saw the woman next to her.

Valerie Solara was a beautiful woman. She had golden-brown skin and eyes that were so dark they were almost black. Her gleaming ebony hair was pulled away from her face, showing her high cheekbones, her elegantly curved jaw. She wore a brown dress with tiny, ivory polka dots and a wide leather belt. But it wasn’t so much her beauty that struck me. It was the feel of her—some kind of powerful emotion that hung around her like a cloak.

And suddenly I knew what that emotion was. I’d felt it for a large part of my last year, after my fiancé disappeared, after my friend died, after I was followed, after I was a suspect in a murder investigation. The emotion was fear.

6

B ack in the courtroom, Maggie explained to Valerie that I would be helping on the case. Valerie looked confused, but nodded. Maggie then took the middle of the three chairs at our table so she could speak to both Valerie and me during jury questioning.

The state had the right to question potential jurors first. Tania Castle flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder as she looked at the jury questionnaires. She began calling on potential jurors, asking them whether they or their family members had been victims of a violent crime, whether they were members of law enforcement, whether they could be fair. When she was done, she consulted with Ellie, the other state’s attorney, and they booted two of the jurors, who were replaced by two others from the gallery.

Maggie held out our copies of the questionnaires. “You’re up,” she said.

“You’re letting me go first?”

She nodded, then leaned in and whispered instructions to me.

When she was done, I took the questionnaires from her hand. “Got it.”

I glanced at Valerie, whose face seemed to war between calm and dread. I gave her my best it will be fine expression.

Wishing desperately for that expression to be true, I strode toward the jury box, exuding what I hoped was a composed, authoritative air, even though my skin felt tingly, as if my nerves were scratching against it.

We wanted to present Valerie Solara, Maggie had said, as a mom, a Chicagoan and a friend. Valerie had lost her husband some years back and in order to be able to afford her daughter’s private school, they’d moved from their upscale Gold Coast neighborhood to the west side of the city, into a cheaper apartment. We wanted jurors who were devoted parents, or jurors who lived either north or west as Valerie had, or even widowers. Basically, we wanted people who seemed as much like our client as possible.

I looked at one potential juror and smiled. “Ms. Marshall. You mentioned on earlier questioning that your husband is a police officer, is that right?”

She nodded. She was a heavy woman with faded blond hair and splotched skin. She looked annoyed about having to be here, but her previous answers had shown she had some interest in being on the jury. She was also obviously in support of anything law enforcement; one of those people who believed the police could do no wrong.

I want her out, Maggie had said fiercely. In Illinois, an attorney can ask that a potential juror be dismissed for “cause”—meaning a situation where it was evident that a potential juror could not be impartial—as many times as they wanted. But what if it wasn’t evident that person was unfair? What if the lawyer just had a feeling? Then you had to use a “challenge.” But each side only got a certain number of challenges. My role was to try and get the juror to say something that would rise to the level of “cause.”

“Given your husband’s job,” I said, “do you believe you would be able to stay fair and impartial throughout the trial?”

“Of course,” she said, clearly annoyed. Exactly what I wanted.

“It could be days, even weeks, until Valerie Solara will be able to present her own evidence. Will you be able to wait until you hear all the evidence before you decide whether the state has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt?”

“Yeah.” She crossed her arms and glared. She struck me as someone who wanted to be on the jury for the sake of being able to say so to her friends.

“Do you have children, Ms. Marshall?”

She shook her head.

“You’ll have to answer out loud for the court reporter, ma’am.”

“No,” she said loudly.

“Have you ever seen your husband testify in any cases?”

Now her face lightened. “Yes.”

“And have you ever encountered a situation where your husband testified in a case where the defendant was not guilty of the crime of which they were accused?”

“Oh, no,” she said immediately. “He wouldn’t.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s a policeman.”

“And police officers know who is guilty.”

“Right.”

“Is there a situation you could imagine where a police officer might testify and that person might end up being innocent?”

“No.”

I had her. I didn’t want to look triumphant in front of the whole jury, so I asked a few more questions, all benign, before I turned to Judge Bates. “Your Honor, I’d request that Ms. Marshall be excused from the jury for cause.”

He nodded. “So granted.”

Judge Bates looked at the jury. “Ms. Marshall, we thank you for being here today. You may leave.” He nodded at the sheriff to show her the way out. “Continue, Ms. McNeil.”

I picked out a thirtyish guy with hair flattened to his head in a way that was technically stylish but not on him, and who had been staring at my legs since I’d been in front of him. “Mr. Heaton.”

He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive kind of way.

I asked a couple of questions, enough to see that this guy would say yes to whatever I wanted. I thanked him and wrote W on the questionnaire, my shorthand for I-want-this-one-on-my-jury.

I turned to the woman next to him and questioned her, then another.

During the process of voie dire, you needed to not only pick out the jurors you wanted dismissed, but also win over the jurors you wanted to keep. You had to chat and crack a couple of jokes and respond to the judge and read one juror’s face while you read another’s body language out of the corner of your eye and keep your ears open for a C’mere a sec from your cocounsel—and you had to do this all at the same time and make it look smooth. I loved voie dire.

By the time I was done with the panel of jurors, I felt great. I walked toward the table and saw Maggie give me a pleased nod.

I glanced at Ellie Whelan, who regarded me for a second before she returned her gaze to the questionnaires in front of her. If I was correct, her eyes had held grudging respect.

I sat next to Maggie. “I want to do it again.”

7

M aggie let me handle two more panels of jurors before she took over, but the judge kept the jury questioning surprisingly quick compared to civil court. Once the jury was sworn in, the judge gave them directions about reporting for duty the next day. Then they were dismissed.

Maggie, Valerie and I went into the order room where Martin Bristol had been that morning. We sat at the same table. Valerie looked more shaken than earlier. “It’s really happening,” she said.

Maggie nodded but didn’t appear worried. I was sure she’d heard such sentiments from other clients before.

Just then, Maggie’s phone buzzed. She grabbed it from her pocket and looked at it. “It’s my mom. She never calls when I’m on trial. It must be about my grandfather.”

Valerie’s eyes closed at the mention of Martin Bristol.

Maggie left the room and shot me a look over her shoulder. Take charge.

I turned to Valerie and put on my best lawyer face. “So Valerie, let’s talk a little bit and let me explain why I’m here.”

She nodded fast and looked into my eyes, clearly wanting to be reassured.

“As you apparently saw this morning, Marty is feeling ill. He’s never really shown his age, but he is in his seventies.”

Valerie gave a short shake of her head. “But he doesn’t seem old.”

“You’re right.”

“He came to me so certain we would win. He believed me, and I found myself trusting him, which is unlike me.” Her small, dark-skinned hands flew to her face again, and she looked as if she might cry. “He promised to win my case.”

I sensed she wanted to say something else, so I remained silent.

“And now…” She looked at me, then her eyes darted to the door, and I could almost hear her words. Now, I have you two.

I leaned forward, my hands on the table, wide apart. “Valerie, I’ll ask you to do something right now. Please don’t underestimate either Maggie or myself. Maggie is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the city, and in large part that’s because she was trained by her grandfather. I’ve also done a lot of trial work. We are both much more experienced than we look. And—well, I was thinking about this during jury selection—frankly, I think it gives a good impression for two women to represent you on this particular case.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re accused of killing your friend.” I sat there and let the words sink into the room, as much for Valerie as myself. I was sure that Maggie and Martin had engaged in numerous conversations with Valerie before, but now that I was one of her attorneys, we needed to have an honest discussion ourselves. “Anyone would want Martin Bristol on their case. But I have to tell you, it’s not bad that you now have two young women whom the jury may see as the friends we are, representing you when you are accused of killing your friend.”

She said nothing, a look of concentration settling into her face.

“Our presence tells the jury we believe you.” I didn’t mention that Maggie had told me many times that she didn’t always believe her clients; she didn’t need to.

Valerie took in a large breath, seeming to gather strength from somewhere inside her. Her eyes softened. “I’m glad you are here. I thank you for it. And yes, I understand what you are saying. By the way…” She paused. “I did not kill Amanda.”

I nodded. “Maggie told me you’ve said that.”

Her mouth pursed. “I want you to believe me.”

I nodded. I wanted that, too. “Look, I don’t try criminal cases often, but the fact that I’m not usually a criminal lawyer is a benefit to you because I bring other things to the table.” I thought about it. “Maybe when we’re outside the courthouse, you and I could talk about what happened. Maybe if I hear everything from you, I could see other avenues for this case.”

I would have to see if Maggie was all right with that. Maggie had always said she didn’t need to have that kind of discussion with the clients, and maybe there was a little bit of protecting herself from hearing too much. But now that I was back in the law, I didn’t want protection from it. I wanted to be hit with it.

“Okay.” Valerie’s eyes looked deeply into mine, and I thought I could read a message there. Thank you.

Suddenly, I remembered something that pleased me about being a being a lawyer. It wasn’t just the excitement of a trial. I liked helping someone who truly needed it. I liked finding solutions that a person wouldn’t be able to reach themselves.

“Do you have any restriction for your bail?” I asked Valerie.

“No. The state’s attorneys asked that I be required to stay at home and wear an ankle monitoring bracelet, but Martin put up a fight.”

We both smiled. Marty Bristol was fairly unstoppable once he put on the gloves.

“But essentially,” Valerie said, “I’ve just been going home every day. It’s been very hard. Amanda was my best friend, along with Bridget.” She saw me raise my eyebrows in question. “Bridget is—was, I guess—a friend of Amanda’s and mine.”

“The woman who is going to testify against you.”

Her face twisted as if seized by something. “Yes. So now I don’t have Amanda or Bridget. My daughter, Layla, has been living with me. She just started her sophomore year at DePaul University, but she’s moved back with me because of this…” She raised a hand and waved it around the room. She looked down and smoothed her dotted dress, crossing her lean legs demurely. “Sometimes I wonder if it will be the last time we ever get to spend any time alone together.”

The pain of her statement hit me. “I don’t want that to happen to you,” I said. “Let’s make some time to meet outside the courthouse. Either at night or this weekend.”

She met my eyes, nodded and gave me a small smile. In that, I could see a tiny sign of life—the life Valerie Solara used to have.

“Tell me,” I said, turning to Maggie when she returned and Valerie had left, “what do you want me to do tonight?” On a big trial like this, there was always so much to do—contact witnesses, draft motions, prepare direct exams and crosses, research issues that had arisen that day.

