A Score to Settle. Kara Lennox

She saw an unfamiliar man in the kitchen talking to the victim. Minutes later, as she was bussing tables, she heard a loud crash in the kitchen and went to investigate. She found the victim dead.”

      “But she gave some description, right? Male Caucasian in his thirties, medium build…”

      “Wearing a baseball cap, so she couldn’t even get a hair color. It’s too general.”

      “But she told you it was positively not Christopher Gables. Correct?”

      “Yes,” Jamie admitted. “But if we press her for details at this point…well, it’s easy for the mind to play tricks. Her subconscious could provide details just to please me.”

      Daniel opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off.

      “Not that she would deceive me on purpose, but memory is a strange and unreliable beast. Considering your experience with Project Justice, I’m sure you understand that.”

      Daniel seemed to deflate slightly. “Still, it seems likely to me that if this stranger was the last person seen talking to Frank before he died, he is a more probable suspect than Christopher.”

      “Except that his prints weren’t found on the murder weapon.”

      Daniel pressed his lips together, and Jamie tasted victory. At last, she just might have convinced him he was on a fool’s errand.

      She tried to press her advantage. “I brought the case file with me. I’m ready to go step-by-step through the thinking process that led me to prosecute this case.”

      “I’d like that.”

      Jamie opened her briefcase just as her phone rang. It was rude to take a call during a meeting, but she was still waiting for that verdict.

      “I’m sorry, this might be important.” She quickly looked at the caller ID. “Oh. You may actually be interested in this.” It was Eddie, the evidence tech whom she’d bullied into taking another look at Frank Sissom’s clothing. “Yes, Eddie?”

      “I got the results on those stains. Put it through the spectrometer. It’s not toner powder at all.”

      Her stomach sank. Let it be dirt. Charcoal. Cigarette ash. “Well, what is it?”

      “Very fine metal filings. Ferrous.”

      This could not be happening to her. Metal filings? As in exactly what Daniel had predicted she would find?

      “Thanks, Eddie, I’ll get back to you.”

      “Well?” Daniel said. Then his face softened. “Jamie, what’s wrong? You’re pale. Did he say something to upset you?”

      Her lips felt suddenly cold, and she could barely form the words. “You said something about a s-serial killer?”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “WHO WAS THAT ON THE PHONE?” Daniel asked sharply. Whoever it was, he’d sure said something to shake up Jamie.

      “My evidence tech, the one reexamining Frank Sissom’s clothes. He found something no one else did—very fine metal shavings.”

      Daniel could hardly believe what he was hearing. His long shot had paid off. “Jamie, this is huge. Do you realize what this means?” In his exuberance, he threw his arms around the lawyer and hugged her. Finally, someone had listened to him about those damn metal shavings.

      “Um, do you always get this happy at the prospect of helping a client?”

      Suddenly self-conscious, he released her and scooted back a few inches on the enormous bench seat. “Sorry.” Had he been out of the social scene so long, he’d forgotten how to behave appropriately with someone he barely knew?

      Only, he felt as if he knew her. Over the past twenty-four hours, he had delved deeply into Jamie McNair’s background, and his admiration for her had only grown.

      Her roots had come from anything but privilege. Her single mother had raised her in a one-bedroom apartment with a series of low-paying jobs. Her father was completely absent—Daniel hadn’t even been able to learn his identity.

      Yet Jamie had gotten herself an education with a lot of hard work, scholarships and student loans. Still not rolling in dough, judging from her off-the-rack plum-colored suit and a pair of slightly scuffed black pumps—recently polished, but in need of new soles.

      Not that she didn’t look stunning in that color. She would look stunning in just about anything.

      Daniel forced himself to focus. “You don’t share my optimism, I take it.”

      “Frankly, I’m too shocked to know what I feel. The black, powdery substance on Frank Sissom’s shirt was written off as copier or printer toner. No one ever questioned it or analyzed it until now. It didn’t seem relevant.”

      “I’ve learned it’s those tiny, overlooked elements that can make or break a case. So, are we on the same page now? Same offender?”

      “It warrants looking into,” she said with some degree of resignation. “One thing I can’t help but notice—Frank Sissom was murdered a scant two months after you were released from prison. If we have a serial offender, who’s to say it isn’t you?”

      Daniel felt a prickling of fear. He’d never even considered that he could become a suspect. But he grabbed a bottled water and took a sip to relieve his suddenly dry mouth.

      “Why would I push to exonerate Christopher and find the real murderer, if the real murderer was me?” he asked sensibly.

      She shrugged. “I’ll put that possibility on the back burner. For now. But that leaves me with Gables as a two-time murderer.”

      Daniel curbed his impatience. “Gables was a college kid at the time of the first crime.”

      “College kids are adults, perfectly capable of homicide.”

      One inch at a time. Daniel had more now than he did last time he’d met with Jamie. He just had to keep building.

      “Back to the metal shavings. Was your guy able to distinguish the type of metal, or where it might have come from?”

      “Well, it’s ferrous, which means iron or nickel, or an alloy of either. We haven’t gotten beyond that yet. The type of close analysis you’re talking about takes time…and money.”

      “I’ll give you the name of a lab. They do photo-chemical spectography, which can give us the exact— What?”

      Her expression was closed again, guarded. “It’s not just a question of time or money. My boss is going to throw a fit.”

      “Does he have to know?”

      “Of course he does! If you’re right, if Christopher Gables was involved in two murders—”

      “Wait. Stop right there. You can’t seriously think Gables is a serial killer.”

      “How can you know it’s not Gables? Look at it from my perspective, Daniel. I am as sure as I’ve ever been that Christopher Gables committed the murder of Frank Sissom. You can’t argue away those fingerprints. If trace evidence links this murder to another, then Christopher might well be involved in the previous murder, as well. It only makes sense.”

      It made no sense at all.

      “Would you like me to give you an explanation for the fingerprints?” Daniel asked.

      “Oh, this I’ve got to hear.”

      Daniel had given this a lot of thought. Because, unlike Jamie, he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he hadn’t killed anyone, yet his prints had been found on a murder weapon.

      “Christopher used the knife for something else—hours, days, even months prior to the murder. So long as no one else touches the knife, the prints remain intact.

      “The