11

Monday hit bright and early, as usual. Too early. Not-enough-caffeine-in-my-system kind of early. Ugh. Why, Monday, why?

I wanted to set a good example for Abby, truly, but coffee first.

Abby was one of those naturally morning people, so she followed me into the break room, a bounce in her stride.

“Jon, my dad’s offered to represent Dwayne if he wants.”

For a full second, her statement made absolutely no sense. Then brain cells chose to rub together for a second and I remembered Abby’s father was a lawyer. “Abby, that’s great. Let’s see if we can email Dwayne later with the offer.”

Now that Dwayne wasn’t in max security, he got an hour of computer time every day, so email was one of the easier ways to keep him updated. I hadn’t thought of legal representation yet, but Abby clearly had.

She leaned against the counter as I doctored my magic bean juice. “I told Dad all about him, and he was really upset. Said the law shouldn’t be treated like a bully stick.”

I snorted because her description was dead-on.

“So he said, if Dwayne wanted, he’d take the case pro bono and help clear his name. Also said he’d be happy to sue that bad detective.”

My hand stilled in stirring as a vision suddenly hit. Solomon. In court, being sued, because of his jackassery. Oh yes. I could absolutely get behind this. “We are definitely emailing Dwayne later today because both those things need to happen. It’s about time someone took on Solomon.”

“From everything I’ve heard? Absolutely. The judge we saw really hates him too. Can we get her as a judge for the case?”

“If the heavens are willing.” Should I encourage stacking the odds against Solomon in court and rigging the system? No. Would I? In this case, yes, and I was not at all ashamed to do it.

“Cool. Then I’ll text my dad later about it.” Abby seemed quite pleased with herself.

Sho popped his head out of his office. “Jon, Abby, got a sec?”

Whenever he said something in that tone, one loaded with suggestion and possibly bad things, I knew shit was about to get interesting. “Yup, coming!”

“Conference room.”

I figured. That way I could be on the opposite end of a projector while he showed me things. Sho was very careful with his tech.

I gathered up coffee and apprentice and away we went into the conference room. Donovan was already there, so I sat next to him.

Abby was excited about her idea and relayed it to Donovan. “My dad offered to be Dwayne’s attorney. Can you help me email Dwayne later?”

“Sure. That’s a great idea.”

“And we want to sue Solomon for damages.”

“Oh hell yeah.” Donovan’s smile stretched from ear to ear, lines sparking with joy. “You just put a sparkle in my day, which we need because from what Sho mentioned to me, this is about to get weirder.”

My high fell about three notches. “Nooo, this case is already weird to begin with! We don’t need more weirdness!”

“I know, but…Sho?” Donovan turned to him, indicating the floor was now his.

Sho had the projector on and his laptop hooked up, so he brought up what seemed to be the first forensics photo of cleaning supplies. It was one of the more damning pieces of evidence, used to show the murder was premeditated.

“First, this can’t be proven.” Sho sounded irate merely saying those words. “There’s no financial history for Dwayne proving he bought these supplies. Ever. I went back two years and couldn’t find any trace of this exact purchase. It’s possible he pulled out cash and paid for them, but I’ve yet to find a cash withdrawal that would cover all the supplies bought. I’m, like, ninety percent sure these supplies are in the same category as the murder weapon—made on the spot.”

I felt a sort of surreal sense of resignation crash over me. “Solomon didn’t even check purchase history, did he?”

“Doesn’t look that way. From what I can tell, no one did. They were in Dwayne’s house—ergo, he must have bought them. Literally as far as the thought process went.”

Abby bristled at my side, outraged on behalf of her friend. “We need to sue Solomon for a lot .”

I offered a fist and she bumped it. We were united in the cause of making Solomon exceptionally sorry for this.

“Gets better. For us, at least.” Sho pulled up another window. “Now, one of the things that puzzled me was the GPS history showing Dwayne went to the house that day at the time he did, because we have eyewitnesses swearing he was at work since seven-thirty, right? Not to mention security footage putting him at work. So I really dug into this GPS history and…there’s nothing attached to it.”

I didn’t get what he was driving at. But then, my understanding of tech was at a kindergarten level at best. “Nothing…what’s nothing?”

“Ah, right. You don’t get metadata. I’ll dumb it down.”

“Appreciated.”

“So when you do any kind of search on a computer, it’s connected to the internet, right? We tech people refer to it as an IP address. It’s like a physical address of what internet connection you were using for the search.”