“Do whatever you had planned,” Maggie said, lifting her trial bag, a big, old-fashioned, leather affair handed down from her grandfather. “I’ll give you transcripts to read to get you up to speed. But you could do that this weekend. We’ve got openings tomorrow, and I’m ready to handle that.” She furrowed her brow. “My grandfather was going to cross the detectives next week. I’ll get his notes.”

“How did your mom say he’s doing?”

“Same.” She slid some grand jury transcripts across the table to me and snapped the trial bag closed, a frown on her face. “I may have you handle one of the detectives on Monday.”

“Really? Do you think I can? I’ve never crossed a detective before.”

“Yeah, well, I think this detective in particular might be the best place for you to start.”

“Why?”

A pause. “It’s Vaughn.”

It took a moment for the name to register, then my voice rang out. “Damon Vaughn?”

The bailiff walked into the room, apparently to retrieve something from the judge’s desk. He stopped at the sound of my indignant voice, lifting an eyebrow.

I turned back to Maggie and dropped my voice. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that the detective who made my life a living hell is testifying in your case.”

“Well, before today I was going to let Martin massacre him on the stand, then tell you all the gory details. I didn’t think you would be trying this case with me.”

I thought about Vaughn, a lean guy in his mid-forties. The first time I’d met him was at the office of my old firm after Sam disappeared. The next time was at the Belmont police station after my friend died and I realized that Vaughn suspected me of killing her. Usually, I hated no one. But I hated Vaughn.

“That mother trucker,” I muttered.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “You’re still on your not-swearing campaign?”

I nodded. I was trying to quit swearing. I didn’t like it when other people swore. The problem was it sounded so good when I did it. Still, I replaced goddamn it with God bless you and Jesus Christ with Jiminy Christmas and motherfucker with mother hen in a basket. Maggie was forever mocking me about it. “But I think this requires the real thing,” I said. “That mother fucker.”

“So you want a shot at crossing him?”

I thought about it, then smiled a cold smile. “Let me at him.”

8

W hen Maggie and I left the courthouse, the city was hot and humid, and the air crackled with a Thursday-night near-weekend buzz.

“I wish I had my Vespa here,” I said. I had driven a silver Vespa since law school. I found it cathartic and freeing.

Maggie nodded at a sad-looking parking garage across the street. “I’ll drive you home.”

I glanced up and down the street. “Can’t I get a cab?”

“Not in this hood.”

“Just drop me off somewhere I can get one.” Maggie lived on the south side, while I was Near North in Old Town. “You have too much to do tonight to be schlepping me around.”

As we crossed the street, Maggie said, “Don’t you think it’s time to get rid of the Vespa?”

My head snapped toward her. “Get rid of the Vespa?” My voice was incredulous.

She looked at me with sort of an amused air. “Yes. Honey, I think it’s time.”

“What do you mean, it’s time? Gas is expensive, and it’s an easy way to get around.”

She gave me a look that was more withering than amused now. “How did you get to court this morning?”

“The El.”

“Then how did you get to 26th and Cal?”

“Cab.”

“And now I’m driving you home.”

“You’re driving me to get a cab.”

We entered the parking garage and took a stairway—one that smelled like urine—to the second floor. “Whatever,” Maggie said. “My real point is you are too old for a scooter.”

“Too old?” The indignation in my voice was strong. I huffed. “And it’s not a scooter, it’s a Vespa.”

We found Maggie’s black Honda and got in it. It was blazing hot, and we both rolled down the windows.

“You’re thirty now,” Maggie said.

“So? You’re thirty, too, and you’re driving this crappy Honda.”

“But I have a reason. I don’t want to go into this crappy neighborhood with a nice car. What’s your excuse?”

“Why do I need an excuse?”

Maggie backed out and headed for the exit. “Well, there’s more than just you being thirty. There’s also the fact that you have been followed by thugs and investigators and such more than once over the past year.”

I fell silent as Maggie turned from the garage onto the street. When Sam disappeared last year, I had been tailed by the feds—and by other people, as well. We were back to Sam.

“So, what did he—” Maggie said before I cut her off.

“I don’t know anything more than I told you. Literally, he said he was engaged, but he wouldn’t set a date if I didn’t want him to.”

Maggie whistled then added, “Holy shit. Or as you would say, ‘Blessed poo.’”

“Oh, shut up.”

“So do you want Sam to cancel the engagement?” she asked.

Confusion seemed to swirl around me, seemed to make the heat thicker. “Doesn’t your air-conditioning work?” I fiddled with the knobs on Maggie’s dashboard. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not until I talk to him.”

“Why?”

Good question. I talked to Maggie about most everything. “Because I don’t want you to shoot it down. Because I don’t want you to be pragmatic or to remind me what happened before. Because I want to hear what he has to say.”

We were both quiet for a second.

“Fair enough,” Maggie said. “Getting back to the Vespa…”

I shook my head. “I’m just not willing to give up something I love so much like the Vespa.”

Maggie nodded. “Well, if you won’t get rid of it, maybe you can borrow Theo’s car sometimes. What does he drive?”

I paused. I blinked.

“You don’t know?” Maggie asked, laughing.

I felt myself blushing a little. I looked at her. “I don’t. I really don’t. When we go out, he gets a cab and picks me up, or we meet somewhere.”

“I can’t believe you don’t know what kind of car your boyfriend drives.”

I looked out the front window, mystified. I used to know everything about Sam. “I don’t even know if Theo owns a car. He has a plane. He must have a car, right?”

“Ah, the plane,” Maggie said with a wistful tone. Theo and his partner had a share in a corporate plane, and Maggie and I had been lucky enough to use it earlier that summer.

“You know what’s nuts?” I said. “I haven’t even seen his apartment.”

Maggie braked hard, making the car screech. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been dating him for five months.”

“I know.” I shrugged. “He always stays at my condo.”

Maggie shook her head and kept driving. We passed a bar where an old motorcycle hung from the sign out front.

“He never wants me to come over,” I continued, “because he says his place is awful, and he’s been there since he was nineteen. I think the word he used was hellhole, which didn’t make me want to see it very badly.”

Although he was only twenty-two now, Theo was mature in many ways, having run his own business for a while, but in other ways he was still in the throes of those postteen years where you could live in a hovel and have just as much fun as if it were a mansion.

Maggie started driving again. “Jesus, your life is fucked up.”

“I know.” I couldn’t even take it personally. “But in an interesting way, right?”

When she didn’t respond, I pulled out my phone and I texted Sam three words. Meet me tonight?

9

T he restaurant was called Fred’s. It sat atop the Barney’s department store like a little sun patio hidden amidst the city’s high-rises. The roof had a geometric shape cut into it so diners could gaze up at the sky-scraping towers blocks away, their lights twinkling against the blue-black sky arising from Lake Michigan behind them.

Fred’s was more formal than Sam usually liked. I wondered what this meant. He had decided the rendezvous point.

I watched Sam across the table from me as he searched the room for the waiter. It was as if he could hardly look at me. Was that because being together was overwhelming, emotionally speaking? Because he was nervous? What? I used to be able to read him so well. I understood him in ways he didn’t even see himself. Like the fact that he had been wounded by his family, even though his mother and siblings were all very nice people. When an abusive dad finally moves out, and you’re the oldest and only son, some male instinct kicks in and you become the dad. You take over. And that will wound. Nobody’s fault.

Finally, the waiter arrived, and Sam ordered a Blue Moon beer.

“Sorry, sir,” the waiter said congenially. They didn’t have any.

“A different Belgian white?” Sam requested.

The waiter apologized and helpfully offered other options, but Sam stalled, seeming a little off-kilter somehow. I jumped in and placed my order to give him time.

“I’ll have vodka and soda,” I said. “With two limes.”

Sam’s eyebrows hunched forward on his face. “When did you start drinking that?”

I thought about it. “A few months ago? My friend introduced me to it.”

Sam searched my eyes. “Your boyfriend.”

I nodded.

He laughed shortly, gruffly.

The waiter still stood at attention. “Sir…?” he asked Sam.

Sam looked up at him. “Patrón tequila. On the rocks.”

“When did you start drinking that?”

“Just now.” He smiled a sardonic grin. “You inspired me to change.”

A few moments of silence followed. They felt like a settling of sorts, a shifting into us with a recognition that us wasn’t the same. But somehow, it felt okay. It felt normal.

“I don’t want to screw things up with you and your boyfriend,” Sam said. I could tell by the way he pronounced boyfriend, in sort of a lighthearted, almost dismissive way, that he didn’t think much of my new relationship.

“Very little could disturb our relationship,” I said, giving a little more weight to Theo and me than might be accurate.

Sam looked at me, blinking a few times.

When I said nothing, he spoke. “I’m just gonna put it out there. Alyssa and I decided to move out of the city. And that was okay with me, because…” He drifted off. Then he slowly nodded. “It was okay because sometimes it’s hard to be here without you. Because Chicago is you. And me.”

He looked at me, and this time I didn’t hesitate to save him. I nodded back. I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes Chicago without him was not exactly the city I knew before. It was a little more exciting. A little more dangerous. Less consoling than it used to be.

“So anyway,” Sam continued, “we decided to move. Then somehow we started looking for engagement rings. But we couldn’t figure out what we wanted. Everything she sort-of liked, I didn’t. Everything I kinda liked, she didn’t.”

I nodded at him to continue.

“I just kept thinking about our engagement ring,” he said, swiftly unloosening the bolts of my heart with the words. Our engagement ring.

“Remember?” he said.

“Yeah, of course. You saw it in that jeweler’s window.”

“I couldn’t find anything better. Not even close.” He stared at me with a heaviness in his eyes, which momentarily made me sad for him. For me. For us both.

But then I thought of something. “You found a ring eventually, right? Because you’re engaged.”

“Yeah. Sapphire cut.” Sam rattled off a few more specifics that made it clear that a hell of a lot more money was spent on Alyssa’s ring than mine. But the truth was, I couldn’t have cared less.

Sam spoke up. Just one raw sentence that filled me with warmth. “It doesn’t feel the same with her.”

We nodded in silence. Kept nodding. And nodding.

Finally, I spoke. “A minute ago, you said I inspired you.”

Sam nodded.

“Meaning?”

“I want to take a page out of your book. I want to be able to start all over like you did, with grace.”

The emotional warmth I’d felt at his statement—It doesn’t feel the same with her—turned into an angry heat. I could feel my face turning pink, then ruddy, then redder still. Instead of being embarrassed, I let it lift my anger up until I could really feel it. “You think I started over with grace? Do you think I could possibly handle you disappearing two months before our wedding gracefully? I know by taking off you did what you felt you had to. You were fulfilling the dying wishes of a man you thought of as a father. You made a promise. But don’t forget that you’d also made me a promise when we got engaged, and do not assume I handled it well. Do not assume that, Sam.”

