Page 51 of 25 Alive

“Cin, you’ve got this. You don’t need me.”

“And if Palmer tells me that he killed either of his ex-wives, then what? I can’t arrest him. I can’t even bring him in for questioning. All I can do is back out of the restaurant and hope he doesn’t follow me into an alley, strangle me, and write on my shoes.”

I said, loudly, “Cin. Record your conversation with Palmer and call me later.”

“Okay. I’ll let you out of a free meal with a possible killerand won’t guilt-trip you if you tell me why you’re waiting on a call from Joe.”

“He was supposed to be home last night. He didn’t come home, and he didn’t call.”

“You called Steinmetz?”

“Of course. But I can’t talk about that. Will you stop asking me?”

“Lindsay, no. You’re saying, ‘Off the record’? About Joe?”

“I can’t talk about it because I’m scared out of my mind and talking about this will only make me feel worse.”

“It sounds like you’re saying that Steinmetz hasn’t heard from him, either.”

God, Cindy was incorrigible. I pulled up to a yellow light and braked. I said to Cindy, “He offered some innocent explanations. He told me that he’d find Joe. Cindy, this whole conversation is off the record. Don’t make me have to kill you.”

“I hear you, Lindsay. I’m sorry, you know. For being obnoxious.”

“Yes, you are, but you know I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“I’ll call you later. And good luck with Palmer.”

The light turned green. A car horn blared behind me. I said, “Gotta go. Talk later, okay?”

Cindy said, “For sure,” and I clicked off.

I knew Cindy had never seen this side of me. Closed off. Terrified. And I really hadn’t meant to scare and hurt my friend. But I had done it.

CHAPTER77

NICK GAINES PULLED out a chair for Yuki at the counsel table, which spanned the width of the small, hastily built courtroom. Yuki and Gaines sat at the end of the counsel table closest to the jury box. Defense counsel Jon Credendino and his associates sat at the opposite end, near the outer door.

There was no rail behind them, no banks of chairs, because press, family, and all spectators were barred from entering Folsom Prison and its grounds. This was especially true of the Judicial Building. As Judge Orlofsky’s murder had proven, participants in the Dario Garza trial were at risk of death if their names got out.

Yuki took a pill bottle from her computer case and swallowed an Advil with a gulp of water to tamp down a headache that she knew no pill could cure. Her stress level had hit the redline. The urgency of overseeing the completion of the Judicial Building in ten days had drawn Yuki’s attention away from the boxes of police reports and court transcripts thathad been produced for the prosecution in the original case against Dario Garza. She had been so involved in the completion of this building: the construction, the design, making sure that the living quarters for the principals would be separated by job function and again by gender. If the disparate groups mixed or even spoke together, there would most certainly be a mistrial.

She couldn’t let that happen.

Now the twelve jurors and six alternates filed into the makeshift jury box. Yuki knew that there would be no excuse, no way out, if she was unable to convince these people of Dario Garza’s guilt in the killing of Miguel Hernandez.

Yuki had mentally rehearsed today’s statement again this morning while dressing, but she had not practiced it out loud. She’d rationalized that she knew the case by heart and would be able to deal with whatever Jon Credendino brought to the jurors.

But the moment had arrived.

She looked at Gaines, sitting beside her, his usual cool, calm self. He wrote on his tablet and pushed it toward her:UOK?

Fine,she wrote back.You?

That’s when the bailiff asked the jury to stand. He swore the jurors in and then asked them to remain standing.

A door opened behind and to the right of the judge’s bench, and the Honorable Robin Walden swept through the doorway. Everyone in the courtroom got to their feet.

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