Page 3 of The Woman on the Jury

A vague sense of recognition tugged at the corners of my memory, but I couldn’t quite place it as she walked down the row of seats between the crowds for the prosecution and defense.

Both sets of attorneys turned to look.

As did all of the victim’s brothers.

She was pretty, but in a shrunken sort of way. Long, wispy blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a petite body that she had wrapped in an oversized sweater. Her arms hugged her body, like she was trying to hold herself together.

I guess I expected her to go toward the prosecution, toward the brothers who were looking at her with familiarity.

But at the last possible second, she veered toward the defense.

And it was the first time I saw any sort of emotion from Cosimo Costa.

A softening.

“Miss,” the bailiff called, making me turn my head to notice the rest of the jury had filed out. Likely to go get pizza. Again. I never thought I could get sick of pizza. Alas, it was possible.

“Sorry,” I said, moving toward him, but my head swiveled back as I stepped out of the box.

And I saw the unmasked fury on the brothers’ faces as Cosimo Costa talked to the young girl.

It wasn’t until I was already out of the courtroom that it occurred to me where I’d seen her before.

In a picture on Nicholas Myers’s profile.

With his arm draped possessively over her shoulders.

As she shrank away from him.

And there was something else that was niggling at me as I walked into the deliberation room, something in that picture that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I picked at my pizza, barely eating any of it.

It wasn’t until we were passing a janitor on the way back to the courtroom, and I noticed a nasty bruise on his jaw, that I remembered.

In that picture of the girl.

Nicholas Myers’s girlfriend.

Something I’d written off as a shadow under her neck.

But, no.

It wasn’t a shadow.

It was a bruise.

Across herthroat.

As we filed back into the box, my gaze slipped to Cosimo Costa.

And I understood with perfect clarity what had truly happened.

Cosimo Costa wasn’t innocent.

He was guilty of murder.

He had killed Nicholas Myers.

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