I took a gulp of the cocktail, the taste reminding me vaguely of kissing Theo after he’d been out with friends. I wanted that right now. I did not want to be assumed— assumedly fine, assumedly good-natured, assumedly graceful, assumedly a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl. I wanted to be consumed. And so I stood from the table, tossed back another gulp and I left.

10

S am walked up the flight of steps to his apartment. His legs felt heavy, the way they did when he’d been playing a lot of rugby. Izzy’s anger and her abrupt exit had shocked him. And yet it had made him love her more, respect her more.

When he reached his apartment and opened the door, Alyssa was there. He knew she would be, and yet he felt surprised. He always did when he saw her, as if he couldn’t force himself to remember on a regular basis that they were together.

He kissed the top of her blonde head. Felt a wave of guilt. But it wasn’t just Izzy that was causing the guilt. There was more. More that he hadn’t told either of them. Hadn’t told anyone.

The decision he had to make was technically easy. It could be communicated quickly, by phone or email. But the ramifications were bigger. Much, much bigger. Life-changing bigger. He couldn’t believe he was considering it. Would never have believed this of himself.

Which scared him. And thrilled him. He hated himself a little. But he couldn’t deny the thrill.

11

W hen I got to my condo—the third floor of an old three flat in Old Town—I stomped up the stairs and slammed the door. Silence answered. A minute later, when Theo buzzed and I hit the intercom, I heard him make a growling sound, telling me he was in the same mood as I was. Or at least the same ballpark. I hit the buzzer, felt lighter already.

I heard his heavy footfalls on the stairs. With each one—thump, thump, thump—my stomach clenched and unclenched in anticipation. And then there he was, opening the door, standing there for a second, his six-foot-two body taking up most of the frame. He grinned, looking at me, and still he just stood there. He wore a powder-blue T-shirt that had some kind of white lettering writhing across it. The shirt had been washed so many times that it looked incredibly soft. It also couldn’t hide his body underneath—the chest, the rippling stomach muscles. He took a step toward me and I flushed, every cell of my body alive and dancing with a desire that ramped up every time I saw him.

My reaction to Theo was so intense each time I saw him that I had begun to wonder if I was… God, I could hardly think it. Well, here was the thing—I had been starting to wonder if I was falling in love with him. Because it seemed nothing else could explain the constant ratcheting up of longing and emotions.

Yet it was hard to judge whether Theo was in the same place. And now there was something else. Now there was Sam.

Looking up at Theo, imagining lifting up that blue T-shirt, I reminded myself that whether Theo and I had perfect timing or not, it didn’t matter. Because here he was. Now. And where was Sam? With his fiancée. I felt rage again. My face flushed as an ever-so-slight tremor ran through my body. Was the tremor caused by the thought of Sam with Alyssa or the sight of Theo? No idea.

“Girl,” Theo said simply, what he always said. “What time do we have to be at your mom’s?”

His large body moved toward me, his chin-length hair, shiny and brown, swinging with the movement.

I banished Sam from my thoughts. I grabbed Theo’s T-shirt and used it to pull him around, shoving him into a seated position on the couch. I climbed on top of him, my legs on either side of his. “We’ve got time.”

12

T he first time he had gone to see the killing, the first time he had walked in that house, there was no emotion. That was what he noticed. The people there nodded at him. As if it were simple.

Everyone knew who he was. They seemed to expect him to know where to go, too. When he stood and looked around, feeling helpless—an unfamiliar emotion—someone pointed. He walked the hallway, trying not to think, trying not to blame himself. Other people were as responsible for the imminent destruction of this human being. The killing didn’t rest on his shoulders.

But he dropped the rationalizations quickly. He had been telling himself these things for years, especially about this killing, planned meticulously. And still he had done nothing to change it.

He kept walking. In his mind, his feet sounded like drums on the hard floor—bang, bang, bang—heralding something momentous, something terrible.

He had wanted people killed before this, had told others to kill. But he had never been there for the act.

Now, back in the present, that house a mere memory, he shook his head, tried to shake away the memories. It did no good for him to remember, no good at all. He told himself this all the time, and yet he kept slipping into these thoughts of the past. They sucked him in whole, so that he was entirely removed from today.

He sat up straighter in his chair now and shook his head again. In the back of his brain he heard a low bang, bang, bang—the drums still in the distance.

“Go away,” he said softly.

He had been trying to make retributions. But it hadn’t made a difference. He kept hearing the sounds, kept trying to wrench himself from that memory. But there was one thing in particular that wouldn’t leave him—the words the man had said in the minutes before he died. The feel of those words hitting his ear as he bent over him.

He sat even straighter now. Once again, he shook his head, trying to jar loose the recollection, wondering if the man had known his utterances would stick with him all these years. Was that what he intended? Or were they just more lies falling from the lips of someone who had already caused so much pain?

He tried to believe the latter. He had gone about his business after that day, although he became curious as to whether people saw it in him, whether they saw what he had done. All those years, he walked the streets of Chicago, a city as human as those living inside its borders, and he had wondered.

13

W hen my mother opened her front door, I saw again the change in her.

To say our family had gone through a lot in the past year was an understatement. My mom’s first husband—my father, long-presumed dead—had returned to this world and to our city. I had expected this to flatten my mother, as it surely would have in the past. But instead, she was stronger, more self-assured, her eyes more vivid than I had seen since I was eight years old.

But as I stood on her stoop with Theo, I was struck by a void—an empty space of words. I didn’t know what to say to her these days. This woman, so alive, didn’t seem to be the mom I had always known. So I stepped up and hugged her, wordless. Then I waved a hand behind me and introduced Theo, reminding her she’d met him briefly a few months ago, and she led us through the big front door and into the cool of her home.

The living room was a large space with ivory couches, ivory walls and gentle golden lighting. Soft Oriental rugs guarded over wide-planked, honey-colored wood floors, glossed to a high sheen. By this time of the night, my mother and anyone with her would usually be at the back of the house. The living room faced east and when it got dark in the afternoons, it increased my mother’s “melancholy,” as I usually called it in my head. But today, the room’s lighting blazed brighter. Charlie, my younger brother by a few years, and Spence, my mother’s husband, sat at a grouping of couches and chairs around a fireplace tiled in white marble. Inside the fireplace, my mother had placed a flickering candelabra.

I blinked a few times, unused to the sight. I glanced at Charlie, with his brown curly hair that had tinges of red. He gave me a shrug, as if to say, Don’t ask me.

Spence was a pleasant-looking man with brown hair now streaked with white. It fell longer on the sides to compensate for the balding top. He had on a blue button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves and sharply pressed khakis.

“Hello, darling girl,” he said, standing and giving me a firm embrace. He pulled back and looked at me with his powder-blue eyes, his most striking feature. He appraised my face, and then moved to Theo. “Spencer Calloway,” he said, shaking Theo’s hand. “What can I find you to drink, son?”

Theo glanced at the coffee table where there was a plethora of food—artisanal cheeses surrounded by grapes and water crackers, prosciutto and paper-thin slices of melon, little croquettes that I knew likely held chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. Next to the food was my mom’s glass of white wine, my brother’s glass of red wine and a cocktail glass with clear liquid and a large chunk of lime in it.

“What are you having?” Theo asked Spence.

“Helmsley gin with a splash of tonic.”

“I’ll join you in that.”

I smiled, pleased. The truth was, I’d never known Theo to drink gin, but I loved that he was making an effort with my family. I squeezed his hand. When I had dated Sam he’d never joined Spence in a cocktail, and this fact, although meaningless, made me beam at Theo more.

“Good man!” Spence pounded Theo on the back and went toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Isabel, I’ll get you a glass of wine.”

Theo looked at my brother, who had stepped up to us. “Good to see you,” Theo said.

“Yeah, hey,” Charlie said pleasantly. They shook hands and started chatting about Poi Dog Pondering, a local band we’d seen a few months ago when Charlie and Theo first met. Charlie saw live music frequently, and he started rattling off other band names, then Theo told him about a bunch of British bands he followed.

Soon, Spence was back with our drinks, and we were all seated around the fireplace without even one second of that awkward, So, Theo, tell us what you do for a living kind of conversation. Instead, it flowed from one thing to another, from Theo’s company to Charlie’s job as a radio producer—after years of living happily off a worker’s comp settlement—to the trial with Maggie. At some point, my mom asked Theo where he was from.

“We moved around a lot for my dad’s work,” he answered. “California, Oklahoma, New York. Then we moved to Chicago when I was in high school.”

“Brothers and sister?” my mom asked.

“Just me.”

“And if I could ask, Theo, how old are you?”

I shot my mom a glance. She already knew the answer to that question.

“Twenty-two,” Theo said unapologetically.

I’d wondered if my mother would think Theo too young for my thirty years. Sam had been a perfect age, she’d told me once while we were engaged. But now she only said, “So young to own a business.”

“Yeah, I went to Stanford for a year,” Theo said. “I met my partner, Eric, who was a senior, and we started working on this software. By the end of that year, we were selling it. My dad helped us form the company, and we’ve been growing strong ever since.”

“Where exactly is your office, son?” Spence asked, loving anything that had to do with commercial real estate. That drew Theo and Spence into a new conversation.

We listened for a while, then my mother stood and gestured at me to follow her to the kitchen.

When we were there, she pulled me toward a counter and put her hand on my shoulder. Her blue eyes, more fair than Spence’s, were clear and striking. “I like him,” she said.

“You do? I’m glad.”

She nodded. “For many reasons. And my God, he is gorgeous.”

My mother rarely, if ever, commented on men’s looks, but I wasn’t surprised because nearly everyone mentioned Theo’s. When I’d introduced Theo to my former assistant, Q, short for Quentin, he’d commented—crudely, yes, but accurately—that every person in the room, male or female, gay or straight, young or old, wanted to fuck him. Everyone lit up for Theo, got a little red in the face, a little flustered. And the adoration only grew when people realized that he didn’t notice those reactions. Theo knew he was good-looking, sure, but he really didn’t know how good-looking. Or maybe he just didn’t like to identify with his hotness. Theo was a working guy, someone who ran his own web-design software company, and I think he liked to be connected to that more than anything.

Now, in my mom’s kitchen, I sighed a bit. “Yes, Theo is gorgeous.”

“Has your father met him yet?”

“I don’t think they need to meet.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed a little. “He is your father. And he lives in Chicago now.”

“When did you start advocating for Dad?”

