Owen tossed her partially eaten sandwich on the desk and sighed.
“If you’re not going to eat that, give it here,” Mary said, snapping her fingers.
“It’s not any good. The chicken salad has grapes in it and they’re past their prime.”
“You say that like I’ll care.” Mary patted her stomach. “Good is relative when you’re eating for two. I feel like everything I ingest is immediately going to feed Mr. X.”
“If you keep calling your unborn child Mr. X, he’s going to have way bigger problems than fighting you for food.”
“Whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very excited about having a family, but I know that once Mr. X leaves the comfort of the womb for the real world, the rest of my life, and my sandwiches, will not be my own. In the meantime, I’ll take whatever I can get, especially if you’re going to freely toss me your leftovers.”
Owen dutifully handed her the sandwich. “I guess I’m just not hungry.”
Mary bit into the sandwich and moaned. “This is perfection.” She wiped her lips with a napkin. “I know what your problem is. You’re still sulking.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Owen mustered all the sincerity she could find, but she knew her declaration fell flat.
“Liar. You lost one case. A tiny little drug possession case, marijuana—not even real drugs. And the case wasn’t even technically yours. You’ve had all weekend to put it behind you, but you’re still obsessing over it. Most of us lost a dozen misdemeanor cases before we hit our second year. Sorry not sorry you’re just now making it into the club, but seriously, O, the moping has got to go.”
Owen leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. Her annoyance was legit, but she knew Mary and everyone else was tired of dealing with the fallout of her recent loss, and she needed to shake her malaise, but she kept coming back to one central issue. “I really thought we had a connection. If I could be that wrong about my take on her, then what’s to say I’m not going to mess up jury selection in this case?”
“Oh, you’re back to obsessing over the pretty blond forewoman.” Mary poked the last piece of sandwich in her mouth and gave a tiny moan as if she were eating her way through a tasting menu from a Michelin star restaurant. “Do you still have her questionnaire? Why don’t you just track her down and ask her out already? Clearly, you’re not going to get over this until you get her out of your system.”
“Hush your mouth. I don’t want to go out with her.”
“Short of jumping in a time machine, that’s probably all your obsession is going to get you. It’s not like you can convince her to change her mind on the verdict now, but you could get laid provided you can be more charming out of the courtroom than in it. Your charges will thank me if you do. You’ve been really uptight lately.”
Had she? She’d been focused for sure. Her recent reassignment to the Adams case was an enormous responsibility, but she’d prepared for a case this big her entire career. And with a reliable eyewitness, a guilty verdict was practically guaranteed. So why did she have a nagging feeling something was off? Was her uncertainty tied to the loss last week or was there a problem with their evidence in the case she wasn’t seeing yet—one waiting to explode at the worst possible moment?
“Let it rest, Mare. That isn’t the kind of connection I’m talking about and you know it.” Owen felt the burn of a blush at Mary’s raised eyebrows. She knew her all too well. “Even if it was, I don’t have time for a love life right now. I’m relying on you to help me focus.”
“We have very different ideas about how to focus.” Mary pointed at her belly. “But of course, my methods can be distracting in the long run. Fine, let’s talk about the case. Something’s on your mind. Spill.”
Owen stared at the board they’d erected in the war room, trying to figure out how to put into words the gut churning she’d experienced since she’d done a deep dive into the evidence. She pointed at the indictment which was posted smack in the middle. “Maybe I’m uptight because something’s not adding up. I can’t put my finger on it, but we’re missing something.”
“That’s nice and vague. Any chance you could come up with something a little more specific?”
She could, but saying the words out loud would make it real and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there. Yet. County Commissioner Keith Adams was not only one of the most powerful men in Dallas County, he was one of the most beloved. The one poor soul who’d taken him on in the last election cycle had only managed to garner eight percent of the vote, and considering the low turnout of the off-season election, the opponent’s votes had likely come from his own friends and family. Adams was universally liked, and after his wife had been murdered, his favorability ratings had grown exponentially. To most everyone in the county, he could do no wrong. Everyone but her.
Since the first time she’d met Adams at a party fundraiser she’d attended in support of her boss, Owen had a nagging feeling there was more to his down-home, hail-fellow-well-met routine than met the eye, but she had absolutely no evidence to back up the instinct. And for a person who relied on evidence in everything she did, the absence of it meant she couldn’t, wouldn’t, voice her concern in public. But Mary wasn’t public. She was the closest thing Owen had to a best friend, and who better to try out her half-baked theory?
Owen walked to the door and glanced outside to make sure no one was standing nearby and quietly pulled it to. When she turned back, Mary was rolling her palm in the air, signaling her impatience with the wait. Owen took a deep breath and expelled her theory like she was struggling for air. “What if Commissioner Adams was behind the murder? What if he hired Fuentes to do it? To make it look like a burglary gone wrong?”
