Dr. Ian West

Come the next morning, the city is still asleep, nestled in a womb of dark comfort. The sounds that normally thrum and pulse with the beat of the capital are vacant from my office window.

I chug my coffee and then open my laptop. Eddie beats my small staff through the door this morning. He looks sleep rumpled, regardless of his pressed suit and gelled hair.

He tosses his briefcase on my desk with feigned annoyance. “So what’s up, doc? Shaver hang himself in the cell last night?”

I set my cup down. “Is that the way you want to win the case?”

“Too early for psychoanalysis,” he mutters.

“I hate when people get those mixed up.” I brace my palms on the desk. “Freud is psychoanalysis. I’m not asking about your wet dreams that may or may not center around your mother.”

“That’s fucked up, doc.”

“It’s simply analyze. It’s too early for analyzing you, which I agree. And no, Shaver didn’t hang himself. The trial is still on for today. Just waiting on Mia and Charlie to get here.”

He studies me a bit too intently. “Yesterday went okay?”

I cast my gaze down at the files on my desk. Give them a quick shuffle. “That’s what we’re meeting about.” As Mia and Charlie walk in, I nod briefly in acknowledgement, then dive in. “Yesterday evening, I found this in the cemetery.”

I pull out the Tarot card that I placed in a baggie and hold it up so they can get a look at both sides.

Mia, wearing her signature all-black to match her dyed-black hair, cranes an eyebrow. “The Five of Cups?”

Of course she’d know. Mia is a master of all trades. If she researches something once, she can recall if forever. Not eidetic memory, just a damn good one.

“The Five of Cups,” I confirm, “from the Minor Arcana. It was placed on Melanie’s grave.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Shaver?”

Charlie, my investigator, pipes in. “Shaver has an affinity for the Tarot. It’s how he selects his victims. Allegedly.”

Mia sets her oversized bag on her chair. “It’s in one of the interview transcripts. From…” She snaps her fingers until it comes to her. “From his crony, Lyle Fisher. Charlie and I were working on him to testify, but he backed out. Witness protection wasn’t very appealing.”

This bit of information settles over the team in silent understanding. Then Eddie looks at me. “Shaver is trying to scare us off.”

I ding an imaginary bell. “Me, actually. I think the card was meant to imply that I’m now in his crosshairs.”

Eddie furrows his brow. “How do you know it’s directed toward you?”

“Grief,” Mia says, and glances at the card. “The Five of Cups denotes loss and sorrow.”

Another uncomfortable silence follows, and I clear my throat. “It can be interpreted a few different ways,” I say, pulling up my research on the laptop. “But yeah, Mia’s big brain is right. If I were a Tarot card, I’d be the sullen guy in a cloak, staring at the overturned cups.”

“Your back to the full ones,” Mia adds. “Looking at what was lost, instead of what you still have.”

“Christ, Mia. Downer much?” I try to lighten the mood.

She shrugs unapologetically. “I call it like I see it, Dr. West.”

I pocket the card in my suit jacket inseam.

“Are we taking it to the police?” Charlie asks.

Always my do-gooder. Charlie was raised by a cop, and he’s still at that young, idealistic age in his twenties where things appear black and white. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Blah blah.

“Not going to the cops, and not telling Lovell, either.” I cross my arms. “If Shaver is trying to make me back off from helping the prosecution, that means we’re hitting a nerve on the case. We’re closing in on Rendell today, exposing her testimony. With no alibi, Eddie can turn up the heat on the motel DNA. And I want you to do just that.”

Mia’s pixie features purse in uncertainty. “I’m a skeptic, but I’m not so skeptical when people take the power to control fate in their own hands.”

I shake my head, exasperated. “What does that mean?”

She fists her hands on her petite hips. “The Tarot, Dr. West. People believe in it, and that belief gives it power. I think you should play this one a bit more cautiously.”

I sigh out a long breath. “Duly noted, Mia dear. Now, can we all get back on the reality train before court? I think we can use this to stir the defense.”

We set up the big screen with the mirrored projection of my laptop, and I go over—or rather, I have Mia go over—the cards and their meanings. I have no idea if Quentin Shaver really believes in this shit or not, but I want him to know I got the message.

And I’m not backing down.

The truth of the matter is, he had one of his twisted little cronies put that card on Melanie’s grave. His filth violated her sacred place, where the love of my life rests.

That pisses me off.

When I get pissed, I tend to take it out on people. The bad guys. I put all my effort into taking them down, and Shaver just messed with the wrong trial consultant.