My mom looked pensive, but her thoughtfulness appeared to have some curiosity about it, as if she were looking inside herself and interested in what she found there. This was different from how she usually did things; usually she shut down, became depressed and we all tiptoed around her.

In the living room we heard Charlie guffaw and Theo saying, “Exactly, dude,” laughing with him. A good sound.

“Your father deserves your respect,” she said.

“Does he?”

She looked at me, her blue eyes slicing into mine. “Yes.” A slight bob of her head. “And you should make some attempt to give him that.”

I’d seen my dad occasionally, but it was always awkward. More than awkward. For most of my life, he wasn’t around. We had believed him dead, when in truth he’d been working undercover for years. When I’d first seen him again, it was shocking. I was hunted by a faction of the Italian mob that my father had worked most of his life to shut down. As far as I knew, those particular dangers were gone now. But then again I knew that only because my father had told me so. The truth was, I didn’t entirely trust my father. Mostly, we made small talk, as if we weren’t ready to go into the big things yet. Lately, I’d avoided him. I didn’t know where to place him in my life, in my emotions. Avoidance was unlike me, but it had seemed the only workable option as of late.

“I’ll ask again,” I said to my mom, “when did you start being his advocate?”

The air was prickly as we stared at each other. We were in a minor spar, new territory.

A rueful smile came to my mother’s face, accompanied by—what was it?—a look of contentment, it seemed. It was that contentment, more than her smile or our spat that shook me somewhat. So unlike her, I thought.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your sense of intuition?” my mom asked. Without waiting for my answer, she shook her head. “No, you have always been so good at following your gut instincts.”

“That’s not true. Last year, when Sam disappeared, I had no idea if my gut instincts were right or wrong. I was confused all the time.” I let myself feel the grief of that situation again, the whallop of confusion that had hit me over and over.

“But ultimately you followed your intuition,” my mom said. “Your intuition told you Sam was a good man and he had a reason for doing what he did. And you were right.”

“I still lost him.” But now he might be back.…

“I know how hard it’s been.” She gave me a sad face. “Really, Isabel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up. This isn’t the time for that conversation.”

In the other room, Charlie said something about preseason football, followed by the sound of a TV being turned on. My mother shook her head a little. Spence had insisted that they put a TV in the living room. It was hidden behind a painting that would slide away, but my mother still firmly believed TVs had no place in a formal living room. Spence had won.

“What conversation are you talking about?” I asked.

An exhale. “Well, I was just going to say that what I’ve learned lately, or maybe what I’ve decided—” she paused, seemed to be regrouping her thoughts “—is that someone can have a gut instinct and struggle with it, just as you did when Sam disappeared. That wasn’t easy, but you were smart enough to think of all the options, to play them out, and ultimately you stuck with your intuition.”

I thought about it. “Okay.” I searched for my intuition about Sam now and found my head empty.

“When your father died so many years ago, I lost that ability. I knew he was alive. I knew it in my soul. But every thing told me I was wrong. And so I had to shut down that instinct. Because he was dead. Because I buried him. Or so I thought.”

Her blue eyes shone bright against the white backdrop of her skin, more animated than I’d seen in years. Maybe ever.

“Over the years I would see him occasionally,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Here and there, in a crowded street or a busy restaurant, I’d see him like a ghost. And I convinced myself that that’s what it was—a ghost. I really came to believe in those things—spirits and such—because there was no other explanation.” She gave a brittle laugh. “And because I kept doing that—closing down my instinct—I ended up shutting it down in other areas of my life, too.”

I said nothing. I was mesmerized by getting behind the curtain of my mother’s mind.

“I drifted wherever life took me,” she said, “rarely making decisions, rarely thinking I had any control or any part in this.” She waved her hand around her kitchen.

“But you ultimately ended up somewhere you wanted to be, with Spence.”

She nodded, gave a little smile. “You’re right about that.”

Just then Spence came in the room. “Need anything, ladies?”

Classic Spence—always trying to help out, always catering to my mother. And yet when I looked closer, there was something not so classic. I saw he had a nervous edge to him I’d never witnessed.

My mother walked to him and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. She touched his face. “We’re fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Fine.”

Spence didn’t look like he believed her. I wasn’t sure I did, either.

Spence made a face I couldn’t read and left the kitchen.

When he was gone, I looked at my mom. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

“What does your gut instinct tell you?”

My mother laughed, and it was a beautiful sound. But she didn’t answer.

14

S omeone was in her house. Valerie Solara knew it as soon as she stepped through the front door, her arms around a brown grocery sack of baking supplies.

It had made her feel normal, going to the store. She’d decided to make a torta de chocolate, the Mexican dessert her father had taught her. It would be a treat for Layla, and baking the torta would make her feel normal, too. She wasn’t exactly sure what had given her the motivation to bake for the first time in at least a year, but she knew it had something to do with the new lawyer. Izzy, her name was.

At first, when Maggie had told her she wasn’t sure if Martin would be back, terror had flooded in. Martin was one of the few men that Valerie had ever trusted in her life, and once the feeling of terror had covered her, it was hard to see or hear around it. Technically, her eyes watched Izzy sparring with a state’s attorney about some objection. But the image of Izzy’s white suit, her red hair—all that was far away, as if seen through a telescope. The sound was muted, like it was in the next room.

But then Izzy—so charged up and cheerful—had started verbally tussling with a juror, a muscled man in a baseball cap that read Semper Fi, and she was distracted away from her panic. Izzy had won, the man was dismissed, and Valerie felt oddly optimistic. Later, Izzy talked to her, really talked to her, suggesting they meet outside the courtroom. And just like that a bolt of something—air? space?—had come in. The optimism flamed.

But now this feeling. The front door opened into a hallway and she moved down it, listening, hearing nothing. She stepped into the small living room, walked past the stairs that led up to the bedrooms and entered the small kitchen. Again she felt it—that sense that someone was there or had been there.

“Layla?” she called loudly into the still of the room.

“Yeah?” she heard her daughter’s faraway reply from upstairs.

She felt relieved. “Nothing,” she called back.

She expected the feeling to go away then, but instead it returned.

She put the bag on the linoleum counter and looked around. Everything seemed fine, the same as she’d left it—the ugly brown linoleum countertops, the old, yellow fridge—but then she saw it; a black crack running alongside the bottom of the back door.

The door was open, she realized. As if someone had just left. She felt her mouth form an O. Startled and wordless, she made her feet move toward the door. That door was always locked, something Valerie insisted upon, because it led to an alley behind the apartment, a squalid, unlit space where a person could easily hide behind the electric posts or in darkened doorways. The alley had spooked her since they’d moved in, so much so that she’d forbidden Layla to go out there. It was always Valerie who took the garbage to the Dumpster and hurried back into the kitchen.

Yet the door was open. There was no doubt about it. Quickly, she moved to it and opened it farther, ignoring her fear, and looked out at the alley. As usual, she could see little and so she slammed the door shut.

Should she call the cops? But that was the last thing she needed during a murder trial—more problems with the police.

She turned her head. “Layla!” she yelled again.

“Yeah, Mom?” She could tell Layla was at the top of the stairs, closer now.

“Did you go outside in the alley?” she asked, not needing to yell any longer.

“No.”

“Was someone here?”

Silence. Then, “No.”

Valerie locked the dead bolt. She yanked at the door once, then again to make sure it was locked.

She turned back to the horrid kitchen, so different from the one she had when Brian was alive. She looked at the sack of baking supplies, hoping, somehow, they would calm her. She thought of Izzy. But nothing could soothe her. The panic, the nerves, the questions; they were all there to stay.

15

I should be embarrassed to say this—I should, I know this—but I was thinking about Sam that night as Theo moved inside me. I didn’t like myself for those thoughts, but I let them take me over. I saw the hallway light glinting off Sam’s blond head, felt his shorter, muscled legs connecting with mine, each time.

“Set me up with one of Theo’s friends,” Lucy said. Her blue eyes were wide and excited. It was early in the morning, but Nookies, the diner where we’d met, was already open.

Lucy DeSanto and I had planned this breakfast date a month ago. Originally, we’d planned to be there at nine, after her kids were gone for the day. When I’d texted her to say I couldn’t meet because of the trial, she quickly offered to meet me beforehand, promising to be quick. I could tell she needed to talk to me about something. But I hadn’t expected this.

“Set you up with Theo’s friends?” I said incredulously. “But you’re in love with Mayburn.”

“I know.” The excitement disappeared, a crease appearing on the usually smooth skin between her eyes. “But I don’t want to roll into another relationship.” She looked out the window. Across Wells Street, people left their brick three flats and headed for the bus, en route to work.

Lucy and John Mayburn, the private investigator I sometimes worked for, had fallen for each other when he’d been hired to conduct surveillance on her husband, Michael. At first, it was a crush on Mayburn’s part, spent from afar. But when Michael was charged with money laundering and sent to a federal prison, Mayburn and Lucy had met and begun to date. Then Michael got out on bail, causing Lucy to feel she should give their relationship another shot, both for her and her kids. That shot had failed, and recently, Michael was returned to prison when new evidence was received, and he was charged with additional crimes. Lucy and Michael’s relationship was finally over and it had seemed a happy ending was in store for Mayburn and Lucy.

The other happy ending was Lucy and me. When Mayburn was watching her husband, he had asked me to befriend her as part of the case, but we really did become friends.

“Here’s the thing,” Lucy said. “I think I love John, but I can’t just move from a ten-year marriage right into another serious relationship.”

I didn’t say that I understood, that I had wondered if it was wise for me to have moved from something with Sam right into something with Theo, something that felt very real. I didn’t mention Sam’s offer to return to my life. I felt reluctant to discuss it at length with anyone before I really knew why it was happening or how I felt about it. I’d expected him to call or text me after I’d stalked out of the restaurant the night before. But so far my phone, and Sam, had been silent.

“You know John wants a serious relationship,” Lucy said.

I nodded. “He wants to be a stepdad to your kids. A very involved one.”

That desire of Mayburn’s was unlike what I had known of him before. I’d met him when I worked at the law firm of Baltimore & Brown, which often hired him to conduct private investigations—digging up info on corporations or plaintiffs who found themselves opposing our clients. When Sam disappeared, I’d turned to Mayburn for help. When he was too expensive he’d proposed a tit-for-tat relationship. I would work for him when he needed a woman to conduct surveillance work a man simply couldn’t do.

