me? Joe was safe. The Richardson baby was at St. Francis, perfectly well. Then I had it.
Candace Martin.
I was thinking about her.
I started to tell Joe why Candace Martin was surfing my nocturnal brain waves, but he was already snoring softly against my shoulder. I disengaged myself and put my feet on the floor.
Joe murmured, “What?”
“I’ve got to go to work,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”
I kissed his cheek, ruffled his hair, and tucked the covers under his chin. I snapped my fingers and Martha jumped onto the bed. She circled a couple of times, then dropped into the hollow I’d left behind.
Less than an hour later, I blew into the Hall of Justice with two containers of coffee.
I took the back stairs two steps at a time, and elbowed open the stairwell door to the eighth floor. I negotiated the maze of corridors that led to the DA’s department.
Yuki was at her desk in a windowless office. Her glossy black hair, parted in the middle, fell forward as she stared down at her laptop. My shadow crossed her desk.
“Hey,” she said, looking up. “Lindsay. What’s wrong?”
“Something is. Okay for me to see the picture of Candace Martin in the car with that hit man Gregor Guzman?”
“Why?”
She stretched her arm across her desk and took a coffee container from my hand. “You don’t mind if I ask why you’re still messing around with my case, do you?”
“Could I just see it again, Yuki? Please. That photo is bothering me.”
Yuki glared at me, bent toward her laptop, and tapped a few keys. She swiveled the computer around so that I could see the screen.
“I could use a copy of that.”
Yuki shook her head no. But at the same time, the printer made a grinding sound, and a black-and-white photo chugged into the tray. Yuki handed it to me.
“I’d give you a harder time,” she said, “but the judge wants to see me in chambers. I’m in the bad-girl corner again. Don’t make trouble for me, Lindsay. I mean it.”
I wished her luck with LaVan and ran for the exit before Yuki could change her mind.
Chapter 85
MINUTES AFTER LEAVING Yuki’s office, I signed the visitor’s log at the entrance to the women’s jail on the seventh floor. It was loud in this wing. The clanging of metal doors and the angry clamor of prisoners rose up around us as an officer escorted me to one of the small, bare conference rooms.
Candace Martin soon appeared in the doorway. She made eye contact with me as the guard removed her cuffs, then took the chair across from me at the scarred metal table.
“This is an unexpected surprise,” she said.
Candace didn’t have any makeup on, hadn’t had her hair done professionally in a year, and was wearing a prison jumpsuit in a shade of orange that didn’t flatter blondes.
Still, Candace Martin had her dignity and her professional demeanor.
I said, “I’m here unofficially.”
“With good news, I hope.”
I pulled the printout of the photo from my pocket and placed it faceup on the table. “Please look at this picture and tell me why you’re inside this vehicle with this man.”
She said, “I’ve seen that picture. That’s not me.”