* * *

Before the trial commences, Porter does a fine job of ignoring me in the courtroom. I’ve tried to catch her eye, to offer her my charming smile, but she keeps her focus glued to her phone until Shaver is brought in and seated next to her.

Admittedly, I feel a little guilty for how I left things between us.

Also, I doubt she knows what her client is up to. I really want to believe that, if she had any idea he had that card delivered to Mel’s gravesite, she’d be just as upset. Shaver’s making it personal. It’s time to put this case to bed. For all of us.

The bailiff leads in the jury, and sure as shit, juror number two has been replaced with an alternate. Dammit. One of ours down.

“Mia, get the profile up on the board for the first alternate.”

“Already on it,” she says.

We’re asked to stand as Judge Mathers is announced.

Porter looks back at me. It’s just a second, a glimpse, but I see the desperation in her creased eyes. The apology is there; she knows I can read this from her. Maybe she regrets taking the case. Maybe she knows what Shaver has done, or is attempting to do by trying to intimidate me. And maybe she knows it won’t work, that Shaver has ended any chance he had at winning his freedom. Thereby taking her career down a big peg.

Or maybe I want to see all that there—to believe in who she once was before our lives were torn apart.

What can I say? I’m a romantic at heart. Or I was once.

Shaver glances at me before he takes a seat. I’ve looked at him plenty during the course of this trial. I’ve studied his features, his expressions. His body language. I’ve witnessed what the jury fails to see when he gives them his sincere, practiced smiles and sad little puppy dog eyes. I know what lurks beneath.

The devil.

Not in the Biblical sense. More of a metaphorical evil. The absence of morality, of conscience. Most people work hard to control their features in order to hide their emotions. Shaver is the opposite. He works hard to display emotions. To convince others he feels.

Yet there’s a void, an absence of substance, where his soul should be. Or whatever you want to call it. The thing that gives us depth. That awareness.

He’s only aware of what he wants and how to obtain it.

It’s the selfish part of the mind that is supposed to mature with age. In psychopaths, this part of the psyche is stunted and never fully develops. The id—the part that demands immediate gratification—is in constant need, requiring a fix. More more more.

That’s my professional analysis, anyway. At least from what I’ve deduced sitting five rows away from him for the past week. I could dig deeper, get him in a room with just the two of us, but honestly, I’m a little terrified of what that shell of a human might entice me to do to him.

A crooked smile curves his lips as he stares at me, then Porter touches his shoulder, silently motioning him to face the front.

I cement my expression, schooling my features in a cool, neutral countenance that says, hey buddy, I don’t rattle. But that touch…

For the briefest moment, when Porter laid her hand on him, all the air in my lungs evaporated. A crushing collapse of my chest cavity. And I felt my features fall. A microexpression slipped through—one that I’m not sure Shaver caught.

Disgust. Hurt. Envy.

We never just feel one emotion; it’s a twisted mesh. That’s why it’s so difficult for people to express verbally what they’re feeling when a therapist asks just that. How do you feel? I know this—and yet I’m still baffled by my reaction.

Examining my twisted mesh of feelings for Porter will take more time than I have right now, so instead I give my attention to the court. Rendell is being reminded of her swear-in. When she’s seated in the witness box, the judge asks Porter if the defense has had sufficient time to investigate the phone records.

Porter stands. “We have, Your Honor. Thank you.”

My eyebrows hike in surprise. Although there was nothing much to investigate, as the records were straightforward, I’m still shocked by Porter’s lack of fight. She should at least try to have them removed from evidence.

And when someone surprises me…

I cover my mouth to muffle my voice. “Mia, what don’t we know about the GPS?”

“Nothing. Why?”

One of those annoying feelings—like you forgot to turn off the oven—stirs in my subconscious, as if we overlooked a piece of the puzzle.

“I don’t know,” I whisper to Mia. “Just…you and Charlie do another search. Look at every angle. Find out what we missed.”

“I’m not sure where—”

“Look at everything again,” I snap.

The man in the row ahead glances back and shushes me.

Mia’s quiet for a long beat. Then: “I’ll see what I can find.”

I set my apprehension on the back burner (another oven reference; not good), and tune in to Eddie’s cross of Rendell.

She looks more poised today, more put together. Prepared. Porter’s done a good job of prepping her.

Eddie gives her his megawatt lawyer smile. “Morning, Ms. Rendell.” He asks a few warm-up questions to get going, inquiring about her evening, and to most this seems like a pointless practice in etiquette, but Eddie’s brain is a sponge. One slip on her part later, one thing that doesn’t line up with any of her testimony, and he’ll be on it like a dog with a bone.