When I said yes to his offer, I assumed Mayburn was a straightforward, by-the-books investigator. He had nondescript looks—brown hair, brown eyes, medium build, a forty-year-old face that looked younger. Mayburn had always said that those vague looks had helped him in his line of work, helped him to stay under the radar. As we worked more closely together, I discovered Mayburn was a sarcastic, Aston-Martin–driving renegade. But now we were friends, and I realized that at his core, he was a softie. At least when it came to Lucy DeSanto.

“John would be a great stepdad,” Lucy said, “but I can’t do that to the kids. Michael is the only dad they know. I can’t push another man into their life right when their father has been yanked out.”

“So why would you want to date one of Theo’s friends?”

“That’s exactly it—I don’t want to date! So don’t even fix me up exactly, just take me out with a bunch of young guys who want to drink and flirt.”

“You want to drink and flirt?”

“Yes. I don’t want to be part of a couple. I’ve been part of a couple for more than a decade.” She nodded at me pointedly. “I want to do what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing? Is it embarrassing that I’m dating someone younger than me and so different than me?” Should I go back to Sam?

Lucy shook her head fast. “No, I think it’s exciting and fun. And that’s what I want.” Her eyes dropped. “Because my life is not going to be fun and exciting for a while. I’m going to have to divorce Michael, then deal with the kids while he’s in jail waiting for a trial, and then help them deal with the outcome of the trial, and then I’m going to have to decide if I stay in Chicago.”

“But Mayburn is here.”

“I know.” A sad cast appeared on her face. “And that’s why I can’t get too deeply involved with him right now. I’m not ready and I don’t know when or if I will be.” She blinked, as if batting away tears. She cleared her throat, then her eyes focused on mine. “Can I ask you a legal question? How long will it take until Michael’s case goes to trial?”

“A federal indictment having to do with organized crime? That’s a biggie. It could take a year or two, easy.”

The sad cast returned.

“Hey,” I said, “did you ever learn what evidence sent Michael back to prison?”

She shook her head. “Since I’ve told him I want a divorce, he doesn’t tell me anything. All I know is that the feds received some kind of anonymous information that linked him to that group from Italy who were trying to establish themselves in the U.S.”

“The Camorra.”

“Yeah.” She ran her fingers across her forehead, as if trying to rub away some thought. “I still can’t believe that the man I married got involved with any of that. It’s so hard to wrap my head around, and I don’t know what to say to the kids….”

I didn’t know what to say, either. The Camorra was the group my father had spent much of his life trying to shut down. It was what had taken him away from us. But Lucy didn’t know all that.

Lucy looked at me. “Don’t you see why I want to go out with Theo’s friends? I want to be with people who are younger. I want to go backward.”

Was that what I was doing with Theo? A better question—was that what I’d be doing with Sam? Going backward?

“Theo and I are supposed to go out tomorrow night with his friends,” I said. “But I have to warn you—a couple of them aren’t the brightest tools in the shed. Once I saw one of them wearing a T-shirt that said, Things are smaller than they appear.” I threw my hands up. “What does that mean? That his penis is smaller than it seems?”

Lucy laughed. “Was he cute?”

I nodded grudgingly.

“Great! This is exactly what I want. Cute, young and not-so-smart.”

I shrugged. “Tomorrow night at nine.”

16

W hen I got to the courtroom, Maggie was raring to go. I could see that even through the Plexiglas wall. Her cheeks were tinged pink, the way they got when she was excited.

I pushed open the door with the lock and walked to our table. “You’re ready?”

“Oh, yeah.” She grinned.

“You look a little revved up.”

“I found out Bernard is coming into town next week to sub with the orchestra.” Maggie actually clapped her hands.

Maggie and I met Bernard in Italy in June. He was a French horn player with the Seattle Symphony. And he was also a huge, huge Filipino guy, which was sort of funny when you paired him with little, golden-haired Maggie. But they had become a couple, despite their odd appearance together. The minute we’d returned to the U.S., she was on the phone with him a few times a day, emailing about ten times a day and texting even more.

“That’s fantastic!” I said.

“I know. My grandfather is going to flip. He loves the CSO.”

She went quiet. We both thought of Martin.

“Where is he?” I asked.

The grin fled her face. “I went to his house this morning, and he’s not doing well. He’s just kind of…fading. I don’t know how else to put it.”

“Your grandmother must be worried.”

“She is. I am, too, but I told him we could handle the openings and the first witnesses.”

“We can.” I wanted to keep up her spirits, so I changed the topic and told her I’d seen Sam after court yesterday and how I’d stormed from the restaurant.

“Interesting,” Maggie said. “But that doesn’t really help you figure anything out, does it?”

I gave her an irritated look. “No.” I changed the topic again. “Who’s handling our exhibits and graphics?”

Now Maggie gave me an annoyed glance. “What do you mean? I’m handling the exhibits. Or we are now. And we don’t have any graphics. I’ve got some blowups of a couple photos, but nothing else.”

“Holy mother of Elvis.”

Maggie looked even more annoyed. “You know, that stop-swearing thing of yours has got to go. Those curse word replacements are ludicrous, and you always end up swearing anyway to explain it. Just say it.”

“Fine. Holy shit, are you serious?” When I was at Baltimore & Brown, if I was on trial, I not only had my assistant, Q, to handle the exhibits and the graphics, I usually had command of one or two paralegals, as well.

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Maggie said.

“Do you have records from this case scanned into your computer?”

“Yeah.”

“Any exhibits in your laptop?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you should be putting them on a screen or on the wall. Everyone is used to looking at a TV or a computer. They can’t just listen anymore. You’ve got to show the jurors something.”

Maggie chewed her lip. “I know one of the attorneys in my office has the equipment for all that, but he’s a personal injury lawyer. We never use that kind of stuff.”

I shook my head. “You criminal lawyers are so weird.” I took my cell phone out of my bag. “I’ll call Q to do it.”

She shook her head. “No, no. I just brought you in on this case. I can’t add anyone else. It will throw me off. Plus, we’re in a small courtroom, and there aren’t many exhibits needed right now.”

I sighed. “Keep it in mind.”

“Done.”

I looked around the courtroom again and saw more people filing into the gallery. “Where are Amanda’s family members?”

Maggie jutted her chin toward the right side of the spectator benches. “That’s the husband, Zavy.”

I followed her gaze. I saw a handsome man, midfortyish, I guessed, but he looked younger. He wore a navy blazer over a white shirt. His hair was blond-brown and thick. His face bore slight creases around the eyes and mouth, but he was a type of man on whom facial lines looked handsome. From what I could see, he was in shape, probably a weekend athlete. If Valerie had wanted him for her own, I supposed I could understand why.

As I looked at him, Zavy raised his head and gazed through the glass to the front of the courtroom. He stared at the state attorneys’ table, at the lawyers there. It seemed to me as if he was waiting for them to glance at him, to give him some direction or ask him questions. He looked sad, helpless.

“Shouldn’t he sit at the counsel’s table?” I asked Maggie.

She shook her head.

“But he’s the victim of the crime.” I saw the look Maggie shot me. “Alleged crime.”

“He’s the victim’s spouse, not the victim,” Maggie said. “And even if he were the victim, he’s not a party to the lawsuit. The state is. Technically, the case has nothing to do with him.”

In a civil trial, Zavy would be sitting with the attorneys. He would be an integral part of the case. I felt a wave of pity for the guy. His wife had died and yet the case didn’t have anything to do with him? “I’m going to say hello and introduce myself.”

Maggie looked startled. “Why?”

“Because I think it would be polite. It seems the right thing to do.”

“I don’t think Zavy Miller wants to hang out with us.”

“I’m not going to hang out with him. I just think civility demands an introduction.”

“The state’s attorneys won’t like it. He’s their witness.”

“But he’s not their client. Like you said, he’s not a party. And anyone can talk to lay witnesses.”

Maggie’s face scrunched in concentration.

“What?” I said in response to her expression.

“I’m trying to think of what my grandfather would say.” She looked around the courtroom, her eyes stopping on the state’s attorneys and then Zavy Miller. When she looked back at me, she was grinning. “I think he’d say go ahead. You’re an adult and a lawyer, and you should do what you think is ethically right.” She laughed quietly. “I also think he’d say go ahead and piss off the state’s attorneys. It’ll throw them off their game.”

“Great.” I turned, pushed open the Plexiglas door and stepped into the gallery.

More people had gathered now for the opening arguments and all eyes went to me. Zavy Miller looked at me expectantly, too.

I stepped into the pew where he sat and took a seat, making sure to be a respectful distance away from him. “Mr. Miller,” I said, my voice low, “I want to introduce myself. I’m Izzy McNeil. I’ll be representing Valerie Solara, along with the Bristols.”

I held out my hand to him. He looked at it, then back up at me.

I waited for a look of hatred or maybe revulsion. But he only nodded, as if he respected the gesture. He stuck out his hand. Our shake was firm, friendly even.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the state’s attorneys staring at us. Ellie was giving Tania a shove on the arm, pointing to me. Tania headed for the Plexiglas door.

“Mr. Miller,” I said, “I don’t know if this will make sense, but I just wanted to tell you I hope that whatever is supposed to happen here, whatever is right…well, I hope that happens.”

He nodded. Sadness crossed his face and he swallowed, as if gulping something down. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

I stood and almost ran into Tania, who had a stern look on her face. “Excuse me,” I said, trying to move around her.

But Tania didn’t move. “Everything okay?” she said to Zavy.

He gave a simple nod.

“Mr. Miller,” she said, “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to step out of the courtroom until we call you as a witness. After that you can stay. I know that’s difficult, but those are the court rules.”

“That’s fine.” Zavy Miller stood. “Nice to meet you,” he said to me with a kind smile.

“Likewise.”

When he was gone, Tania leaned in and whispered to me, “Ellie wants you to know that we looked into your background last night.”

“Excuse me?” I pulled away.

“Your background.” As if that explained everything.

“Okay.”

“You’re not a criminal defense lawyer.”

“Just a lawyer,” I said with an easy tone. I shifted toward her, sure she would move now, but again she didn’t budge.

“Things are different here than they are at the Daley Center.” She said Daley Center with a mocking air, as if she were saying, Things are different here than they are at that day care center.

Normally, I took the high road. But not when I was on trial. “Yeah,” I said, “the difference is that attorneys there intimidate with talent.”

Zing. Tania actually took a step back, and I moved around her. As I pushed through the Plexiglas wall, Ellie Whelan was glaring at me.

I smiled in return and went to the defense table. “See,” I said to Maggie, “that wasn’t so bad.”

17

“F or most of us, best friends are safe havens. Best friends provide a place where we can let ourselves be who we really are, where we are supported, where we are loved.” Ellie Whelan paused, as if having a hard time with her words. “But this woman…” She turned and pointed at Valerie. “This woman is pure poison. For her friendship was merely a disposable relationship where she could shop for a new husband. And kill any obstacles. Any at all.”

