Emily looked puzzled and moved on to the feta. “How so?”
He looked over in Camille’s direction. “I’m surprised your pal over there didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?” The feta clumped too much, so she moved on to the Kalamata olives.
“I’m going to be representing Mitch Crawford.”
Emily started to leave. “Oh that,” she said.
“Hey Emily,” Cary said. “Aren’t you going to get some sweet peppers? I remember how much you liked hot things.”
Emily didn’t turn around. She didn’t want him to see her red face, her embarrassed and angry reaction to his comments. He’d said the “hot things” in such a salacious way that she was sure he meant it to be sexual.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, taking her seat.
“Emily, I know you have some history there,” Camille said, pulling back to get a better view of the man who’d just accosted her lunch companion. “But you’re going to have to deal.” The prosecutor’s eyes lingered on Cary and he flashed a smile in their direction.
Camille looked at Emily. “I am as surprised as you are that Cary would be handling this case.”
“Seems a little out of his league,” said Emily, who clearly wasn’t enjoying lunch anymore.
Her remark was a dig, and none too subtle. Cary had been her divorce lawyer, and he’d been a good one at that. He’d made sure that the split with David was fair, that the custody arrangements for Jenna favored Emily’s interests. Things took an unfortunate turn, when out of loneliness or just the need to be romanced, she’d dated Cary briefly. After a few dates, Cary became too attentive. Too interested. He’d fixated on her in the way that seemed unhealthy, almost scary. He’d even followed her to Seattle when she was working a big case. If he’d pushed her one iota harder to keep things going, she’d have arrested him herself for stalking. Their relationship had been consensual, of course, but Emily knew that she’d made a mistake nearly from the first time they’d been intimate.
God, I had more sense in my twenties than I do in my thirties, she’d thought at the time.
She’d forgiven herself, but she’d never forgotten how stupid it had all been. Whenever she heard his name, saw him in Cherrystone at the market, she was reminded that age didn’t always bring wisdom.
“So when did Mitch hire Cary?” Emily asked.
Camille swirled some fake sweetener into her iced tea. “Yesterday, I guess.”
“How come I’m only finding about this now?”
“Look, Emily, probably no one wanted to be the one to tell you that the rumor mill was churning with news of Cary getting involved in the Crawford case.”
Emily looked down at her salad and stabbed at an olive. She’d just lost her appetite.
“There is no problem here,” she said. It was a bit of a white lie. She couldn’t stand the man. The only saving grace was that she would never have to talk to him. Camille would provide discovery if an arrest of his client was ever made. The only thing that would drag Emily into a face-to-face conversation with Cary would be when and if Emily took the witness stand.
That was a big if. No one knew for sure where Mandy was, and if she was even dead. It didn’t look good for Mitch Crawford’s wife, but Camille never silenced her mantra: We need evidence. Get evidence, Emily.
That, and the combination of a man she loathed and his client, a probable killer, fueled Emily’s desire to get at the truth all the more.
Back in her office, the sheriff glanced out the window as a city snowplow ambled back to the garage next to her office. The snow was so scant that the machine almost looked defeated. Like Emily. The news that Cary McConnell was back in her life had tied her stomach like a Nantucket knot. It was visceral. Sudden. And it bothered her. She didn’t like holding on to any negative feelings about Cary. Lurking in her consciousness was slow-burning worry that Cary and their past relationship could find its way into her investigation, knocking her off her game.
He was everything she thought she’d wanted when her marriage to David unraveled. Cary was smart, charismatic, and even kind. There had been things about him that were so appealing. For a while, she imagined that his controlling nature—about everything from the cut of his suit coat to his confident manner on a case—cloaked a kind of insecurity that came with the need to always be right, to always win.
To be the best.
She understood how people wore masks of certainty and even false arrogance to make their case, to get what they wanted. One incident gave her a little glimmer that, perhaps, there was something deeper inside that perfectly groomed man with the nice car, expensive clothes, and top-of-his-law-class pedigree. There was a heart beating there, too. After she hired him to take care of her divorce, she sat in his office and admired a silver plate that hung on the wall.
“That’s lovely,” she said.
“Some friends gave it to me.”
His words had seemed so final, that she didn’t press the point. Later she learned that Cary had made seven trips to a village in Mexico to help build homes for children who’d taken up residence in a city dump outside of Tijuana. The plate was a gift from Hands Across the Border, a nonprofit group recognizing Americans who do more to help others than merely writing a check. Cary’s brashness and bravado were counterpoints to the real man, the one she’d wanted to know.
Of course, she’d been wrong.
As another light dusting of snow fell on the streets of Cherrystone, Emily looked at the clock with the stuttering second hand that had been hung on the wall by Sheriff Kiplinger. The clock had been given to him by the Cherrystone Jaycees and Emily thought that it would stay put until the thing died. It was inscribed with: “There’s Always Time for Justice in Cherrystone.” It was so corny—and so true—that Emily had grown to love it as much as her beloved boss.
It was five minutes before the news. Emily turned on her old office TV and called over to Jason Howard, who had just come in from his routine run-through with the next shift of officers who’d be taking over the mundane traffic and minor theft cases until the graveyard shift. “Let’s see what Crawford’s lawyer has to say,” she said. “He’s on the news.” She purposely did not use Cary’s name.
“Should I bring some popcorn from the break room?” Jason said. His smile was a little sheepish. He already knew the answer.
Emily made a face. “Only if you want me to barf it up all over my desk.”
“No, thanks.” Jason parked himself on the corner of the desk. “We can definitely do without that.”
As the picture came on, Emily was glad it was only the Spokane affiliate. She knew Cary well enough to know that he’d gunned for the national media, or the Seattle TV stations at the very least, when he was looking to capture the attention of news producers. It must have been a blow to his oversized ego that all he could lure to his office for an interview was the lowest-rated affiliate from Spokane. When the news anchor led with a house fire in rural Spokane County, Emily caught herself smiling.
“Good, he didn’t even make the top story,” she said.
As the anchor breathlessly recounted the turn of events that involved a dog knocking over a candle to ignite a Spokane Valley mobile home, the crawl on the bottom of the screen teased the interview: NEXT, CHERRYSTONE LAWYER SAYS HIS CLIENT IS UNFAIR TARGET OF INVESTIGATION.
A commercial for an apartment complex offering a “move-in” bonus and a “holiday ham” was next. Another was from a florist.
Finally, the anchor, a sunny brunette who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, was back on the air announcing the story.
“And