Nina weighed her chances. It seemed to her that if the shooter wanted her enough, he’d come and get her and there was little she could do.

Or he was already gone. Meantime, Chelsi fluttered one eyelid and lay on the floor, legs akimbo.

Nina scooted through the door, duckwalking. Slammed it, leaving poor Chelsi in there. Ran to the front door, slammed it shut, locked it. Ran to the phone. 9-1-1. She had hoped never to dial this number again. She was crying, blubbering, looking around frantically as the dispatcher asked the questions.

She would always remember the tears sending scalding trails down her cheeks, her jaw clenched tight again, where she would always keep it from now on.

18

CHELSI’S FUNERAL WAS HELD AT THE Bible Baptist Church just outside Placerville on Mother Lode Drive three days later, in the morning.

The death of a young person defeats some important plan. Babies are thrown into the world with every possibility ahead of them, and gradually their world narrows as they grow and experience and begin to express and produce. Someone very old may die, and it is sad, but the thought comes, They had their time. They had their chance. We saw, they saw, what they became.

But for a young girl to die shockingly, without her chance, without anyone knowing what she might have become, is an injustice as well as a tragedy.

Nina was still fresh and hurting from the assault at Chelsi’s office. Throughout the long police questioning that had followed, the reporters’ questions, the phone constantly ringing at the house, and the awful talk with Chelsi’s father, she kept a grim calm. She accepted Wish’s offer to move in for a few days and sleep on the couch at the cabin. He and Bob talked in undertones while she made sandwiches, lay down on her bed, sat on the deck in the backyard, and watched the trees.

Half the town came to Chelsi’s funeral. She had been popular in high school, a basketball player, a star in her drama classes. Many of her friends spoke about her life. Her mother came from Arizona and stood with her father, looking so much like her that Nina could hardly talk to her. Dave Hanna came, sober, shaved, head hanging.

Sergeant Cheney said, “There’s some thinking around here that you might have been the intended victim. Placerville PD isn’t turning up a scintilla of a motive to kill the young lady. She was very well-liked. Not even a boyfriend for us to take apart.”

Nina had just returned to the office. Somehow, Sandy had kept order during her absence, though the pileup of court appearances the following week would be a problem. She had never felt so angry, so grim. These feelings left little room for personal fear.

“I’m protected,” she said. “My son is protected.”

“It’s odd, though. He probably-”

“He or she.”

“He or she probably saw you through the window before you dove under the table. If he knew what you looked like, he would have seen that the girl was younger with a different hair color. So maybe he didn’t know what you looked like.”

“Or maybe he was an amateur, and let off a shot when I took a dive out of panic. If he knew Chelsi wasn’t me, why didn’t he come in and shoot me?”

Cheney shrugged. “You tell me.”

“He must have followed me to the massage place,” Nina said. “He must have known what I looked like.”

“You say she and her father were the prime movers on the Hanna wrongful-death action. They pushed the hardest, provided the funding. That’s my thinking right now.”

“Mine, too,” Nina said. “The shooter is keeping track of this case. He waited for it to be dismissed, but then I came in at Chelsi’s urging and the case started to open up. He’s watching. Here’s a list of all the ways he might be watching.” She handed Cheney the list he had stopped by to pick up. “Maybe he checked on the file at the clerk’s office. Maybe he was in court the day of the dismissal. Maybe James Bova is sharing everything with some murderous significant other. Maybe it’s one of the witnesses.”

“Why would you think that?” Cheney said. He had one of those heavy-lidded gazes, mostly caused by the way he slumped in her chair and kept his hands folded on his stomach, that gives the false impression of somnolence. Behind him, Sandy leaned against the door.

“They didn’t want to be involved.”

“But they were victims, too. You think one of those Boston kids would care that much about having to come back here and do some talking?” Then he nodded slowly. “Okay. The robbery wasn’t simple, that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You know how often the robber knows the victim in some way, or there’s a hassle between them. I’m thinking it’s at least possible that one or more of those kids has some idea why they were being ripped off, and you have to talk to them. I already gave you the third witness’s address. The one named Wakefield, who lives in Washington State.”

“It’s getting complicated,” Cheney said.

“What do you mean, complicated?”

“The Boston kids’ lawyer went to the Boston PD and offered to make a statement there. They’re not willing to come to California. Sorry.”

“Are you going there?”

“Someone is,” Cheney said. “This has to be coordinated with Placerville PD.” The door to the outer office opened and Sandy disappeared, checking on whoever had come in.

“They’re material witnesses! Why can’t you have them arrested and-”

“We don’t have enough to do that,” Cheney said softly. “We don’t have any real idea if they know anything at all. According to your tape, they don’t. And you taped them without their knowledge anyway.”

“They do,” Nina said, her jaw set. “They have a lot more to say. This is how I see it, Sergeant. Either Chelsi was killed so that the case would go away, or the attempt was made on my life for the same reason. It’s about the Hanna case, it has to be.”

“What does your client want to do? He’s the girl’s uncle, right?”

“I don’t know what my client wants to do.”

“You haven’t-”

“He was arrested for his third DUI on the road last night, after the funeral. He had gone to a bar and got drunk. He’s in the Placerville jail. He’s an alcoholic. He’s going to have a public defender on that charge, and in the meantime he doesn’t call me and I’m not going to call him. Because he hasn’t got the guts to fight.”

“Better hurry up with your case, then.”

“What about your case?” Nina said. “What forensic evidence has turned up in Chelsi’s death? Even on a drive-by, somebody must have seen something.”

“We’re working on it.”

“No sign of the gun?”

“All we have are the two bullets,” Cheney said. “Because the killer couldn’t go in and dig them out of that poor little girl’s body. And they’re valuable bullets. Preliminary tests on them show they are not from the same gun that killed Sarah Hanna.”

“It has to be the same person!”

“We’ll ask him why he needed two guns, when we find him,” Cheney said. “Maybe he threw away the gun he used to kill Sarah Hanna two years ago, and bought another one recently. We’ll look into that.”

Sandy said, “Sorry to interrupt. Your eight o’clock is here. And your eight-thirty is, too.”

“I’ll be right out.”

“Good luck,” Cheney said, nodding a couple of times and then hauling himself up. “Keep in touch.”

Lunch hour. Nina closeted herself in the conference room with the computer and the law books. How could she force the witnesses to come to California to testify at a trial?

She started with Out-of-State Witnesses, Civil Subpoenas.

The Code of Civil Procedure was clear. Witnesses in a civil case can’t be subpoenaed to appear at a trial from outside the jurisdiction.

Material Witnesses. Nothing in the books that would help anyone but the police, and the police weren’t ready to use that power yet.