Valerie sat on the other side of Maggie, but even from that distance I heard her whimper. Maggie put her hand on Valerie’s forearm for a brief second. I saw a couple of jurors notice the movement.

Ellie Whelan patrolled the courtroom, moving back and forth in front of the jury, often pointing at Valerie and combining the gesture with damning words. She told the jury that Valerie and Amanda were best friends, or at least Valerie let Amanda think that. She told them that they would hear all about the friendship from another best friend, Bridget. They would hear how Bridget and Amanda and Amanda’s husband, Zavy, had supported Valerie after her own husband, Brian, died years ago. They’d become her second family.

“Because for Bridget and Xavier, and especially for Amanda, friendship meant something,” Ellie said.

She gestured toward Tania, who strode forward with a few poster-size exhibits. Tania placed them on an easel and went back to their table.

“Friendship and family,” Ellie said. “That’s what was important to Amanda Miller.”

She turned the first exhibit to face the jury. “This was Amanda Miller.”

I stood and walked to a side wall, where I could see a photo of a lovely brunette with green eyes and a big smile.

“You will hear from Amanda’s husband about the importance of friendship to Amanda Miller. He will tell you how much she loved her two girls, Tessa and Britney.” Ellie put the first exhibit on the floor, revealing a blown-up photo of Amanda and two toothy, gorgeous girls. “Xavier will tell you how the girls are now motherless. He will tell you they are having a very, very hard time of it. And all because of…” She didn’t have to say her name this time; she just turned and pointed toward Valerie.

From my vantage point at the wall, I could see the jury from the side. I was standing not just to see the photos, but also to try and determine the jury’s reaction to the state’s opening. For now, they were calm and attentive. But if I was looking for a reaction, I was about to get it.

“Here,” Ellie said, beginning to slowly remove the photo of Amanda’s kids, “is Amanda Miller on the day she died.”

As the next blown-up photo was revealed, the jury gasped.

I couldn’t help it—I winced. Maggie shot me a dirty look from across the courtroom, and I composed my face.

The photo was a “death shot.” Amanda, naked on a stainless-steel counter, a sheet draped across her lower half, her skin white as pearl, her mouth open, rigor mortis making her neck look stretched and rigid, like she was screaming into eternity.

I couldn’t take my eyes away from the photo. Out of my peripheral vision, I could tell that the jurors couldn’t, either. That poor woman, I heard one say. Horrible, murmured another.

“Quiet, please,” the judge said.

I glanced at Valerie. Had she killed Amanda? Had she done that to her friend? And if she had, constitutional rights or no, what was I doing representing her?

The courtroom felt chilly suddenly, as if sinister air had entered through a back door and wound its way through the place.

“You will hear from the coroner who examined Amanda’s body after her death, and you will hear how he came to the diagnosis of death by poisoning.” Ellie took a step away from the photo, letting the image of the dead woman speak volumes to the jury. “From Bridget, you will hear that just weeks before Amanda’s death, Valerie asked her about poisons, which Bridget had researched as part of a novel she was writing. And you will hear Xavier Miller tell you about the day…” A heavy pause. “About the day he came home from work and saw Valerie put something crushed, something blue, into the food she was cooking. She said it was an herb. It was not. It was a drug that, given at high doses, acted as a poison, and that poison would kill Amanda Miller before the day was done.”

Another pause to let all the information settle.

“Why would Valerie want to kill her ‘best friend’?” Ellie asked the jury. “I’ll tell you why. Because she was husband hunting.”

There seemed to be no more exhibits forthcoming, so I went and took my seat again next to Maggie.

Ellie continued. Brian, she told the jury, was Valerie’s husband, although not the father of her daughter. He had died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was only forty-eight at the time, Ellie said, which was strange because the disease didn’t usually exhibit itself until people were over fifty.

I looked at Maggie. “Objection,” I whispered. I saw Valerie’s pained face on the other side of her. I dropped my voice even further. “Are they trying to imply she killed her husband?”

Maggie frowned at Ellie. “We already dealt with this in motions before the case started,” she said under her breath. “If she says one more word…”

But sure enough, Ellie moved on, just short of drawing an objection. She told the jury how Amanda and Xavier had helped Valerie care for Brian. She told them that Valerie had fallen for Xavier during that time and shortly after had tried to seduce him.

A number of the jurors furrowed their brows and openly appraised Valerie.

I glanced at her. She seemed to nearly tremble in her black dress, but she didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.

Ellie Whelan was nearing the close of her argument. “At the end of this trial,” Ellie said, “I will have an opportunity to get in front of you again, and at that time, I will ask you to do the only thing that justice will allow. Find Valerie Solara—” again she pointed at our client “—guilty of first-degree murder.”

Maggie popped up from her seat even before Ellie had found hers. She waited for a minute, then when Ellie was in her chair, looked at the judge. “Your Honor, I’d request that the state remove their exhibits.”

“Granted.” The judge nodded at Ellie Whelan. “Counsel?”

I saw Maggie cover a small smile. Ellie had tried to leave the autopsy photo in front of the jury, a good move, but Maggie had countered it, not just taking it down, which she could have done, but getting the judge to make the state do it after Ellie had taken a seat.

Ellie shot an annoyed look at Tania Castle, who jumped to her feet and removed the photos.

Maggie introduced herself quickly to the jurors, then said, “Boy, that was a good story, wasn’t it?” She nodded. “Kind of like watching a soap opera, am I right? All that stuff about coveting someone else’s husband, about poisoning someone? That’s really interesting, huh?” She nodded as if to concede the point. “But that’s all that was—a really interesting story. A story concocted by the state in order to lay blame for the tragic death of Amanda Miller. But this woman—” she moved behind Valerie and placed a hand on her shoulder “—is not to blame.”

She took her hand off Valerie’s shoulder and went to a podium, placing her notes on it and crossing her arms. “And do you know what? The state can’t just spin a good story. They have to prove that Valerie Solara was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” She intoned again, “Beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Maggie looked at the state’s table for an uncomfortable, quiet second, then back at the jury. “But how are they going to do that? They told you you’d hear from Mr. Miller about some…what did they call it? A seduction. They told you you’d hear from other witnesses. But isn’t it interesting that they are accusing Valerie Solara of planting poison in her friend’s food…and yet they didn’t tell you that you would hear any evidence of Ms. Solara buying the medication. You know why?”

The jury waited for the answer.

“Because there isn’t any evidence of her acquiring it. None. They couldn’t find any link between Valerie and the drug that killed Mrs. Miller. That’s interesting, don’t you think?” She huffed out loud, as if expelling disbelief.

“And they want to talk about friendship? Well, let’s talk about it.” She put a blown-up photo of three women on the easel.

“These women met fifteen years ago at a gym here in the city. Amanda Miller was newly married to her first husband. Valerie was a single mom. Her daughter, Layla, who is nineteen now, was just four. And Bridget was a surgical nurse. Usually, Amanda was busy with charitable events, Valerie was busy being a mom and Bridget was always working. Usually, they wouldn’t have had time to make new friends. But on that one day, they all had time for one reason or another. After they met at a gym, they went to a restaurant nearby to talk. It was a Tuesday. And for nearly every other Tuesday after that, up until the time Amanda Miller died, these women met to share their lives. They were immediate friends. They were like sisters. There was no one who supported Amanda more than Valerie and Bridget and vice versa. That continued to the day she died.

“You will hear from witness after witness who will tell you how close these women were. You will hear Amanda’s husband, Xavier, tell you that himself. He will tell you that he never would have suspected Valerie Solara of wanting to kill her friend. Her best friend. Their other best friend Bridget will tell you the same thing. They will all tell you that Valerie wasn’t like that. She wasn’t jealous, she wasn’t violent, she couldn’t hurt anyone. You will hear this over and over. Because it’s true.”

Maggie picked up her notes and reviewed them. She explained that Valerie Solara didn’t have to put on any evidence herself. She didn’t have to prove anything at all.

Maggie stopped, dead center of the jury. “A woman died. By all accounts, a lovely woman, a good mom. When someone like that dies, we all want someone to pay for it. But the right person must pay for it. We cannot allow them—” she turned and pointed at the state’s attorneys “—to rush to judgment and pile up inconsequential tidbits to make it appear they have the person who committed this when they do not. That’s not how the American criminal justice system works. You are the upholders of that system. Your job is large. Your responsibility is massive.” She looked up and down the row of jurors. “Do it,” she said. “Do your job.”

18

A mother’s words can soothe. But just as easily they can sting.

Recently, I had been hearing my mother’s words about my father, about how I owed him respect, how I should make “some attempt” to give him that. They had hurt at first, but then the sting wore off. Yet they kept winding through my head, then into my heart, creating a slow-building guilt that, once it had taken hold, could not be released without me doing what she wanted me to. What I needed to do, I suppose.

And although I still hadn’t spoken to him, Sam’s offer to cancel his wedding—his ultimatum, if I was honest—was reverberating through me. I needed my dad’s cold, unflinching analysis.

As soon as court was over for the day, I called my father.

He answered on the first ring, as if he’d been waiting all day or maybe all month, for this call. I told him that I wanted to see him. I thought about asking him to have dinner, but none of my usual places, the ones where I might step out on a Friday, seemed right. Twin Anchors, Marge’s, Benchmark—they all seemed too casual, places to meet a friend.

“Can I stop by your place?” I asked.

There was no pause before he said yes.

My father lived in a nondescript midrise building on Clark Street, just south of North Avenue. Although I’d known the location of his building, it wasn’t until I pushed through the revolving glass doors that I realized that it was nearly equidistant between my mother’s house and my own. Did that mean something? As always with my father, I had no idea.

Likewise, I didn’t know what to expect from my father’s apartment, but I sensed it would be worldly and interesting, something like my father himself or the person I thought he was.

But when I got there, I saw the apartment was a place for someone transient, a place where no one would live for long.

The gun-metal-gray couch was dark enough to hide any stains and looked like the type rented from one of the furniture places on Milwaukee Avenue. To the left was a reading chair that had once, maybe, been interesting. But now the wood arms were nicked and scarred, the formerly ivory paint across the top yellowed. My guess was that it was the fruits of Dumpster-diving or a visit to a secondhand store. A squat old table, too low, sat in front of the couch and chair.

The living room held little else but a small desk in the corner, which faced the wall. If the apartment had been mine, I would have put the desk near the window, in order to look outside and get a glimpse of the world. But my father was different from me. Maybe he didn’t need to see anything at all.