“Now, where were we.” Eddie braces his hands on the witness stand. “Your phone and where your location was tracked through the GPS. Do you have a phone, Ms. Rendell?”

“Yes, I do.”

Eddie nods. “And who set this service up for you?”

“My ex-husband.”

Her answers are clipped and straightforward. Not good.

Getting the same read on the witness, Eddie switches it up to get a more emotional reaction. “You and your ex-husband get along, do you?”

Rendell’s forehead creases. “Most of the time.”

He nods repeatedly. “Because, I mean, I have an ex myself. Props to you and yours for handling the divide of assets and money with class.”

She shrugs. “We try. But you see, the phone he set up wasn’t for me.”

“Oh really?”

“My ex-husband set it up for our daughter.”

Mother. Fuck.

I look at Porter. She’s just sitting there. Cool as an ice queen. No reaction to her very obvious victory. Shaver is also stoic. Two peas in a fucking pod.

Mia’s voice crackles in. “Shit.”

Yeah. Shit. As in this case just turned into a big pile of it.

“Get verification that the phone was with the daughter,” I tell Mia. “Quickly.”

“On it.”

We did our research, and we did it well—but it’s hard to combat a lie with: nah uh. You need evidence. Because it’s a believable lie. Father buys daughter phone and sets up her account to keep in touch with her. I look at the jury, and yup, they’re buying it.

Eddie glances at me, and I tap my ear, letting him know I have Mia on it. He drags the redirect out. “How old is your daughter?”

“Seventeen.”

“That’s a fun age,” Eddie says. “Is she in school?”

“Yes.”

“What grade?”

“Senior.”

Eddie looks at me again. I shake my head. No update yet.

He clears his throat. “So, Ms. Rendell, you expect us to believe that—” he glances at the jury, making sure they’re included “—your daughter, who is in high school, was out at a known drug house at nearly midnight on a school night?”

Eddie’s good, on the right track. The father buying the daughter a phone is believable, even makes the parents look decent, like concerned parents keeping tabs on their child. It’s new information to the jury that the location is a trap house, and the appall is scribbled on their faces.

Rendell—regardless of her addiction—is still human. As such, her shame is real. Actually, drug addicts carry more shame than the average person because of who they are, and Eddie’s forcing her to war with her self-preservation over being seen as a loving mother versus her need for the drug.

Who was at the trap house getting a fix? Mother or daughter?

When Porter prepped her, Rendell probably made a bargain with herself in order to sellout her daughter on the witness stand. Just this last time. It’s the addicts’ credo.

Rendell swallows hard, her throat dipping with her internal struggle. “I don’t know…”

“So who was at that house, Ms. Rendell? You or your daughter?”

Porter stands. “Objection, Your Honor. Asked and answered. The witness has already answered Mr. Wagner’s question once.”

Judge Mathers appears unsure. “I’ll allow it. I’m curious myself to hear the witness’s knowledge of this situation.”

Score one point for the good guys.

Rendell scratches her arm. “My daughter was. It’s her phone.”

Oh, how low we sink.

Disgust resonates throughout the jury. But it’s not enough. They may dislike her, but that doesn’t change the fact of the case for Shaver. We still have to prove Rendell wasn’t with Shaver to kill his alibi.

The new juror is a bit of a question mark. I focus on her, trying to get a read. She’s in her late forties. Short blond hair. Manicured without being overly dressy. She just seems…average. Which I hate. Average people are the hardest to read.

Mia comes through. “I need more time to find out where the daughter was that night.”

I give Eddie a clipped head shake and quickly swipe my finger across my neck. We have nothing. End it.

Eddie turns toward the judge. “I reserve the right to question this witness at a later time, Your Honor.”

Judge Mathers nods, although he looks surprised by Eddie’s choice to postpone questioning. “You may, counselor. Do you have a witness to call to the stand?”

Eddie straightens his suit, stands taller. “No, Your Honor.”

Because we haven’t worked Lyle Fisher hard enough to turn on Shaver. And because we haven’t decided whether or not to call Shaver to the stand. If we can’t prove Rendell was at the trap house to discredit his alibi…then calling the defendant might be our only way to expose his nature.

You can’t get a conviction by proving someone’s a psychopath.

But you can turn enough jurors against said psychopath.

The way we plan to do that—if it comes down to the last stand—is the Tarot card.

