Page 13 of Cast Stones
I glance up from the mess of crime scene photos scattered all over my desk. One of our associate defenders, Jackson King, snaps his laptop lid shut and rises to his feet. Inky darkness is seeping in through the slats in the blinds. The edges are tinted a hazy orange from the streetlamp below.
It’s eerie.
Unsettling.
My body gives a violent shiver.“Thanks, Jackson.”
There’s a pause, and I feel his eyes drilling into me. “Tough case?”
“You could say that.” I pick up another photograph. Right away, bile is rising up from the pit of my stomach in a trail of heat and horror. The corpse of Cyrus Moseley is grinning at me.
Like he did that night.
Stone tablet.
Agony.
All twelve of them…
“It will only hurt for a moment, Mary, and then all your sins will be absolved.”
Liar.
They were all goddamn liars.
Sliding his backpack onto his shoulder, Jackson pauses by my desk and cocks his head to see what I’m working on. He’s only a couple of years older than me, and as I watch, a lock of his hair glides like melted chocolate across his forehead. He’s handsome in an Edward Norton kind of a way—smart and understated.
Nice. Normal. Safe.
All the things I should have settled for.
All the things I never will.
“You sure I can’t help you with this case?” he offers again, wearing his inner conflict as easily as his jacket. “I know the state’s budget cuts don’t allow for it, but if you want I can always—”
“I’m good,” I say, cutting him off abruptly, and then cursing my rudeness. I can’t remember the last time anyone offered to help me around here, but this is my burden to bear.
For once I’m not going to bitch about the state’s hard-on for underfunding this department. Luca’s case is too close to my past. It’s too close to everything I’ve worked so hard to keep hidden from this world.I can’t lose my license to practice law over this. It’s all I have left.
Dropping the photograph, I pick up a third and hold it up to the light.Clues. Clues. Where are all the clues?Regardless of whether Luca killed these ten men or not, I’m determined to find a crumb of police or forensic mismanagement to trip the jury into a mistrial.
Which will never happen if Jackson King continues hanging around my desk like a bad smell.
“But the guy confessed, didn’t he?” He leans down to pick up one of the photographs.Back off, asshole.“His information led to the discovery of nine more bodies a couple of days ago. Are these—?”
“No, these are of the original victim. The police haven’t released those other images yet.”
“It’s an open and shut, Madigan,” he chides, patronizingly. “Unless, of course, you’re working on an insanity plea.”
Why the hell are you so interested?“Maybe I am. Maybe it’s the only choice I have if I find out the cops did their job right. Luca hasn’t exactly made this easy for me.”
Jackson frowns. “I thought the defendant’s name was Enzo Vincent?”
“Client’s request,” I reply smoothly. “It’s a family thing.”
I can feel Jackson’s hands on the back of my chair now.Not so nice and normal after all…His fingers brush lightly against my shoulder blades, and nausea swells in my stomach again.
“Insanity is a tough one to slip past Judge Harris, Madigan,” he warns, his voice thickening to that deep, syrupy shit men like to drown women in. “That’s assuming he’s presiding over Vincent’s trial as well?”