“Wow. I thought you were going to say something like you didn’t like what you had for lunch. I had no idea you were going to try to tank our case.”
Owen stared at Mary. She sat with her arms crossed, rolling her eyes like she wasn’t remotely buying into her theory. She should shut up now, dial back what she could, and get back to work preparing to use the evidence they did have to prosecute the only true suspect in the case. But she couldn’t. The floodgates had opened, and she had to let all the water out or she would drown in the sea of doubt.
“Hear me out.” Owen paced the room, conscious she was waving her arms as she talked, but needing the motion to expel the energy that came with dumping the contents of her brain out on the table. “DPD didn’t even consider him as a suspect. You don’t think Fuentes’s attorney isn’t going to bring that up? It’s basic criminal investigation. Look at the people closest to the victim, spouses especially.”
Mary held up her palm. “I’ll hear you out, but first I need you to take a seat. You’re making me crane my neck to see you, and the constant motion is making me nauseous.”
Owen paused to assess if Mary was being patronizing and decided her request was sincere. She slid into the nearest chair but stayed on the edge of her seat, certain the need to spring into action might come at any moment.
“Okay, much better,” Mary said. She reached for a folder on the desk. “We have the interview notes for the cops who showed up first at the scene. I assume you have them memorized?”
It was Owen’s well-known quirk—the ability to read and instantly memorize information—that had gotten her through many a tough spot from college to career, but while the talent was helpful, it could also be frustrating in that she never forgot what she’d seen or read, so when things didn’t add up, the inconsistency might nag at her for days. Here, she hoped, the skill would simply make it easier to make her argument. “Yes, I do. Adams received a call from his maid at ten o’clock on Saturday evening. He’d been at a restaurant with Mayor Heller and was on his way home when he got a call from the maid, who’d dropped by the house because she’d accidentally left her wallet at the house. She found the back door standing open and Mrs. Adams’s dead body in the living room.”
“Did anyone else live in the house besides the commissioner and his wife?”
“No. I mean, technically, their daughter, Ashley, lives there, but she’s away at college.”
“Okay.” Mary drew out the word a bit.
“Okay what?”
“Are you ready for me to start poking holes in your theory now, or do you want me to wait until the end?”
Owen swallowed a sharp retort. She knew she sounded a bit like one of those conspiracist types who hung out in Dealey Plaza every November, ready and willing to tell tourists their theory of how Lee Harvey didn’t act alone and why. “I’ll take my dose of Mary smackdown when I’m done.”
She went through the list of facts, highlighting several in particular: the security system wasn’t on, nothing was taken, and so far, no one had turned up a motive for the killing. “Okay, now it’s your turn,” Owen said. “Convince me I’m wrong.”
Mary raised her hands. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. These are all good points to raise, but I do have counterpoints to make. First off, Adams wasn’t home when the burglary occurred. He had no idea the maid was going to come by, and if she hadn’t, presumably, he would’ve arrived home to find his dead wife and had to call the police, thereby incurring suspicion about whether he’d simply murdered her and then acted like he’d just arrived home. A smart person who’d arranged to have his wife killed probably would’ve had a better plan for how and when her dead body would be discovered. Don’t you think?”
“You have a point, but it’s based on some critical assumptions. For instance, the planning part. Commissioner Adams would likely think he could talk his way out of anything that involved the police, one-on-one.”
“I suppose. As for the security system, Adams told the police there had been problems with the system recently. The company’s reports back this up.”
Owen wanted to point out that the security system’s failure could have been plotted in advance as well but realized again she sounded like the kind of conspiracy theorist that as a prosecutor she tried her best to avoid. Still, she couldn’t deny the nagging feeling the police hadn’t focused on Adams the way they would a spouse who wasn’t an important city official. “Fine, but don’t you think it’s odd there’s no evidence of any crime other than the assault? Nothing was taken, she wasn’t raped. Fuentes has priors, but in those cases, he broke into homes and actually stole something. There’s no evidence he even tried to remove any property from Adams’s house. Seriously, why did he choose that particular house to break into?”
“She surprised him before he could take anything?”
“And his reaction was to shoot her? A guy with no history of violence against another person breaks into a house to take stuff and encounters the homeowner. Instead of turning tail to get the hell out, he pulls out a gun and shoots her not once, but three times?” Owen shook her head. “It’s hard for me to swallow.”
“I get it,” Mary said, “But you’re violating the first rule of investigations—the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The case is high-bitched because it’s Fuentes’s third offense. You think he didn’t know that was a possibility? He reacted in a way that seemed rational at the time even if it doesn’t pan out in the light of day. If all criminals were rational, you and I would be out of work really fast.”
