She woke to darkness.
She’d barely gotten past her opening statement before sleep had hit her.
Now, someone was here.
Making no sound. But breathing the same air. She was sure of it.
She also wasn’t surprised.
So much for believing in Charlotte’s guilt, thought one segment of her mind. The rest of it was on hyper-alert.
A shadow moved.
J.D.
Relief swept across her, sank into her tensed muscles.
Followed immediately by realization that with her defenses down, mind shut off, with no evidence except her gut, she not only sensed his presence, she trusted him.
“J.D.? What—?”
He turned on the small bedside lamp. “I saw movement, but I knew you were asleep. I came in.”
“How did you know I was here at all?”
“Followed you. Out of town, then back in. Damn it — why the hell didn’t you keep going? Just keep going back to where you belong?”
“Wh—?”
“Go ahead, call the sheriff. I ignored a feeling of someone being around before Pan was murdered. Not again. No matter how much you say you’re able to take care of yourself. No matter how much you don’t trust me. Here, dial 9-1-1, get Gardner. Get the whole department. I’m not leaving you alone.”
“But—”
“I’m not convinced Charlotte’s the murderer, and even if she is there’s something else going on.”
“What I’ve been trying to say is I agree, Charlotte isn’t the murderer.” For once, she thought his silence was from surprise rather than control. She sat up, piled pillows behind her. “That’s why I came back.”
She drew her legs to one side. She looked from the space on the bed created by her movement, to him.
A flicker of the heat she’d seen in his eyes the other night flashed. Then was gone.
He took her sweater off the suitcase where she’d dropped it and handed it to her. “Chilly in here.”
Looking down, she saw her blouse had unbuttoned halfway down. Awareness of her nipples, hardened and straining against the silk of her bra, swept heat through her. She buttoned hurriedly and pulled the sweater on. Hoping he would mistake her flush for embarrassment.
She couldn’t have him again. Not unless she did a lot more sorting out.
Was that for herself? For him? Did it matter?
“There’s a pattern, J.D. I can’t see it, but there are glimpses.”
“What pattern?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
Renee’s words… Affairs of the heart. But with Rick Wade dead, who could that be? Except J.D.
Unless it was Wade who killed Pan and Laurel, attacked the woman Bel had found named Darcie Johnson, then someone else killed him?
Eugene? But would he kill to avenge Laurel?
Ed—
J.D. sat on the edge of the bed, one leg drawn up, his knee touching her calf. “Where’d you go just now.”
“I was remembering what Renee said about patterns and affairs of the heart. I can’t grab hold of it. And there’s something else. Almost from the start, I’ve had this nagging sense of the transcript trying to tell me something. Trying to tell me something was wrong.” She grimaced. “At least not quite right. I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“Trust your gut, Maggie.”
“I wish people would stop telling me that.”
He persisted. “What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? No thinking, say it.”
“The opening statement. I keep going back to the opening statement.” Before she finished the words, he’d reached into the carton from Nancy, which was on the floor near him, and pulled out the rough transcript, handing it to her.
She took it, but shook her head. “I’ve been over and over and over it. Nothing.”
“Go over it again. Now. Read it aloud.”
She hesitated, reluctant to speak her words declaring his guilt.
“Maggie.”
She tipped the transcript to catch light from the small lamp and began.
* * * *
“…Pandora Wade was found with the note the defendant, J.D. Carson, wrote representing his plans to run away together stuffed in her mouth. She’d said no and he couldn’t take that…”
“Keep going.”
“Something… There’s something…”
She re-read the words from the transcript.
Pandora Wade was found with the note the defendant, J.D. Carson, wrote representing his plans to run away together stuffed in her mouth. She’d said no and he couldn’t take that.
She stared at the paper she held until the words disappeared, she slipped under the surface of the trial, into the depths of it again. Surrounded by it. In it. Completely.
Standing in front of the jury. Seeing each face. Hearing the slight movement of Judge Blankenship to her side.
And she spoke.
Each word sounded in her memory, echoed in her head.
Each word she had spoken.
And the words she had not spoken.
“In her mouth.”
Her voice sounded strange to her. Muffled. The liquid volume of the trial buffering it.
She shook it off, pushing up from the memory. Returning to now. Looking at J.D.
“I didn’t say that. Not in the opening statement. I left the detail of where the note was found out of the opening to have more impact during testimony. Maximum effect. It was the end of the second day.” She flipped through pages. “With the medical examiner on the stand.”
“I remember that testimony.”
She did, too. She also remembered him in that moment.
She’d turned away from the medical examiner, made eye contact with several jurors to be sure they understood the import, then she’d seen his face.
Rigid. Taut. Controlled. … Yet, under the control, shock.
“You hadn’t known.” She didn’t ask it as a question, because she knew. She’d known then, as hard as she’d tried not to. It was the seed that grew into What if he’s innocent?
“Not until that testimony.”
The paper hadn’t been visible when he found Pan’s body. Still wasn’t visible for sheriff’s department personnel to spot — and blab about.
Only the murderer who had shoved the note into Pan’s mouth, then posed her face down had known about it.
J.D. said, “Are you sure about this? You’ve been reading this transcript over and over.”
“Sure. I must have read that opening a dozen times since I came up here but I never — Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”