CHAPTER 13

W hen she arrived home and heard Tinley in the kitchen, likely making a mess, Carina hurried up the stairs and quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a light sweater. She hated having to sneak around her own house, but she wasn't in the mood for Tinley's excuses or requests for yet another extension on not paying rent or staying with her. It was also around dinnertime, so Tinley would be cooking for one, as she usually did, and Carina would need to fight for space in her own kitchen to make herself dinner and then either eat with Tinley or she'd have to eat in her bedroom, which she'd done before, unfortunately.

Making it back out to the garage without Tinley hearing her over the music she was playing while cooking, Carina left and hit the road with no real destination in mind. The need to get out of her house to get some privacy was very real, but it still left her directionless. She heard Ada's voice in her head from their pizza-time the other night and considered it.

"You need to tell her to go. She has friends. She can couch-surf until she finds a place. This is getting ridiculous," Ada had said.

Of course, Ada was absolutely right, but kicking Tinley out of the house would just end in the woman making that puppy-dog face and Carina giving in again, so they'd be right back where they started, with Tinley conning yet another month out of her. How she could go into a courtroom and hold her own with opposing counsel and judges she didn't always like or agree with but couldn't handle her own ex-girlfriend was beyond Carina, but when she passed the one movie theater in town, an idea hit her. She turned around and soon joined the short line for tickets.

Not caring what movie she saw, she ended up with one ticket to something with Kenzie Smyth and Lennox Owen as two friends on a vacation together where they fall in love. She'd heard about this film but hadn't planned on seeing it in a theater, thinking she'd watch it streaming once it was out. Knowing very little about it other than it starred a married couple and was one of the year's only women-loving-women movies and the one with the biggest budget, Carina bought herself a giant tub of popcorn, added butter, and put sugar in the iced tea she'd bought, wishing they served sweet tea there because she loved sweet and salty. Instead, she'd have to deal with undissolved sugar granules at the bottom of her cup.

Luckily, she was early for the movie, so when she walked in, the lights were still half-lit, allowing her to see which seats were available. Generally, she liked sitting in the middle of the theater, if she had her pick, but she noticed someone whom she recognized all the way at the top, right under the window where the movie would be projecting out to the screen. She smiled and tilted her head a bit because Kieran Hart was in the theater by herself, too. Or, maybe she was just waiting for someone. Not Diego, to be sure. Kieran had made it clear that her marriage to him was over, so that probably meant they wouldn't see a movie together, but especially not a movie where two women fall in love.

"Well, hello," she said. "Weren't you just saying we need to spend time together outside of the criminal justice system?"

"Carina? What are you doing here?" Kieran asked, looking up from her tub of popcorn with some still in her hand.

"I'm here to see the movie. What about you?"

"Oh, right. Same."

"Are you waiting for someone?" she asked, looking at the empty seats on both sides of Kieran.

"No, I came here by myself. I just… needed to get out of my apartment and think about anything other than the case, my sister, and, well, work, too, I guess."

"But you like your job."

"I was late on a project," Kieran explained. "Which is not like me at all, but things have been a little hectic lately, and I missed a deadline."

"Did you get in trouble or–"

"Not really. I told my boss beforehand that I'd be late, and he put someone else on it. I had to help them finish it up, and we got it done, but I'm not really happy with myself right now. Video games weren't helping, so I went to a late movie." Kieran nodded toward the screen. "You?"

"Can I sit?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure."

Carina sat down next to her and set her own popcorn in her lap.

"I have an ex-girlfriend at my house, and I didn't feel like dealing with her, so I ran."

"You ran?" Kieran laughed a little.

"Basically, yes. I ran up my stairs and into my bedroom to change and then kind of moved very quietly and slowly back down the stairs and out to my car. I thought I'd grab dinner somewhere, but I saw this place and decided to have popcorn and a movie instead. What made you want to see this particular movie?"

"I didn't, really. It was this or the horror film that starts in about twenty minutes."

"Not a fan of horror?"