She was right and Owen knew it, but Mary’s rationale didn’t do anything to quell the unease she felt about this case, and she wondered again if she’d be better off if Ron had stayed on, leaving her free from the repercussions of trying a case about which she had doubts. But she’d vied for the opportunity and now that she had it, she would step up and do everything she could to put Mrs. Adams’s killer behind bars.
“Point taken, but I want to go through everything again. In detail, like we’ve never seen it before. I’ll clear the rest of the week. Let’s set up meetings with the responding officers, Detectives Lacey and Garcia, and the witness who saw Fuentes leaving the house.”
“Deal. I’ve got a doctor appointment on Thursday afternoon—nothing major—just a checkup, but otherwise I’m in for whatever. I’ll get Kira to round up the witness and the officers and get them scheduled in,” she said, referring to their investigator.
“Perfect.” Owen’s phone buzzed to signal an incoming text and she checked the screen. “Gotta go. One of the children needs some help.” She knew she shouldn’t refer to the misdemeanor court attorneys as children, but she couldn’t help it since they often acted like they’d never been through law school. Had she been as clueless when she was first starting out? God, she hoped not.
“Go. Solve the world’s problems. I’ll get these interviews set up and text you the schedule.”
Owen strode to the door, confident Mary would handle things and relieved to have her on the case. Now, she needed to shrug off all thoughts of last week’s loss and Summer Byrne and focus on winning the biggest case of her career.
✥ ✥ ✥
Hands tightening. Fingers pressing hard. Gasping for air. Kicking hard. The hands had to be connected to a body. Hurt it and it will release its grasp. Have to break free. Vision fading. Darkness. Falling.
Summer jerked awake and reached for her throat, half expecting to find fingers threaded around her neck, but there was only her own skin, unencumbered. She sat up on the couch and took deep gulps of air, vowing never to take the ability to breathe for granted, while she reached for her phone. Without even looking, she started punching in the numbers, stopping short before abandoning the errand and dropping the phone to the couch cushion. She’d repeated the same ritual every day for the past week, never completing the call and suffering a pang of guilt each time she disconnected the phone that intensified the next time she had the dream. For all she knew, the violence in her dream was a past event—nothing she could prevent. But the dread loomed and there had to be a reason someone, somewhere was showing her these images. If not to prevent harm, then why? The upshot of her indecision was a shattered sleep schedule and a dark mood that had been noticed by both Faith and Nan, who carried on whispered conversations about what was up with her since she’d been on jury duty. If only the bad dreams had had something to do with jury duty instead of the violent attack on a man she’d never met. If she was going to dream about jury duty, she’d prefer to imagine the appearance of Owen Lassiter, the stubborn, steamy prosecutor who gave off boatloads of mysterious vibes. What would Owen have to say about her dreams? She had a feeling she knew.
“Another dream?”
Damn. Summer looked across the room at Nan, who was standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, a knowing smile on her face. There really wasn’t any point in lying, as much as she wanted to deny the dream and avoid the conversation that was about to happen. But seeing the future didn’t necessarily mean she knew how to avoid it. Her entire life had upended on that point alone. Might as well get it over with. “Yes.”
“Might do you some good to talk about it.” Nan walked into the room, and for the first time Summer noticed she carried a tray full of sandwiches, cut into cute little diagonals. “I made you lunch, and I promise it’s edible. Hard for even me to ruin a sandwich. You haven’t been eating…”
Her last words formed a complete sentence, but Summer knew Nan wanted to add “since the day after you finished jury duty.” She might have been able to convince Faith that the little episode she’d had outside of Simply Thai was a consequence of exhaustion, but Nan wasn’t buying it. Maybe it would make her feel better to talk to Nan about it. Get her advice about what to do. She reached for a piece of sandwich and held it up for examination. “Pimento cheese. Yum.” She bit into the soft white bread and moaned when the tangy cheese mixture hit her taste buds and finished out with a surprise kick of heat. “Jalapeños?”
“Yep. I’m mixing it up in my old age. It’s store-bought, but delicious. You like?”
“Love.” Summer devoured the rest of the sandwich point and reached for another. “Never, ever have it any other way.”
Nan set the platter on the coffee table and settled into the recliner across from the couch. Everything in the room was classic seventies and Summer loved the comfort of the gold tones. She pulled the crotched afghan over her bare feet and contemplated another piece of pimento cheese sandwich.
“You’ll feel better when you share what’s on your mind,” Nan said. “I promise the sandwiches will still be there when you’re done talking.”
“Stop it.”
“What?”
“Stop reading my thoughts. It’s not polite.”
“Your mother teach you that? Sounds like something she would say.”
