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"I slipped in just before the judge."
I texted John so he knew I was coming out and could have the car ready.
"So," I said, opening the door for her. "What do you think so far?"
She smiled. "I think this is going to be a slam-dunk case and Lisa will be put away for the maximum."
"You do?"
We went down the steps to the street, and I was glad to see that the group of reporters were busy talking to their camera people and didn't see me, or didn't recognize me if they did see me.
"I do. I have no doubt the jury will convict. The question is what kind of damage to your reputation will Lisa do in the process?"
"Oh, God." I'd been focused on the evidence and hadn't thought about that -- at least, not during the testimony. "I don't know what more damage she can do. I'm off the board at the corporation and foundation. I'm not doing my Fellowship. I'm not even practicing. What else could she do?"
Lara made a face. "Not that I'm superstitious or anything, but hush, Drake. There's a lot of damage she could do. Just bringing your name back into the public eye like this is going to damage your reputation. But we can weather this, if we stick to the script. Okay?"
"Okay." We got to the car and John opened the passenger door for Lara. She smiled and got inside. I slipped in beside her and fastened my seatbelt.
"Let's go get some food and talk strategy and tactics," she said.
"Sounds like a plan."
And so we did.
Kate
Drake got home from lunch with Lara around two in the afternoon, when I was a bit sleepy and Sophie was playing on the floor with her Thomas the Tank Engine train set. He came into the living room, his cheeks cold from the October air outside and kissed me.
"Hey, beautiful, how are you? How's my two girls?"
"We're fine. We had a nice walk this morning and had our lunch, and now, I'm just waiting for her to get tired enough for her afternoon nap. How did the trial go? What does Lara think?"
Drake plopped down on the sofa beside me, his arm around my shoulders. "It went fine. No one recognized me in my casual dude in jeans and a growing beard disguise. We heard opening arguments and the prosecutor had a few witnesses on the stand. There was cross-examination as well."
"Who did they call?" I asked.
Drake recounted how the morning went and who testified for the prosecution.
"It seems pretty straight forward that Lisa and Jones planned to kill Derek and steal his money," I said. "They were planning on leaving the US for a country with no extradition treaty, weren't they? Mali, wasn't it?"
"There were two tickets to Mali in the cabin, yes," he said. "Lisa claimed Derek bought them for the two of them. She said he was planning on taking her there to start over."
"It's a lie, of course," I said, amazed at how she was such a compulsive liar. "You can't believe anything she says."
"No," Drake said, picking Sophie up, who had walked over with a toy, wanting to sit on his lap. "Narcissists can't stand to be seen being wrong or making a mistake -- and worst of all, being rejected. She'll say and do anything to protect her fragile ego. The problem with her is that she thinks she's smarter than she is."
"She's obviously smart," I said, remembering the pictures I'd seen of her online. "And beautiful. She's a doctor. You can't be stupid and get through med school."
Drake shook his head. "She's smart but sometimes, she thinks she's smarter than she really is. She doesn't know forensic science as well as she should or they wouldn't have killed him in the house. She should know that the police could find traces of Derek's blood at the scene. She cleaned up but you can't clean up every trace of blood. The chemicals from the blood cells remain. I saw the pictures of the trace blood evidence and it must have been a horrific scene. Blood everywhere -- on the walls, on the floor. On the kitchen countertop."
"Sounds really violent," I said, imagining it in my mind's eye.
"A fish boning knife. Long and thin."
I scrunched up my nose in horror. "Oh, God. One of those?" Jones was a big guy while Derek was of average height and build. From what I had seen on television, he was no match for Jones -- especially Jones with a knife.
Drake nodded, an expression of disgust on his face. "Yep. He didn't die right away. They chased him around and Lisa hit him with the hammer half a dozen times. It must have been a horror show."
