He's not there.
Of course he's not there.
But Daniels is. Third row, left side. He looks thinner than I remember—paler—but he's upright. Alive. The last time I saw him, he was bleeding out on the floor telling me to run.
I make myself not smile. Not nod. Not give the defense anything.
He doesn't look at me either. He knows the rules too.
The courtroom is packed—reporters, observers, people who came to watch a crime boss fall. I barely slept. Maya's makeup covers the dark circles, but that's all it covers.
I told myself I wouldn't look. Told myself it didn't matter. But my stupid heart went searching anyway, and now I have to swallow the disappointment whole.
Fine. I don't need him here.
Carver appears at my elbow. "You ready?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"You've got two jobs up there." He keeps his voice low. "Prove those notes are yours and that you wrote them during the interview. Then establish you were attacked after discovery was released. That's it. Everything else is extra."
I nod.
"You've got this, Eden."
I straighten my spine. Smooth my jacket. Look at Venetti—his cold eyes, his expensive lawyers, his absolute certainty that he's untouchable.
Watch me touch you.
"The prosecution calls Eden Cross to the stand."
I walk forward. Alone.
The oath. The Bible under my palm. The chair that faces a room full of strangers.
Rodriguez takes me through the beginning—how I came to interview an inmate at the state prison. Research for a book, I tell the jury. The man was serving life for a murder they could prove. He liked to talk. Liked having an audience.
"And what did this inmate tell you during your visit?"
"He told me about other jobs he'd done. Jobs no one knew about." I keep my voice steady. "Three murders. He described them in detail—who ordered them, how he carried them out, how he was paid. He named Anthony Venetti as the man who hired him."
"Did you document this conversation?"
"I wrote down everything he said during the interview. Word for word, as close as I could get it."
Rodriguez holds up a stack of pages. "Are these the notes you took?"
"Yes."
"And is this your handwriting?"
"Yes."
"What did you do after the interview?"
"I went straight to Detective Carver."
"Why Detective Carver specifically?"