We stood at the threshold of the room, my father quiet, letting me study it. I looked at him then. It still startled me to see him, a handsome man in his late fifties, instead of the younger version of him, forever memorialized in my brain. His wavy hair was now salt-and-pepper-gray instead of chestnut-brown like Charlie’s. He was still trim, but he was more refined than when he was younger. After living in Italy, he dressed like an Italian—slim-cut linen trousers, an expensive white shirt, open at the collar, a beautiful gold watch. His eyes were still the same green, still intensely focused through the copper glasses he’d always worn. But there was rarely life in those eyes.

He gestured to the couch. “Have a seat.”

I sat. The couch was stiff. I shifted back and forth, trying to get comfortable. I now faced the open kitchen, which held nothing on the counters save an espresso machine.

My father followed my eyes and gestured at it. “Can I make you some espresso?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I drink tea.”

“That’s right. Green tea.”

I couldn’t remember if I’d ever told him that or if it was one of the things he’d learned from watching me. I was just coming to understand how much he’d observed me, on and off, for most of my life.

“Mom told me she used to see you sometimes,” I said.

If he was surprised by the shift in topic, he didn’t show it. He said nothing.

“That must have been intentional,” I said.

“It was. But it was also a failure, a weakness.”

Now neither of us said anything.

“I’d give you a tour—” he gave a little polite laugh that sounded unlike him “—but it’s just this room and the bedroom.” He gestured toward a short hallway.

“That’s okay.”

The apartment made me profoundly sad. My father had lived an incredible life—incredibly tragic, incredibly exciting. This empty shell of an apartment didn’t fit him.

He seemed to sense my thoughts. “I’m just here until I decide…”

I nodded. I understood what he was saying—until he decided what to do with himself.

“Let me get you some water.”

I watched him go into his kitchen and open and close cabinet doors as if unsure where the glasses were. Or if he even owned them.

Finally, he found one made of orange plastic. “This is all I have,” he said over his shoulder in an embarrassed tone.

“Anything is fine.”

I heard him opening some drawers. When he came back with the water, he put it on the table, then placed two other items there.

I looked closer. My old cell phone and my old ID.

“Those were in the building. The one we were in with Aunt Elena.” The one that exploded.

There had been an explosion in Chicago earlier that summer, and my Aunt Elena, my dad’s sister, had been one of the last people in the building that was blown to smithereens. Long story. Really long story. My dad had told me he got word that she was uninjured and in Italy. The body found after the explosion was male, likely either Dez Romano, the boss of Michael DeSanto, or the guy who worked for him. Dez was a gangster I’d gotten mixed up with thanks to a gig from John Mayburn. Dez had once made it clear he’d wanted to kill me, and so although I’d never wanted anyone dead before, there was a part of me that hoped that he was enjoying himself in gangster heaven. But it was more than likely that the body was that of Dez’s lackey. I tried not to think about the fact that Dez could still be out there.

My father’s head bobbed in a single nod toward the items on the table. “I retrieved them before we got out.”

“You’re just giving them to me now?” I made an irritated sound. “Do you know what a pain in the ass it was to spend half a day at the DMV and the other half at the cell phone store?”

Without pausing, without expression, he said, “Do you know what a pain in the ass it would have been if the police learned you were there that day and confiscated them as evidence? Or if they had tracked a call from your phone and then you’d used it again?”

“That’s why you told me to get a new phone number.”

He nodded.

I looked at the phone and ID. So he’d been protecting me. “Thanks.”

Again, he said nothing.

I put the cell phone and ID in my purse. “So…” I looked around. “It must be strange to be so out in the open now. I mean, since you were almost—” what was the word? “—invisible before. Mostly.”

I regretted it as soon as I saw the strange expression on his face.

“I don’t mean that in any critical kind of way,” I said quickly. “I guess I was just thinking about it because Mom and I were talking and…” I shrugged. “I’m just wondering how you’re doing.”

My father looked around his new apartment, then back at me. “I still feel invisible.”

I felt the weight of his words, and it nearly flattened me. “What do you mean?”

“I’m used to either blending into the background or starting over. But this is different. This feeling I have, it’s more about Chicago.”

I scrunched my face in confusion.

“Chicago is one of those towns,” he said. “One where you need to know people. More than any town I’ve ever seen, even in Italy. You Chicagoans are part of your city. Either you have family here or your friends become your family, and you all seem to move forward together.”

The statement was left unsaid—and I have neither friends nor family.

“Do you know the best thing about Chicago?” I asked.

He shook his head no, looked hungry for my response.

“The best thing is that people want more friends and more family. They want to grow. They want the city to grow. They’re not trying to keep people out.”

My father frowned. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“It is. For the most part. People want to know interesting people. They want others to be a part of their web. It’s not exclusive.”

He crossed his arms. “So what would I do to join a web?”

Was he asking me personally because he wanted to know my world and Charlie’s? Or was he just looking for advice about making it in the city? The answer to either, I figured, was the same. “It’s up to you to stick your foot out and stop a couple of people from walking by.”

“My whole life, I have tried very, very hard to blend. I kept myself closed off.”

I saw how uncomfortable his admission made him and I knew then we were talking about more than the move to Chicago.

I nodded. “I know. But other people have done that, too. Maybe not in the way you have, but they’ve closed themselves off just the same. And they’ve gotten past it. Maybe this is your challenge now. I’m sure it’s one you can handle.”

“When did you get so wise?”

“Oh, I’ve got tons of this stuff. I just need to apply it to myself now.”

I thought about asking him about Sam, but now that I knew my father was having his own struggles, it seemed somehow wrong.

He smiled with one corner of his mouth then. “I think you’re doing fine, Izzy.”

I shifted on the stiff couch while my father just sat there, looking contemplative and sad. I wished I could help him become less invisible.

And then I had an idea.

I reached for my bag and took out the notes that Detective Vaughn had made in Valerie’s case. “I have to cross-examine a detective on Monday. I’m helping Maggie on a murder trial…” My words died off when I saw recognition in his face. “You already know all of this.”

He gave a slight bow of his head.

“How do you know this? I didn’t even know I was trying this case until yesterday.”

He didn’t look sheepish or embarrassed. He said nothing.

I felt a flicker of anger. I thought about telling him that I no longer needed him to follow me around, to see if I was okay. I thought about telling him that he should be a normal person. But the anger fizzed when I realized he was looking after me in the only way he knew how. And really, when I thought about it, was it so bad to have someone looking over my shoulder?

When I was younger, zipping through the city on my Vespa, never bothering with a helmet, I felt I hadn’t needed protection. When I was in a relationship with Sam, I hadn’t felt any desire for that, either. But when I learned Sam was going strong with Alyssa, I had suddenly liked the idea of someone else keeping an eye on me.

Thinking of Sam, I lifted my current cell phone from my purse and glanced at it. Still nothing. A flash of annoyance lit up my brain. How could he walk back into my life and then not call or text me? It was true I’d walked out on him, but still…

My dad cleared his throat. I looked at him, at his woeful expression, and the urge to help him feel less invisible returned. “Would you review these records for me?” I held out the Chicago Police Department notes for the Amanda Miller murder. “They’re written by the detective I’m crossing on Monday.”

“Of course.” His expression turned hopeful. “What do you want me to look for?”

“Anything, basically. Any inconsistencies, anything lacking.”

“Of course.”

I handed him the records. “Thanks. I guess I can leave those with you, and I’ll get another copy from Maggie.”

He looked momentarily confused. “I just need a few minutes.”

“What do you mean? You only need a few minutes to analyze the records of a Chicago homicide detective?”

“Probably less than that.” His face was flat. He wasn’t trying to be funny or impressive.

“Oh. Okay.” I stood. “Can I use your restroom while you look those over?”

He nodded, waved at the hallway.

In the bathroom, I ran the water, wanting some kind of buffer in the quiet apartment. I used the toilet, then washed my hands. I couldn’t help it then. Trying to be silent, I opened the medicine cabinet. On a slightly rusted metal shelf was a can of shaving cream, an expensive-looking chrome razor, deodorant, a wood-handled brush and nail clippers. I had more toiletries in my purse than my father had in his whole apartment.

Back in the living room, my father was still in the chair, the notes in his hand. As I came into the room, he put them on his lap. He said nothing. Although I was somewhat used to his silences, I wondered if his quiet was because he knew I’d been snooping in the bathroom.

I decided I could be just as unreadable. I sat and pointed at the notes. “Got anything?”

He smiled, and nodded.

19

V alerie walked around her lifeless apartment. It felt that way, she supposed, because she herself had grown more and more like that, as if she were in a walking coma, getting ready for her mind to shut down. Because prison seemed real. Imminent. And the only way she could imagine surviving that was to become someone else and put away the person she was now.

She walked into the kitchen and turned on one small light. Although she had enjoyed wine before, in her other life, she had not had a glass of wine or a cocktail for months now. She had no taste for it, had little taste for anything. But now there was a pinprick of light in the flat existence in which she had been living. It was the light of possibility.

The reason for the slice of optimism was Izzy McNeil. She completely trusted the Bristols, but neither Martin nor Maggie had wanted the whole truth. She was fine not to give it. The whole truth would cause so many more problems. But still. But still, it cheered her somehow that Izzy wanted to know, wanted to understand. She had told Valerie again today—I want to believe you.

Valerie opened the door of the refrigerator, the light from inside making a bold entrance into the dimly lit kitchen. Although the sun still shone outside, it was always dark in her home these days. She had gotten used to closing all of the blinds and drapes to keep herself away from the curious eyes of her watching neighbors.

The refrigerator was old and mustard-colored. It had been here when she’d rented the West Side apartment after Brian died. Despite her hopes that she would come into some kind of salary stream, that she would find her calling and be able to replace the appliances, maybe even move back to the Gold Coast near Bridget and Amanda, such a bounty had never happened.

Her refrigerator, as well as her cupboards, was only spottily inhabited, aside from the supplies she’d bought the other night for the chocolate torta—the one she’d never made. Neither she nor Layla was particularly interested in grocery shopping lately. Or food. But she knew she should eat. She looked at the random contents of the fridge—ketchup, eggs, a slightly shriveled pear, a bottle of grapefruit juice, ground flax seed, a folded piece of foil with an old tortilla in it, half a carton of graying mushrooms, a few teaspoons of milk in the bottom of a carton, and a container of leftovers Layla must have brought home from a restaurant. She opened it—half-eaten strip steak. Where had Layla gone and ordered this? She looked at it a moment longer, then put it on the counter.

