I won’t forget that.

Chapter 5 Cora

Leo wants more than my trust. He wants to invade parts of my life where no one’s ever been. I’ve been alone with my notes and my reports and my never-wavering faith in my brother. But now he’s here, taking up too much space in the room and asking questions that make me look at my brother’s case the way someone who hasn’t lived it and breathed it would. I can see the holes. In just a few short hours Leo exposed the cracks in the case that make Beau look guilty.

I know Beau’s been hiding something from me and everyone else, including his attorney. It’s one of the reasons he doesn’t want me investigating his case. I get so angry with him sometimes. He sits across from me at that dirty, scarred table, looks me right in the face, and talks about stupid shit instead of giving up his secrets. It’s the talking but not saying anything that frustrates the hell out of me. It’s the beatings he’d rather take, the obliteration of our family, and the blithe acceptance of his fate that I can’t stand. It jolts me out of a sound sleep. It keeps me awake at night. And it rides my shoulders all day.

And now Leo thinks he can get my brother to open up and fill in those gaps? As if one quick trip out to the prison will clear everything up. I’ve got five and a half years of prison visits behind me and not a goddamned thing to show for it. But Leo is going to fix all that. Right.

He asks me to trust him and the stupid, messed-up thing is—I do.

He’s been flipping the pages of my notebook back and forth for nearly an hour now, taking notes. Every once in a while he asks a question or asks me to find a report for him. So far I’ve been able to answer every question except why Beau and Cassandra broke up and why—after months apart—he went to her apartment the night before she was murdered.

“Who found Cassandra’s body?” Leo asks.

He’s been poring over the paperwork on the table for hours and it’s making me twitchy. I want to get out there and do something.

“Her neighbor across the hall. They were supposed to go to a yoga class after work.” I flip through the binder of copies of the police reports I got from Leo’s attorney until I find the right page. “Here.” I point to the entry by an Officer Hannigan. “Zelda Marks. She said she knocked on Cassandra’s door and got no answer. So she called. Again no answer. Cassandra’s car was parked on the street, so she knew Cassandra was home. Zelda used the key Cassandra gave her to feed her cat when she went on vacation and found Cassandra’s body in the bedroom tied to the bed.” I grab a folder and open it. “Here’s the 9-1-1 transcript of Zelda’s phone call at six-thirty-two p.m.”

The transcript doesn’t even come close to the agony in the recording. The horror in Zelda’s voice of finding her friend’s naked, bound body echoed around the courtroom as they played the recording during Beau’s trial, while Zelda broke down on the stand, reliving that moment.

“I have a recording of the call.” I pull a disc from a sleeve between the pages and hand it to him.

“Hang on.” He leaves and comes back in the room with a CD player.

I push back from the table. “Where’s the restroom?”

He glances up at me as the disc begins to spin. “Take a right past Savannah’s desk. Second door on the left.”

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

I’m out the door before I can hear Zelda’s reply. I don’t need to hear it. I’ve got it memorized. Savannah isn’t at her desk and I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe she went to lunch.

No such luck. I run into her as I round the corner, bouncing off her and back a step.

“Watch where you’re going.” She knocks my arm with her purse as she passes.

I whorl around and follow her. This is going to be a long, tedious three months if I have to constantly put up with Savannah’s bullshit jealousy.

I plant a palm on her desk as she drops her purse into the bottom drawer. “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but if you bump me like that again you’re going to find yourself on your ass.”

She rises to her full height, which is half a foot taller than me. She doesn’t scare me. I’ve been up against worst bullies than her. Having a convicted murderer for a brother opened me up to anyone who wanted to take a shot. I know how to throw a punch and how to take one.

“I don’t like you.”

“Like I give a shit.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and the advantage shifts to me. I can hit her before she can free a hand to block it.

“Whatever you think is going on or going to go on between Leo and me—isn’t,” I say. “He’s all yours. The only thing I want from him is his father’s help.”

She makes a rude noise and echoes my earlier statement. “Like I give a shit.”

“Look, I’m not going anywhere, so unless you plan on quitting this job in the next five minutes, we’re stuck with each other for the summer. It’s up to you how you want that to go down.”

Her gaze flickers to the doorway of the conference room. I follow her line of sight. Leo is leaning against the door frame, his hands tucked into his front pockets, looking way too satisfied with himself. He thinks we’re fighting over him. What an ass. I head for the bathroom and away from his smug face.

I close myself in the restroom. Savannah and Leo’s voices come through the thin wall. She’s giving him an earful about broken promises and how he just fucked her because he was bored. Ouch. No wonder Savannah’s carrying a grudge the size of Nebraska toward me. She’s got it bad for Leo. I can totally see why. He’s hot. Not my type at all, but hot just the same. The two of them make an impressive couple.

I finish my business and wash my hands, but the two of them are still going at it. Leo is apologizing and she’s having none of it. He tries to placate her by telling her he’s not good enough for her. He’s got that right. She deserves way better than him. He tells her that it was fun, but it was just a fling. Oh, jeez, this guy’s such an idiot. That’s just what every girl wants to hear—she didn’t mean anything, she was an itch he scratched and nothing more.

Savannah is crying. I can hear it in her voice. The way it wobbles rips at me. Why is she wasting her tears on this guy? She can do way better. I can’t walk back out there with all of that going on and I can’t stay in here. She’ll probably want to wash her face or something.

I crack open the door and glance up and down the hall. My options are limited. There’s only one other door. I take it and find myself on a balcony overlooking the back parking lot. An orange cat winds its way around the dumpsters, sticking to the shadows. It reminds me of Oliver and the way he hugged the walls, trying to maintain as much distance from me as possible for the first few months after he came to live with me. Since then we’ve reached a wary kind of peace. I don’t try to pet him and he eats the food I give him and doesn’t shit where he’s not supposed to.

After five and a half years of living together we aren’t any closer than the day I found him hiding in the shrubbery outside of Cassandra’s building. I still don’t know why he let me pick him up and put him in my car. I don’t like cats and he doesn’t seem to like me. We have an unspoken pact—other than when I have to cram him in his carrier for vet visits, I don’t touch him and he doesn’t try to sit on my lap or rub up against me in any way. I have no idea why he doesn’t run away. Maybe he realizes his situation. I don’t know.

“There you are.” Leo joins me on the little balcony, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He stands shoulder to shoulder with me and we watch the cat eat something off a paper wrapper. “Savannah and me…” he begins.