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“None.” Lacey gazed out across the room, face blank. “I know exactly what happened, down to nearly the minute. When I was nineteen, a sophomore in college, I was attacked and raped one night after a late class, walking across campus. As luck would have it, he impregnated me. I chose to get an abortion, and didn’t have good health insurance, so I went to a—let’s call it less reputable—place. As a result of the procedure, I came down with an infection that left permanent scarring. They never caught the guy. Not even close.”
“Damn. I’m so sorry.” Despite having guessed something along these lines, Jo felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Her mind flew to her own surprise pregnancy several months before. She remembered the agony of trying to decide whether to keep the baby before she miscarried—how much worse would that agony have been if the pregnancy had been a result of a rape? She couldn’t even imagine, after enduring sexual trauma and making the hardest decision of your life, discovering you couldn’t have further children as a result. “No wonder you wrote those articles about the statute of limitations for rape.”
“Oh, there’s more.” Lacey laughed bitterly. “My sister was raped two years later. Thank the Lord, she didn’t get pregnant. But she was afraid to go out of the house for months. And it really messed upmyhead, too. Like somehow it was my fault it had happened to her, even though she was in a completely different state, because it was so strange that it had happened to both of us. I knew in my mind that was ridiculous, but in my soul, I couldn’t let it go.” Her hands tightened into fists. “But as it turns out, it wasn’t strange at all. Did you know that over forty percent of women experience some form of sexual violence?”
Jo nodded.
“Stupid question, of course you know.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “I pushed the cops to find the man who did it, and so did my mom before she passed. And I know they did try. But they never found a suspect, so they never analyzed the DNA from the rape kit. As DNA databases got bigger, I pushed them to run it and check for a match, but by that time, it was a cold case and there were stacks of more recent cases that had a better chance of being solved. And then, the statute of limitations ran out, and there was no point.”
A vice tightened around Jo’s heart. “I’m so sorry that happened to her, and to you.”
“Yeah, well. Like I said, we’re not special.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“You know, it really doesn’t. But I can’t understand how any of it could be relevant.”
Jo reached for her necklace. “Two of our suspects allegedly committed rape. Another has shown concern about cases not being prosecuted correctly. Our killer has left clear signals they’re concerned about the justice system. Your interest in miscarriages of justice and your concern about rape could be attractive to any of them.”
“Well, when you put it like that.” Bernard took another sip of her wine. “You think there’s any chance the killer only had two victims on his list?”
Jo shook her head slowly. “My gut’s telling me this is only the beginning.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
Matt greeted her at the door with a huge smile and a languorous kiss. “Hey, gorgeous. You had another long day. Are you hungry? Do you want me to make you up a plate of my abuelita’s arroz con pollo?”
The thought of food reminded her of her barely touched chile relleno, forgotten on her desk back at work. She’d been battling nausea ever since seeing Bernard’s text. But now, with Matt’s arms around her, the thought of the meal sounded nourishing, emotionally as well as physically. “Yes, thank you,” she said.
He led her by the hand into the kitchen, where the smells of sofrito, , sazón, and chicken lingered.
“You want some wine?” he asked. “I bought a Gewurztraminer I think will hold up to the spice.”
Her stomach rumbled as she considered. “One glass should be okay. How was yourday?”
“Relaxed. I ran some errands, spent some time with my family, did a little reading. Helped David get settled in, and dodged all his attempts to engage my sympathy and pull me into taking sides. I heard he called you, by the way.”
“That he did. Good times.”
He laughed. “How was your day?”
She sighed. “Intense. And worrying.”
“I’m not surprised.” He grabbed the bottle opener from the drawer of the credenza and stabbed it into the cork. “First an ADA, then a judge.”
“But it’s not just that.” She summarized the day for him as she ate, holding off on her wine until she had several forkfuls of food in her stomach.
“I remember reading about Ossokov. You think what he painted to the press was all for show?”
“Maybe.” She rolled the stem of the wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. “Or maybe seeing Bob was a sort of PTSD flashback for him. I’ve been in situations where a person or a place I didn’t expect to see pulled me into a whole different state of mind.”
“Absolutely possible, it happens all the time.” Matt refilled his empty glass. “But you don’t sound very convinced.”
She drew in a long, slow breath, carefully considering how deep she wanted to go with her thoughts on it all. Bob Arnett had been her work partner for two decades; Matt had only been her romantic partner for a few months. Talking behind Arnett’s back felt like a betrayal of trust—but wasn’t that exactly what she’d been trying to build with Matt, a foundation of trust?
She took the plunge. “Something about Ossokov’s response to Bob is bothering me—I think because the way Bob is responding to all of it is bothering me, too.”
“How so?” Matt sipped his wine.