Amanda.

Amanda.

Amanda.

Valerie tried to keep her friend at bay, tried not to let the memory ravage her. But everything led her back to Amanda. To Bridget. Her life had been led with them, next to them, for so long.

She knew she had to eat. She let herself think of Amanda then, tried not to let the memory cut her. What would Amanda do?

Like her, Amanda had loved to cook. She was always reading recipe magazines, taking classes at the Chopping Block or asking Valerie to teach her one of the Mexican dishes she had learned from her father.

If Amanda had been standing here at her fridge, what would she do, Valerie asked herself?

She permitted herself a short laugh. Amanda, whom they often called “Demanda” because she always knew what she wanted, would put her hand on her hip and consider the food and the leftovers. She would be wearing designer jeans, a casual shirt and lots of the blingy accessories she loved and pulled off with aplomb. She would have said something like, “Don’t you have any potatoes? What about some fresh herbs?” Then she would have turned around before Valerie even answered and said, “Never mind.”

And then what would she have done?

Valerie looked at the contents of the refrigerator again and concentrated in a way she knew Amanda would have. She scanned all the random bits, putting them together in different ways.

She took out the tortilla, and steamed it back to life. She cracked open a couple of eggs and whipped them with the milk, then scrambled them. She sliced the strip steak into thin ribbons and sautéed them with the mushrooms and garlic. Then she put everything in the tortilla, wrapped it tight the way her father had taught her, dug some salsa from the back of her refrigerator and sat down with her steak-and-egg burrito.

“Thanks, Manny,” she said out loud to the silent house. “Manny” was the other nickname Amanda had. One only Valerie used. She couldn’t even remember how it had started.

As Valerie took her first bite, she heard the front door open and footsteps in the hallway. She felt herself smile and her face open up, as only one thing could make her do so these days. “Hello, Layla.”

Her coltish, beautiful daughter smiled as she entered the kitchen, then came forward and kissed her on the cheek. Layla slid her tall frame into a chair.

“How are you doing, little one?” Valerie asked, even though Layla wasn’t little anymore. Far from it.

Layla looked worried. She always looks worried now. How horrible for her child to have to agonize about her. It was what Valerie had hoped to avoid as a mom. But there was no way around it, and the truth was that she appreciated the concern. She had learned to relax around her daughter, to let Layla see her frailties. They had been through so much.

Layla didn’t answer the question. “How was today?” Layla asked.

Layla had three classes that day at DePaul, and although she’d been in court every other day of the trial, Valerie had refused to let her miss school.

“Today…” Valerie dialed her mind back, saw Maggie Bristol facing the courtroom. She liked the spitfire spirit of that girl. Then she saw Izzy McNeil and that tiny pinpoint of light got a little bigger. She wanted to talk to her, to tell her the truth.

But then she remembered that even if she told the truth, even if Izzy believed her, she couldn’t prove it. And the truth was…well, the truth was something she could not let anyone know.

20

I called Mayburn as soon as I awoke on Saturday morning. “Meet me for breakfast?”

Theo was still asleep. I heard him mutter a soft, “No, stay here,” felt him slide across the bed, weaving his arm around my waist. His body felt warm as it cupped mine. He angled himself so we were puzzle pieces that fit perfectly. Had Sam and I ever felt like this?

“Yeah, fine,” I heard Mayburn say. “Where?”

Theo pushed himself against my back. I felt all of him now, felt him growing hard. I couldn’t think. “You decide,” I said into the phone.

“Salt & Pepper Diner. On Lincoln. Half an hour?”

Theo’s lean, muscled body curled tighter around me. He lifted my hair and began to kiss the back of my neck.

“An hour,” I said. Theo pushed his pelvis into mine and began to nudge my legs open. “An hour and a half,” I said.

Salt & Pepper Diner looked like Chicago in the 1950s—red leather booths and a shiny silver counter where you could sit and watch men in white paper hats cooking pancakes.

After my time with Theo, I was famished. “I’ll have the Popeye omelet,” I said to the waitress, handing her my menu.

“Toast or grits?”

They sounded delicious. “Both.”

Mayburn handed over his menu. “Scrambled eggs. Egg whites only, please.”

“Toast or grits?”

“Neither.”

“Fruit?” the waitress offered.

He shook his head silently.

“Sliced tomato?”

He didn’t even look at her. Just shook his head again.

I gave him a once-over. He was thinner than usual. His brown hair, which he’d been wearing stylishly messed over the last year, was hidden under a Blackhawks baseball cap. The dark blue jeans and the polo shirt he wore hung on him, when he usually wore things more fitted. Mayburn was at least ten years older than me, I knew, but right now he looked more than that. The lines around his eyes were set deep.

“What’s up?” Mayburn said.

I thought about asking the same thing, but I knew he preferred to deal with work first. He wasn’t someone who disclosed his personal business very easily. I told him how Maggie had recruited me to work on Valerie’s case, that we needed his help.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“I’m not exactly sure.” I thought about Valerie’s face when she said, I didn’t do it. Maggie said we didn’t have to know such things as Valerie’s criminal lawyers, but I was having trouble separating myself as a person from myself as a lawyer. I’d never had such a struggle when I was a civil lawyer.

“Let’s break it down,” Mayburn said, leaning forward. “Just start at the beginning.”

I took a sip of water, and then I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t that much, really. I wondered how Maggie could do this on a regular basis. How did she work with such a relatively limited amount of information from her clients? When I was a civil lawyer and I had a trial, I knew exactly what every witness would say because I’d taken their depositions or I’d made them fill out interrogatories or both. The trials there were more about shading the information, drawing out some bits and burying others to persuade the jury that your side was right. But this criminal thing was a whole different matter. There had been no depositions and little other pretrial testimony to plan our trial strategy. We had no idea what was going to happen. We couldn’t plan, couldn’t pretend we were in control of anything.

It struck me that the same was true of life—you could attempt to be in control of all the information that came at you, could even attempt to control the direction of it, but ultimately, you realized that life was unpredictable as a jury in Cook County. Control was an illusion.

Mayburn listened. He leaned toward me when he seemed to need clarification; he nodded when he got it.

When I came to the end of what I knew about the case, I said, “That’s it, basically. Our client says she didn’t commit the crime. So far, she won’t say who did, or if she even knows who did. We don’t know if she’s lying, and Maggie tells me none of this matters. But I want to know. So I guess we need to look at everybody in the case. Everybody.”

“What if I dig up something bad about Valerie? Something that’s not out there yet? Do you have to tell Maggie?”

I chewed my bottom lip the way Maggie did when she was thinking hard. “I think so. But I’m not sure. I just know that I might have to take a backseat on the case or maybe get off it altogether if I don’t personally believe Valerie.”

“You sure you want to go down this road?”

The waitress delivered our food. We thanked her, but neither of us picked up our forks.

“I have to.” I nodded, then repeated, “I have to. Can we start with background checks on all the players?”

“Sure.” Mayburn pulled out a pen and a tiny notebook from his back jeans pocket. “Name ’em.”

“Bridget and Valerie and Amanda, the victim.” I thought about the photos the state had used during opening arguments. Amanda appeared to be the kind of person Maggie and I would be friends with. The fact that I was representing someone who had allegedly killed her was jarring. I needed to know the real story. “Zavy, the husband. They had a live-in nanny named Sylvia Zowinski.” I spelled her name for Mayburn. “And…” My voice trailed off as I thought hard. “Those seem to be the people who might know something.”

“If you can get social security numbers, the states they’ve lived in, birth dates, anything…” Mayburn said.

“I’ll collect what I can from Valerie and the police records. I’m going to be studying the records all weekend to get ready to cross Vaughn.”

“Detective Damon Vaughn?” That drew the first smile of the day from Mayburn. “I gotta be there to see that.”

“Monday morning.”

He gave a smile and a long nod. “If you give me Maggie’s files, I’ll read them and see what I can find.”

“There’s not much there. But hey, you’re the one who always says investigations are like puzzles, and you just have to start collecting the pieces, right?”

He raised his eyebrows with a grudgingly impressed expression. “I thought you didn’t listen to me.”

“I don’t listen to you when doing so will get me in trouble.”

He scoffed. “Like when?”

“Are you kidding? What about when you made me get into Lucy’s house and download Michael’s hard drive and Michael came home? There was no time for the series of checks you told me to run. I couldn’t listen to you.”

He chuckled a little. We looked at each other. I think both of us heard the words—Lucy, Michael—hanging there.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“How am I doing?” Mayburn echoed. “I am doing distinctly shitty.”

“Will you be okay?”

“No.” He said it simply, not like he was feeling sorry for himself, but rather like he was being matter-of-fact. “I’ve always wondered what was wrong with me, why I didn’t want to commit to someone before this.”

“You wanted to commit to that gallery owner you dated. What was her name?”

“Madeline Saga. I guess you’re right. I did want her to commit. I even bought my house in Lincoln Square hoping she’d move in. But in retrospect, I think I wanted that because she told me she didn’t. It was the ultimate challenge.”

I looked at Mayburn, at his sad face, his eyebrows drawn together. His skin appeared grayish now that I looked closer, as if he wasn’t hydrated.

“Have you been boozing?” I asked.

A sharp glare. “What do you think, McNeil? The love of my life left me. Yeah, I’ve been drinking. Wanna talk more about it?”

I shook my head, raised my hands in surrender. Mayburn’s show of emotion was unlike him, so much so that I suddenly felt a need to help. Aside from when he was with Lucy, Mayburn seemed happiest to me when he was involved with work. “Why don’t you do some investigating for me?”

“I am. You’ve got me on this poison case.”

“Yeah, I know. But I need you on something else. It’s Sam.”

His narrowed eyes went wide. “Your ex-fiancé, Sam? The one who disappeared?”

“He’s reappeared.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s engaged now.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like much of a reappearance for you.”

“He said he’ll break off his engagement if I want.”

Now, Mayburn’s face turned to disbelief. “Are you telling me that you’ve got a boyfriend and you can get your other boyfriend back?”

I thought about it, agreeing that my situation probably was unhelpful when set up against his. “I’m a mess!” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. “More than anything, I’m confused,” I said, which was precisely true. “I need you to help me with…”

“With what?”

“I want to know how serious he is. About me. About Alyssa.”

“Well, ask him.”

“I will. But tell me what to look for. Tell me what to ask. You work on all these infidelity cases. I mean, c’mon!” My voice had risen. I realized then that I was anxious to make the right decision—Sam, Theo, or none of the above?

Mayburn’s face softened. “When are you seeing Sam next?”

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