Page 49

“I was in court all day until I came down for the tail end of your witness interview. That’s it.”

Roy’s eyes darted from Lock to me. I knew he didn’t want to do this in front of Lock. But I recognized my husband’s mood. He was not going to leave my side. He was running through a million scenarios where I could have gotten hurt had I walked up on whoever vandalized my car.

“You haven’t gotten any threats lately?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said, seeing Lock’s jaw tighten as he listened. “No death threats or anything like that. But you know how this goes. There are any number of people who might not be my fans.”

“You’ve convicted a lot of felons,” Roy agreed. “But there’s nobody who stands out?” There was a hidden question in his eyes. He could read Lock’s agitation. I knew Roy would want to ask me in private about this. He’d want to know if there was anything I didn’t want to say in front of my husband. Yes. There was plenty. And yet, I wasn’t sure whether I could say any of it to Roy either.

“Nobody,” I said. “But I’ll have Ashley email you a list of my recent convictions.”

“You tried a murder case just a few months ago,” Lock said. “What was that scumbag’s name? The one who killed his wife?”

“Michael Raphael,” I said. “But he’s behind bars and not getting out. He didn’t have a fan club.”

“I’ve got all I need for now,” Roy said. “I’ll wait around until the crime lab people get here. We’ll take some photos. Take some samples of whatever that substance is.”

“It smells like blood,” Lock said through gritted teeth. He was right. Although the chemical smell of paint was strong, the substance used to scrawl the letters across my rear window was different. Thinner. It smelled metallic. I shuddered to think someone had actually used blood.

“I’ll take her home now?” Lock said. His tone sounded more like a statement than a question.

“Of course,” Roy said.

“You know how to get ahold of me,” I said. “Thanks, Roy, for handling this personally. I know it’s well below your normal caseload.”

Roy didn’t handle property crimes. He was strictly assigned to violent crimes like assault, murder, rape. But this was different. It was me.

I handed my keys to Roy. He’d drive it to their impound lot while the crime scene cops did their thing.

Lock kept a vice grip around my shoulders as he led me to his car, parked just a few spaces away. He opened the door for me and reached over to grab my seat belt.

I put a hand up. “Lock, please. I’m not injured. I’m fine.”

Lock filled with quiet rage as he drove home. When we got there, he walked into the house ahead of me and went straight for the wine fridge in the kitchen. He poured two glasses of white and then downed his while he handed me one.

“I don’t want you going back in for a while,” he said. “Work from home. Until Roy figures out who wants to hurt you, I don’t want you out of my sight, Mina.”

“That’s not realistic. We don’t even know if this vandalism was directed at me personally. It could have just been some random, mentally ill person who went after the first car he or she saw.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I want you to be safe. Maybe I’d better cancel my business trip next week. Or take you with me. I cannot stand the idea of how close you came to getting hurt today.”

“I didn’t,” I said, putting a light hand on his arm. “No. Don’t cancel your trip to New York. I’ll be fine here without you. This is going to turn out to be nothing. Just some bored kids.”

I wasn’t sure I believed that. Complicit. It seemed like such a sinister word. An accusation. Complicit in what? This could have been about any case I had worked on, but something deep inside me knew what it was about.

“Maybe you should step away from TRACE if this is the kind of thing you’re exposed to now.”

Step away? He wanted me off the case? The word became a drumbeat in my head. Complicit. Complicit. Complicit.

“Why do you think this has anything to do with TRACE?” I asked.

“When will you be able to tell me what’s been happening with that? I know something’s going down. I ran into Mark yesterday. He was walking on air. Chomping at the bit to tell me about some big news that was going to hit later this week.”

I kept my face neutral. “Mark should learn how to keep his mouth shut.” I’d long suspected Gilchrist was the source of leaks from our office during major cases.

We still didn’t want to go public on Palicki until the body under his floorboards was identified. DNA wasn’t back on everything they’d collected from the house. But Manchester was a small town, and Palicki’s neighbors wouldn’t keep their mouths shut for long.

Lock pulled me into an embrace. “I can’t handle the thought of losing you. Or of anyone hurting you.”