That much I understood, so I nodded.

Warming up to his genius, Sho pulled up the details of the search block. “See here? There’s nothing listed for the IP address, which isn’t possible. You can’t search out an address using the ether, it has to connect to something .”

Now I got it. Damning evidence, right there.

Abby burst out, “Wait, even the GPS history was made up? Duuuuude.”

“Now that takes skill.” Donovan leaned back in his chair, frowning at the screen. “I can see how it was overlooked, though. No one really thinks to look that deeply into online history.”

“Except Sho.” Abby beamed at him. “Sho, you’re really smart.”

He blushed a little under her praise, lines sparking with pride and pleasure. “I live to serve. But if you think this was a cool trick, just wait. There’s more.”

I couldn’t imagine how there’d be more, but knowing Sho, he had another rabbit to pull out of the hat.

“Some of the other evidence they used against Dwayne were a few volatile text messages between him and his sister. Dwayne swore he didn’t send any of them. Now, here’s the metadata behind the texts. Also the metadata behind his GPS history of him ‘dumping’ the body in the river—which is why the body was never recovered, or so Solomon argued—and the GPS history of him leaving and going back to work. See anything in common?”

I was looking but not seeing. Other than the fact that none of it was connected to an IP address.

Donovan abruptly let out a whistle. “My god. They all happen within seconds of each other.”

Eh?

I narrowed my eyes and really focused, skipping from one box to another, checking out the time stamps. Only to see what Donovan had just said. The GPS history was seconds apart from each other. The text history was actually the last of them, done thirty seconds after the GPS history showed Dwayne supposedly returning to work.

Now that was friggin’ impossible.

“The GPS history I can kind of see,” Donovan muttered, “but they really should have looked at the time stamps of the text history. That would have showed if our victim was actually alive when Dwayne was at work or not.”

“They really should have. No one did, sadly.”

Abby practically vibrated with outrage next to me. “You can say that, but I think they should have checked the GPS history better, too. I mean, Dwayne’s cool, but he’s not Superman. It’s not like he can be in two different parts of the city in thirty seconds!”

“That alone is a good argument for a retrial. Much less everything else.” I rubbed my hands together with glee. “If they can use circumstantial evidence to lock him up, us dismantling said evidence is an excellent way to throw the verdict and sentencing out. Oooh, Solomon, I thank you for being an arrogant know-it-all.”

“Only good thing that’s coming out of this.” Abby abruptly stood, her lines sparking hot red. “I’m getting a drink. I need to calm down before I punch something.”

I let her go without a word, still thinking. “Sho, can you assemble all of this into a presentation? Something we can show a judge or use in court?”

He gave me a casual two-finger salute. “Yup, consider it done. In fact, I’d be delighted. Also, let me know if Dwayne accepts Abby’s dad as his lawyer. I can start funneling information over to him.”

“You bet.”

I was still flabbergasted about all this. I knew the case against Dwayne was sloppily thrown together, but still…this was beyond sloppy. This was so stupid, which I supposed described Solomon to a tee.

Donovan’s phone rang and he scooted back from the table, his chair rolling and then fetching up softly against the wall before he pulled his phone free to look at the screen. “Huh, Archer’s calling. Be right back.”

I let him go, my focus remaining on this stupid evidence which wasn’t nearly as damning as it appeared on the surface. “I’ve got to wonder what kind of psychic can manifest this kind of stuff. It has to be manifested.”

“Got to be,” Sho agreed promptly. “No other way to do it. Didn’t you tell me Alan is researching all the different types of psychics and making, like, an encyclopedia of them?”

“I did. And yes, he’s the perfect person to ask this question.”

“Let me talk to him. Alan and I will research the psychics and come up with a list of who in the area can manage all of this. I know you said there’s no obvious connection to someone else killing Tylesia, but maybe she had a stalker they didn’t know about.”

“I’d give that theory very high odds. Sure, do it. Tell me when you’ve got a list.”

Sho flashed me a thumbs-up, then paused uncertainly. “Uh, what are the odds Alan’s asleep right now?”

“He’s on Grant’s sleep schedule.”

“So who the fuck knows?”

“Pretty much. Try texting first.”

“Yeah, probably the safer bet.”

My eyes were drawn back to the screen and those ridiculous time stamps, and I had to wonder: Was this whole case just an elaborate series of smoke and mirrors? It certainly felt that way.