"No, I am, but it's two hours long and starts in twenty minutes. I'm too exhausted to wait it out. This one seemed okay. I like Kenzie Smyth, so I just bought the ticket."

"You know it's a movie about her falling in love with another woman, right?"

"Her wife in real life. Yeah, I looked it up when I first sat down. I'd never heard of it, but I guess it was a passion project of theirs. They produced it together, too. The article I saw said it's not exactly the story of how they met and fell in love, but they took some parts of that and put it in here."

"You read up on it, huh?"

"I had nothing else to do," Kieran replied. "I answered all the trivia questions they ran on the screen, so I thought, ‘Why not look it up and read about it until it starts?' "

Carina smiled at her and asked, "How did it go with your sister?"

"She still wants to do the interview. But do you think we can talk about something else? I came here to escape all that."

"Sure. Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It's not really about her doing the interview. It was me trying to ask how it was, seeing her again."

Kieran ate some popcorn and said, "Fine, I guess. I mean, it's hard still, but it might always be, huh? She's in jail and doesn't want to listen to me because she hates that I'm out here, and she's in there."

"She said that to you?"

"Not in those words, but I got that vibe, yeah. Diego is going to talk to her about the interview thing. She's pretty insistent because she says she's innocent and wants to tell people that."

"Most people in her position say they're innocent, though," Carina pointed out.

"She knows that. I reminded her, too. She insisted that she was on a bus when it happened, on her way out of town, and that she didn't even know anything had happened to Nick until a few days later. It's the same thing she told me when we first met, no deviations, and she even had the bus number that she took to get to the main station."

Carina turned to the screen to see a trivia question about an old movie appear. She knew the answer but didn't say it out loud. She knew they shouldn't be talking about this. She should just say the answer out loud to sound smart to Kieran, and they could change the topic and talk about anything other than this case, but she couldn't stop herself.

"I know about the bus story. She gave her alibi to Dylan."

"And?" Kieran turned to her a little.

"I thought you didn't want to talk about this," Carina pointed out.

"I don't, really, but you seem to have something to say about it."

Carina swallowed and said, "We looked into it, Kieran. It doesn't seem like she's telling the truth."

"What does that mean?"

"It's in discovery, so Diego will see it, if he hasn't had an investigator find it already."

"Find what?" Kieran asked.

"The video. Buses all have cameras in them. Even then. The mayor back then was smart when he got elected because there had been a lot of petty crimes in and around bus stops and on buses before the election. He ran on a reducing-crime platform, and the first thing he did was put cameras into the buses and at all the major bus stops, too."

"And, what? You found the footage from eight years ago? How did you–"

"He was smart, like I said. He didn't just get cameras; he has the footage uploaded to a remote server at the end of every day. The footage is archived."

Kieran turned to her more fully and asked, "You've seen it?"

"I have, yes."

"And?" Kieran asked.

"Do you want to see it?"

"Can I? Is that allowed?"

"It's just video footage. Technically, it's available to the public should anyone request it. There's a form online. I'm sure Diego will have it soon, if he hasn't already. I took a chance that I'd find it and reviewed it myself."

"Can you send me the link or a file?"

"I can do one better if you want to skip the movie."

Kieran accepted her offer, so they left the theater and their popcorn behind. Still hungry, Carina wanted to stop for something on the way home, but with Kieran following her, she decided she'd grab something there after she left instead. She knew she was taking a chance that Tinley would be home. Even though Tinley had probably finished her dinner by then, she liked to hang out in the living room, watching TV on the big screen instead of going to her room – or, rather, Carina's guest room. When Carina pulled into the driveway, though, Tinley's car wasn't in its usual spot, and when she opened the garage to pull in, it also wasn't in there. Thanking whatever force had removed Tinley from her house for the rest of the night, she motioned for Kieran to park and follow her inside.

"So, I have the whole day and night, but I have it cued up to the window of the murder. You can run it on fast-forward, so it goes faster," she said once Kieran was seated behind her desk and was staring at Carina's laptop. "She's not there."

"What if she took a different bus and just got the numbers confused?" Kieran asked, pressing play.

