brought on hallucinations?”
“Please, Zachary. You’ll need to try harder than that.” Penny stood and adjusted the hem of her jacket. “Anyway, I only stopped to see which lucky prosecutor would face me in court. Now that I know, I’m off to make notes on this new evidence. Better start thinking about the State’s reply, big brother. See you at dinner on Saturday.” She gave him a finger wave. “Toodles. Love you.”
Emma sat speechless as Penny strode from the office. Her attorney was one crazy chick, which might not be a good thing, considering that Brian’s freedom rested in her hands. But Penny had something. Maybe it was her brash attitude or her willingness to take a chance on Brian, but whatever it was, Emma liked it. A lot.
From his desk chair, Zachary snorted. “She’s nuts. Get used to it.”
Emma stood. “Maybe so, but I like her spunk.”
“She has plenty of that.”
Before she turned for the door, Emma stared down at him. “My brother is innocent.”
“He was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
“And juries never make mistakes?”
No answer. It didn’t matter. “I’ve studied the evidence,” she continued. “The public defender blew this one. I can promise you my brother didn’t strangle anyone. I’d know.”
According to the prosecution’s theory, Brian had left Magic—the nightclub—to meet the victim in the alley beside it. After he murdered her, apparently using the belt from her jacket, he supposedly went back into the club and partied for another hour.
“Were you with him that night?”
“No. But I know my brother. He stole four dollars from my wallet when he was twelve. An hour later the guilt drove him mad and he confessed.”
Zachary shrugged. “He was twelve. He’s a man now. People change.”
“Not my brother. He was living at home with my mother at the time of the murder. Want to know why?”
“Is it relevant to my case?”
“My brother is in prison. Everything is relevant.”
Zachary tapped his fingers on the desk. “I’ll bite. Why was he living at home?”
“Because our father died ten years ago and I’d moved out. He didn’t want our mother to be alone. He had a good job and could have easily afforded to be on his own, but he couldn’t stand the idea of his mother being by herself. That’s not a man who commits murder.”
Emma stopped talking. The past year had taught her the value of silence. Silence offered that perfect span of time when each person decided who would flinch. She stared down at Zachary Hennings.
A fine-looking man she desperately hoped would flinch.
Finally, he stood. He was a good six inches taller than she was, but she held her ground and kept her head high. “No offense, Ms. Sinclair, but you’re far from impartial and the daughter of a good cop is dead. Any one of us, given the right circumstances, has the capability to commit murder.”
“Not my brother, Mr. Hennings. You’ll see.” She turned to leave.
“It’s Zac. My father is Mr. Hennings. And I can tell you I’ll study the case file. I love to win, but I have no interest in keeping an innocent man in prison. That being said, twelve reasonable people heard evidence and decided his fate. I’m not going to go screaming to the judge that it was a mistake. Prove it to me and we’ll take it from there.”
Chapter Two
In the beat-up hallway outside Zac’s office, Emma spotted Penny waiting for her. The moment she got close, Penny headed for the elevator, the two of them moving at a steady clip.
“I’ll get started on the petition,” Penny said. “What’s your schedule the next couple days?”
“I have a class in the morning and then I work tomorrow night. On Saturday, I work at four, but I have all morning and early afternoon open. Sunday I have to study. What do you need?”
“We need to analyze the video and compare what he says to what we know happened around the time of the murder. There has to be something else that will support our case. I think we’ll get our hearing anyway because that video is pretty darn compelling, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more.”
Emma pushed through the lobby door and a burst of cold, early-April wind blew her hair back. Penny remained unruffled, her hair perfectly intact as she whipped through the doorway. Emma would have loved to be that put together, but she didn’t have a sense of fashion so she stuck with the basics of slacks and sweaters. Basics were easy and kept her from looking like a fashion disaster.
Penny stopped on the cement steps of the towering building. Behind them, the early rush of employees leaving for the day funneled by.
“I already have a time line built,” Emma said. “I’ll go through the video and do a second time line with what the detective says. And, oh, I’ll get myself on the list to visit Brian tomorrow. I can squeeze that in before work and show him the two time lines. Maybe he can help.”
“Good. Anything that seems off, note it and I’ll have one of our investigators check it out.”
Investigators. All this time, Emma had been trudging around town, fighting every step of the way, begging every defense lawyer, reporter, blogger, anyone who could help, and finally, finally, someone believed in her. Her breath caught and she smacked a hand against her chest.
Penny drew her eyebrows together, marring her perfect porcelain skin. “You okay?”
Maybe. “You have investigators.”
“The firm does, yes.”
Months of exhaustive, energy-sapping worry erupted into a stream of hysterical laughter. “Investigators.”
Penny’s eyes widened. Poor woman must have thought her client was insane. Emma laughed harder and grabbed her lawyer’s arms. “I’ve been alone with this for so long. No one has helped. No one. Even my mother has been too depressed to lend a hand, and now you tell me you have investigators. And it won’t cost me anything. You have no idea what that means to me.”
Finally, the tears came. A flood of them gushing to the surface and tumbling down her face. God, she was tired. Insanity might not be far behind after all.
Penny stepped an inch closer. “Listen, we’ve got a long road. I’m good, but we’re dealing with the murder of a cop’s daughter. We’re about to climb Everest with no oxygen. Can you make it?”
Emma nodded. This one she knew for sure. “I’ve already climbed to ten thousand feet without oxygen. I’m not stopping now.”
“Good. Then let’s do this. Call me with any updates. I’ve got to go.”
Penny charged down the cement steps and Emma pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. Two missed calls. One from Mom. She dialed. “Hi.”
