case. We’re due in court in...exactly...” She glanced at her watch and groaned. “Four and a half hours. What about you? Are you ready?”
“I will be.” He frowned suddenly. “Tell me the truth, Fiona. Do you think we have even an outside shot at a conviction?”
“I don’t know. It’s always hard to predict what a jury will do in a he said-she said case like this. With no forensic evidence, it’ll be a hard sale to the jury.”
“How could there not be one single piece of evidence against that bastard?” Milo muttered. “I get that he wore a condom, but no hair, no fibers, no DNA beneath her fingernails? What the hell did he do, scrub her down afterward?”
“You know what happened,” Fiona said. “Same thing that happens in too many of these cases. She went home and showered.” Although in Kimbra’s case, she’d gone to a runaway shelter. She’d gotten rid of her clothes, too, because she’d never planned to report the rape at all. But Rachel Torres, a woman who ran the runaway shelter, saw the bruises and forced the truth from Kimbra. She was the one who took her to the emergency room, but by then a rape kit was almost useless. Whatever evidence there might have been to help put DeMarco away had been washed down the drain.
“I watched the jury yesterday when DeMarco took the stand,” Fiona said. “He scored some serious points.” And nothing she’d been able to do during cross-examination had rattled him. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn the man was on something. How could anyone remain that calm when she’d gone straight for the jugular?
Milo nodded morosely. “I thought so, too. And Kimbra’s testimony was shaky, at best.”
That was another thing that made this case so difficult. The accused wasn’t just any cop. DeMarco was a decorated veteran of the Chicago Police Department and a war hero from Desert Storm. Good-looking, well-educated, the kind of defendant that was easy to root for because people wanted to believe he was exactly what he seemed to be—one of the good guys.
Kimbra, on the other hand, was a troubled young girl who’d lived on the streets for years. Moody, defiant, and tough as nails, she’d been a difficult and reluctant witness from the start, the kind that sometimes made Fiona wonder if the aggravation was worth it.
She sighed wearily. “Since we didn’t get any help from Kimbra, it’s imperative we make up ground in the closing argument. We’ll both have to be at the top of our game, Milo.”
“Oh, no pressure there,” he grumbled as he got out of the car and came around to open her door. When she stepped out, he said awkwardly, “Look, Fiona, that business about Guy—”
She cut him off. “Let’s just forget it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I understand.” He ran a hand through his hair, messing his gel job. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. About the gossip, I mean. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable at the office.”
She shrugged. “I hate gossip, but maybe it’s best that you did bring it to my attention. It’s always a good idea to know what people are saying about you behind your back. But just for the record? I’m not involved with Guy Hardison. On any level. I want you to know that. I want you to believe that.”
“Maybe you’re not involved, but—”
“Milo.” Her tone held a warning note. “There is nothing going on between Guy Hardison and me. Period.”
He nodded. “Okay. I get the message. Case closed. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
They said their good-nights, and then Fiona ran up the front steps and inserted her key into the lock. She couldn’t wait to be inside her own apartment, to lock the door behind her and close herself off from the rest of the world, if only for the next few hours.
Resolving herself to the work she’d left earlier, she went into her tiny kitchen to brew a fresh pot of coffee. But instead, she climbed up on the counter and reached into the far corner of a top cabinet to retrieve the bottle of scotch she’d stashed several months ago when she’d quit drinking.
She stared at the bottle for a moment, then got out a glass and poured herself a drink. Her grandmother’s voice seemed to echo through the silent apartment. “You drink alone, you’re apt to die alone, Fiona Colleen.”
“Sorry, Gran,” she muttered. But dying alone was pretty much a foregone conclusion for her anyway.
Fiona downed the whiskey sitting on the edge of the counter, then poured herself another. The liquor seared a comforting path all the way to her stomach, and she closed her eyes, letting the familiar numbness take hold.
Hopping off the counter, she carried the bottle and the glass into the other room and dropped into a chair at the dining table. Sipping her drink, she read over the notes she’d made earlier.
One out of three women in this country will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. One out of every three.
She finished her drink, then began to write.
It could happen to me, it could happen to you, it could happen to anyone at any time.
She stared at the words and frowned. Had Alicia been sexually assaulted? Was that the reason she’d been murdered?
They would have to wait for the autopsy to find out, and even then the results, except in the more brutal cases, could be ambiguous.
However, the way she’d been murdered, one shot to the back of the head, suggested—as Guy had said earlier—an execution-style hit. Very deliberate, premeditated, someone wanting to shut her up. But why? What could an eighteen-year-old girl who’d lived a very sheltered and protected existence know that would make someone want to kill her? What might she have seen? Who might she have seen?
And where the hell was Lexi?
The questions swirled inside Fiona’s brain, and she rubbed her temples, trying to shut them out so that she could concentrate on her work. She poured herself another drink and scribbled:
Think of three women in your own life. Your mother, your daughter, your sister...
As she stared at what she’d written, Lori Guest’s words suddenly came back to her.
“They have that twin thing, Fiona. Where one goes, the other goes. When one is upset, the other is upset. If one gets hurt, well, you get the idea. They’re so attuned to one another, it’s almost scary.”
Had Lexi sensed that Alicia was in trouble? Had she felt her sister’s terror?
Did she know the exact moment when the bullet had pierced her sister’s skull?
Or was Lexi...beyond knowing?
“Why did you call me, Alicia?” Fiona wondered aloud. “And why in God’s name didn’t I call you back?”
Don’t dwell on it. Nothing could be done about it now. Recriminations could come later, but for now, the only productive thing Fiona could do was concentrate on her work.
She glanced back down at her notes, tried to pull her thoughts together once again, but her mind kept rambling and the words on the page blurred. Her eyes suddenly burned with exhaustion, and Fiona thought that if she could just rest them for a moment, she’d be good to go.
But the moment she closed her eyes, she drifted off and the image of Alicia’s pale, still features materialized in her dream. Mist swirled around the body as Fiona stared down at her, and somewhere in the darkness behind her, a tape played over and over. “Fiona? This is Alicia Mercer. Please call me when you get this message. I really need to talk to you.”
And then suddenly the tape stopped. The fog faded, and Fiona was standing on a lonely road in the harsh glare of headlights as she stared down at David Mackenzie’s lifeless body. Someone said in horror, “He’s dead, Fiona. My God, you killed him.”
She came