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I looked through the rest of the photos. The house looked so dark. So cold. There was dust on every counter. Broken windowpanes. Everything about it seemed bleak. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but the house itself felt evil. One by one, I laid the photos facedown as I looked at them.

Several of the photos captured Palicki’s bedroom. The bed was unmade with dirty laundry on the floor. Even through photos, I imagined the place smelled dank and fetid. I flipped over another photo showing a nightstand with wadded-up tissues and a pair of earbuds on top.

Then every muscle in my body went hard. Fear stabbed through my chest. There was a painting on the wall. I recognized it instantly but blinked, trying to clear my vision. No. It could not be. It made no sense. I flipped to the next photo. A different angle of the same wall but the painting was in sharper focus.

Frères Célestes.

Celestial brothers. Two fish forever chained together. The Duvayre. It was a replica of the painting that hung in the Manning Foundation lobby. Lock’s prized possession. I let the rest of the photographs flutter to the floor.

NINETEEN

“I want out in front of this as soon as we can announce.”

I heard the words, but couldn’t form a response. I spent the last twelve hours on autopilot. I told Lock as much of the truth as I could. The new developments in the TRACE case had drained me. Were it any other week, Lock wouldn’t have let that answer satisfy him. But he was distracted for his own reasons. The fundraiser took up almost all of his headspace. It had caused Lock and me to become ships passing in the night.

I was losing my mind. The painting on Palicki’s wall was a coincidence. Yes. The Duvayre was rare. But it wasn’t obscure. Its discovery after a century made news in the art world at the time. Even if I’d told Roy its significance to me… to Lock… he would have laughed me out of his office. It proved nothing.

Only… why would someone like Daniel Palicki just happen to admire the same piece of rare artwork enough to hang it on his bedroom wall? When I fired up my browser and tried to find a replica to purchase online, there was nothing. Certainly, someone could have sold one in a bricks-and-mortar store somewhere. But Palicki was a drug dealer with no formal education beyond the ninth grade, we learned. It didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate art, but that particular painting? Only the most discerning collectors would know its significance.

No! I would not give in to these catastrophic thoughts. We were so close to delivering a rock-solid case on Palicki and hopefully the others. It was the whole reason I agreed to serve on the task force. This was nothing but self-sabotage. Just when I was about to accomplish something big, I turned it into something that could crash my world down.

“Mina! Are you listening?” Mark Gilchrist caught me as I was coming out of Judge Clarke’s courtroom. Her docket had run an hour behind. Dennison wanted me in the room when Corrine Egan came back in. I had a series of unanswered texts from him. I had no hope of getting upstairs in time.

Mark stepped onto the elevator with me. I waited for the doors to close and punched the third floor.

“That’s not up to me,” I said, forcing myself out of my own head. “I wasn’t the lead investigator, Mark. It’s not my place to take credit for Daniel Palicki’s arrest.”

“This is big, Mina,” he said. “I’m not going to let all these other agencies take the credit. You’re on that task force, but you work for me.”

“It won’t be our case to prosecute. None of Palicki’s crimes took place in Benton County as far as we know.”

“So figure out how to get a change of venue once charges are filed.”

“You can’t. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. It’s gonna be up to Palicki’s lawyer to pursue that kind of relief. We have no standing.”

Times like this, it boggled my mind how little Gilchrist knew about court procedure. Prior to his election as Benton County’s prosecutor, he’d worked in private practice specializing in corporate law. He was a pure politician. He had no litigation experience, but he had powerful backers. He counted on Lock to be one of them.

The elevator doors opened. “It’s not a good look if you walk into this meeting with me.”

Gilchrist huffed but didn’t argue. He punched the down button and got back on the elevator.

The door to the conference room was closed. I heard muffled voices behind it. As I approached, Special Agent Heller walked out. He had a black plastic bag under his arm and wore blue latex gloves.

“They’re just finishing up in there,” he said. “Ms. Egan’s been asking about you.”

“What did she bring in?” I asked, eyeing the evidence bag. Roy had said she had some kind of new physical evidence to bring in relating to the mysterious Matt Woodson. It would pan out like Roy hoped. It just had to. Maybe then I could finally put my spinning mind at ease.

“Roy will fill you in. I gotta get this to the crime lab and head out to Richland. I’ve got a new case rolling in.”

Heller hurried past me. The conference room door opened again and Belinda came out. She had a pot of coffee in her hand.

“Is he mad I’m late?” I asked.

Belinda shook her head. “I told him where you were.” She lifted the empty coffee pot. “I can make some more.”

“No, thanks though. And they know better than to have you running around serving coffee.”

“I don’t mind, hun,” she said. “It wasn’t for them anyway. It was for your witness. Though she was jittery enough when she came in. Poor thing. I don’t think she’s handling all of this very well.”