If Shaver was so bold to send me one, then it’s possible it’s part of his MO. While we’re in court, I have Charlie combing the past two years’ worth of homicides that include this MO and Shaver’s kill method as parameters. Charlie is seeking any mention of the Arcana or Tarot in connection to homicide cases.

It might be a stretch, as I’m not Shaver’s ideal victim. The card could only be meant as a threat. But men like Shaver—scratch that—monsters like Shaver have very specific routines. They’re methodical. They enjoy the hunt just as much as the kill.

And he’s limited as to who he can hunt behind bars.

Using a proxy to do his bidding may muffle the pleasure he gleans from the hunt and the kill, but he’d still experience the anticipation. The rush. The climax through his surrogate.

Anyway, as I was saying, a serial killer has a routine, a ritual. This ritual gives them immense pleasure. If reading the Tarot is part of Shaver’s victim selection process, then there’s evidence somewhere out there to prove this.

Mia and Charlie just need to unearth it in time.

The judge calls a recess for lunch, and I walk up the isle to meet Eddie. “Mia’s working on getting proof of where the daughter actually was that night,” I whisper to him.

He nods knowingly. “Rendell is a waste of space. The jury senses that. We need that DNA thrown out, that’s what we need.”

Shaver’s little swimmers on Rendell’s skirt. Which, technically, could’ve ended up there at any point during that night, either before or after Tillman was murdered. But again: proof.

Without proof, we’re just kids kicking dirt at each other in a sandbox.

So, the best plan of attack is to have that sample thrown out altogether. Then once we discredit Shaver’s alibi, it makes it easier for the prosecution to put Shaver in the motel room with Tillman.

I.e. Shaver’s DNA presented by the prosecution.

That’s the ideal way the trial will go.

Let’s look at it from a not so good angle.

In a case like this where there’s conflicting DNA, where one sample proves innocence and the other guilt, only one can survive. DNA Thunderdome. Two DNA enter, one DNA leaves.

I amuse myself.

Right. So two men. That’s what the jury will hear when the prosecution brings in the motel DNA. That the victim was intimate with two men that night, and that one of them was Shaver. But because the lab where the DNA was tested butchered the only sample, there’s no way to retest it for a second analysis.

Which means Porter has a good chance of getting our sample tossed.

Touché.

But if she can’t, then her plan of attack will most likely cause her to sink pretty low, citing the victim was the type of woman who slept with two men at once. Victim blaming and shaming can backfire with a jury in a political sense, but condemning the victim for her sex life won’t matter to Porter. It won’t affect the case she’s building. It’s what she needs to muddy the water with doubt. Quite literally, muddy the evidence enough that the jury can’t convict.

For Porter to get the motel DNA thrown out, she has to prove the sample was corrupted either before or during testing. We have an expert witness all lined up for DNA analysis to counter this.

Other than the sample discovered on Tillman’s person, we have Shaver’s fingerprints found on the motel bathroom counter. Shaver was there, in that room, but so were about 600 other people leaving behind their fingerprints and DNA samples.

Hotel/motel room crime scenes are an evidence cluster fuck.

My chest just tightened.

I rub the achy air bubble between my rib cage, and Eddie eyes me suspiciously. “Everything okay, doc?”

“It will be as soon as we get Dominic on the stand,” I assure him. Dominic is our expert in the field of DNA.

Eddie sighs. “I’m sure Lovell will have a follow up witness even for him. Man, she’s getting tough to beat. I miss the old days, when she was on my side.”

Yeah. I look over at Porter, and she’s staring right back at me. She ticks her head in a manner that means she wants to talk. My chest flutters with a curious prickly feeling. Elation? I tamp it down.

“I’ll check in with you before the next session,” I tell him, then make my way toward Porter.

Shaver is being shackled to be taken to the holding cell, and right before the court officer takes him away, he leans in to Porter and whispers in her ear. I stop. The sight a punch to the gut.

His gaze roves up to find me, his lips curling into that snide smile.

After he’s led away, I approach Porter. “Ready to offer a plea deal already?” I am sarcasm’s ugly cousin. Which I guess would be pessimism? This case is wearing on me.

The serious burn of her eyes makes me drop my contemptuous smile. “I’ll trade you my DNA sample if you trade me yours? Oh wait.” She holds up a finger in mock point-making fashion. “Yours was all used up, leaving me no way to test it. Convenient.”

I shrug. “Or maybe not so.”

She sighs. “Actually, yes. I want to talk to you about a deal.”

I shake my head. “I don’t get it. What’s the catch?”

She tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “My client wants to talk to you. Alone.”