Page 24 of The Woman on the Jury

Lorenzo, who’d only been paying me half attention, suddenly sat upright, his gaze on me, brows raised.

“What was that?”

“Yeah. The girl from my jury.”

“The fuck did she want?” he asked.

“Help,” I told him.

“From you? Why?”

“Because she claims the brothers of the guy I offed is stalking her and put her grandfather in the hospital.”

“Wait… what?” Emilio asked.

“Why would they do that?” Lorenzo asked at almost the exact same time.

“Because she claims she was the one who deadlocked the jury,” I told them. “And therefore let their brother’s killer go free.”

“They would only go that extreme if…” Lorenzo started.

“If they thought the prosecution wasn’t going to retry the case,” I finished for him.

“She was theonlyperson who thought you might be innocent?” Emilio asked.

“No,” I said.

“But you just—“ he started.

“No, she didn’t think I was innocent,” I told him. “She just didn’t think I should go to jail for it.”

“What? Is she one of those people who don’t believe in prisons on principle?” he asked.

“I didn’t ask, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

“What proof does she have that these brothers are after her?” Lorenzo asked.

“That she saw them. Really, that’s it. But, in her defense, they were in court every day for weeks. She knows what they look like. If she’s so sure she saw them, I don’t know if I have a reason to doubt her.”

“And they beat up her grandfather?” Emilio asked.

“Yeah. She said she went out to dinner with a friend and left him alone in the shop. When she got back, he was beat to shit.”

“Shop?” Emilio asked.

“She works at the family antique shop,” I supplied.

“And she thinks it was the brothers and not a robbery?” Lorenzo asked. “There’s a lot of expensive shit in antique stores.”

“She claims nothing was stolen,” I said, shrugging. I didn’t have a reason to doubt her.

“And she came to you for what, exactly?” Lorenzo asked.

Good fucking questions.

“She wants me to handle it,” I said.

“Handle it how? Killing all of them?” he asked.

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