"She was pretty certain that this was the bus and told Dylan in her statement that this was the bus stop for sure. She said she didn't take the one closest to the house because she was afraid that he'd find her there, so she went to this one instead, which was a few more blocks away."

Kieran's eyes didn't leave the screen as she said, "He beat her."

"I know," Carina replied.

"And caused her to lose a baby."

"I know," Carina repeated.

"And you still want to prosecute her?"

"People can't go around killing other people, Kieran; regardless of what we think is right or fair."

"What if it was in self-defense?"

"She hasn't told us that. She's insisting that she was on this bus. If she tells us the truth and can demonstrate mitigating circumstances, maybe there's a deal I can make for her."

"What if her story is the truth, though?"

"You're watching the video footage right now. Do you see her on it?"

"Maybe she messed up the bus stop. I'll talk to her and–"

"Kieran, I need to stop," Carina said then.

"Stop what?" Kieran pressed the space bar to pause the video and turned to look at her.

"I keep talking to you about this when I really shouldn't be."

"You said this was available to the public."

"It is. But I mean, in general – I need to stop talking to you about this case. I'm prosecuting your sister, but I keep telling you things that I probably shouldn't."

"I should go, you mean?"

"That's not what I said," she replied. "We just maybe shouldn't be in here reviewing this together. I am starving, though. I think I have a frozen pizza downstairs. Are you interested in sharing that with me? No case talk. I mean it this time. Just maybe a meal, and we can start a movie since we didn't get to see the one that we paid for tonight. You don't have to stay all the way through it if you're tired and want to go, though."

"I am starving. I'd only just started eating my popcorn when you got there."

"Come on. I'll get it started and open a bottle of wine."

"I'm driving."

"One glass."

"Half?" Kieran suggested.

"Deal."

Carina closed her computer, and they made their way back downstairs.

"You have a beautiful home," Kieran told her when they got to the open kitchen that overlooked the living and dining rooms.

"Thank you. It's always a work in progress."

"I remember that," Kieran said, sitting down on a stool at the island while Carina pulled out the frozen pizza.

"Pepperoni okay?"

Kieran nodded.

"Your house was always a work in progress, too?"

"Aren't all homes?" Kieran asked.

"Yeah, I suppose."

Then, she heard it. Carina closed her eyes, sighed, and opened them again. The front door opened just as she turned the oven on to preheat, and it closed and locked a second later. Carina shook her head because this was about to get very interesting.

"I am so sorry. If you want to run, now would be the time," she said to Kieran.

"What?"

"Carina, you're home?"

Kieran then nodded in understanding at the sound of Tinley's voice and whispered, "Should I go?"

"Only if you want to escape."

"Oh, hi," Tinley said as she walked into the kitchen and saw Kieran sitting at the island. "Sorry, I didn't know you had company ."

"Tinley, this is Kieran. Kieran, this is Tinley," Carina reluctantly introduced.

"Nice to meet you," Kieran said with a little wave.

"Kiera?" Tinley said.

"No, Kieran. With an N at the end."

"Kieran. That's an interesting name."

"Yeah, Tinley seems pretty standard," Kieran replied sarcastically.

Carina laughed under her breath and said, "Tinley, we were just making ourselves a pizza, and we're going to watch a movie in here, okay?"

"Oh, I was going to watch something here because the TV in my room is so small."

"The TV in the guest room is of average size for a room that big," Carina argued.

"I was going to grab a snack," Tinley added.

"Maybe grab it and go," Carina suggested.

Tinley walked over to where Carina was standing and turned away from Kieran.

"A little tacky, Carina. I live here, and you're bringing dates over?"

"First, you're just staying here. There's a difference. Second, not that it's any of your business, but Kieran is just a friend."

"You have other friends, and I haven't seen you invite any of them over for pizza and a movie."

"Um… You're not exactly whispering over there. I can hear you," Kieran spoke. "Just so you know."

"I'll leave you two to your non- date," Tinley said and turned to Kieran. "Nice to meet you, Kiera."

"You too, Tan ley."

Carina laughed loudly at that.