It was exactly what her mother would—had—said every time Summer would point out that her actions didn’t match her thoughts or vice versa. For a long time, before she’d found Nan, she’d learned to hide her gift to keep from displeasing her mother, who either didn’t have the ability to see and hear what was invisible and unspoken or didn’t view it as a gift if she did. “She might have had a point, you know. It’s not good to have your every thought be examined by someone else. It can stunt a person.”
“Bullshit. If more people stopped living in their heads, the world might be a better place,” Nan said. “Secrets, lack of communication—these are the things that contribute to misunderstandings, manipulations, mayhem. Get it all out in the open, I say.”
Summer shook her head. She was used to Nan’s rants, but usually they were directed at the world in general and this one felt pretty personal. “What do you know about what I’m thinking?”
“I’m not reading your mind, dear. Not on purpose, anyway, but I can tell something is bothering you. Something heavy. You’re scared, both about the thing and about telling someone about it. Why not tell me as kind of a test run? See how it goes and then you can decide what else to do about it.”
She had a point. Summer wasn’t convinced Nan’s motives weren’t totally voyeuristic—she did love a good bit of drama—but it might do her good to try speaking out loud the dream and seeing if, in the light of day, it had an impact on someone besides just her. “When we went to Simply Thai last week, I felt something ominous outside. Something bad happened and the person who did it ran away. Since then, I’ve been having dreams about a man I spoke to at the courthouse for all of thirty seconds. I keep seeing him mugged, strangled. I can feel the loss of breath, the bones of his neck breaking. He falls to the ground and is gasping for air, but his windpipe is crushed and he can’t breathe. I’m not entirely certain, but it feels like it’s happening near the restaurant, and you know, the name of the restaurant popped in my head right after I ran into this guy.” She shook her head. “I’d never even heard of the place before, and I got an ominous feeling when we were standing outside.”
“Pretty intense. Did you see anything else?”
“Not that I can remember. I’ve dreamed the exact same scenario every time I’ve fallen asleep since and it doesn’t change.”
“Any markers?”
Summer smiled, strangely comforted by the familiar term. Now this was the thing Summer liked about talking to Nan. They spoke the same language, probably because Nan had been the one to guide her the very few first times she’d had a dream that turned out to be real. “I can make out the sign for the restaurant and I catch a glimpse of the parking lot across the street, but nothing to indicate date or time.”
“Hmm.” Nan took one of the sandwiches and nibbled around the edge. “I don’t suppose you’ve googled to see if it’s already happened.”
“Done and no. There have been a rash of muggings downtown, but none of the victims are my guy. I may not have picked up many markers, but I know exactly what he looks like. He has a scar.” She pointed at her forehead. “Right above his left eyebrow. It’s faint, but slightly jagged. Like he let it heal on its own, without any stitches.”
“How about the mugger? Did you get a good look at him?”
Summer shrugged. “Not great. He’s tall, lanky, but he was wearing a mask.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to forget I saw anything. You think that’s possible?”
Nan hunched her shoulders in an unconvincing way. “I guess if you want to keep having the dreams you can do whatever you want. Sleep is underrated, in my opinion.”
Summer considered chunking a sandwich at her but decided against it. “I think I need to make a call.”
“You’ll feel better when you do.”
“No one knows me here. I mean really knows me. I’d like to keep it that way.”
Nan regarded her with a sage expression. “You’re calling in a tip. It’s no different from the many crackpots who do the same, but you have real information. Valuable information.”
“Allegedly. I don’t have a name, a time, or a place.” Summer closed her eyes and ran through every detail of the scene for the thousandth time, searching for any clues about when the mugging had or would occur, but like every other time, she came up empty, an accurate match for the way she felt knowing something might happen she wouldn’t be able to prevent.
“What would you tell Faith to do?”
The question kicked Summer in the gut. “Not fair. Not fair at all.”
“And yet, you know deep down you would tell Faith to do whatever she had to do to try to prevent someone from being hurt. Am I right?”
She was, but Summer didn’t want to admit it. She’d spent the last few years working with the district attorney’s office in Santa Cruz using her powers to channel the truth in a series of criminal cases. The work was fulfilling and she embraced the tension and uncertainty that had come with every new revelation, every obligation to share with law enforcement the contents of her dreams, but she knew too well how fallible her visions could be, especially when, like now, they were incredibly vague as to time and date. If the universe really wanted her to prevent something bad from happening, you’d think it would be more interested in providing better intel.
“Fine, I’m calling.” She picked up her phone and looked up the number for the local precinct. She glanced at Nan and took comfort from her reassuring nod. When the voice on the other line answered, she forced a confidence she did not feel. “I’d like to report a crime.”