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Ari wanted to defend herself, but she couldn’t deny she’d been very vocal about disliking Sloane. “I think something changed her,” she admitted. “She’s not so . . . like herself,”

she added with a chuckle.

“Listen, it’s not like I know the first thing about her,”

Javon replied with a shrug. “Just watch out for yourself. A

hot terminator pretending to be nice will still blow your head o with a shotgun.”

“Point taken,” she said with a smile as she stood.

“Thanks. Good luck with your date.”

“With looks like these,” he stroked his clean-shaven square jaw, “who needs luck,” he joked before inviting her to happy hour on Friday.

While walking the short distance back to the courthouse and up to her o ce, Ari’s mind worked triple time. She hadn’t gotten the sense that people were talking about her in DV, but how else would Javon have heard anything about her.

By the time she got to the o ce, Ari had unconsciously downed the entire latte. Tossing it in the garbage can between the elevators, she touched her security pass to the door, regretful that she hadn’t savored the expensive drink.

Dave. That’s how he knows. Dave’s roommate was in the County Criminal Division with Javon. But what would he have said?

Leaving that part for later sleuthing, Ari strolled into the o ce where Sloane was pacing in front of a whiteboard she’d perched on top of two stacks of boxes. In a sleeveless white top tucked into navy blue trousers and her hair falling in golden waves down her back, Sloane was annoyingly beautiful. If she’d lost a contact and had to resort to her tortoise shell glasses again, Ari might have had to go work in the library.

The moment Ari stepped inside, Sloane stopped clicking her marker and swiveled her head toward the door. “I thought you were getting co ee,” she said, scanning Ari

from top to bottom like she was concealing the cup somewhere.

“What are you? The latte police?” Ari asked, feigning annoyance.

“Whatever,” she replied, slightly amused. “Do you have time to go over something with me?”

Ari dug a tin of mints out of her desk, popping one in her mouth before joining Sloane at the board. How does she always smell like she just stepped out of the shower? Ari focused on the various police reports from the numerous stalking incidents taped up and marked with various color-coded highlights. “What’s this?”

“So, we have the co ee shop, the pharmacy, farmer’s market, new gym, and women’s prayer group thing,” Sloane explained as she pointed to each one. “What do they all have in common?” she asked rhetorically, answering her own question before Ari opened her mouth. “Apart from the fact

that he somehow had proof of being present at each spot before her . . . already a weird red flag if you ask me—”

“Or proof that she’s the one stalking him in order to get him in trouble,” Ari interrupted, unable to resist playing devil’s advocate.

“Possible,” she agreed. “But there’s something else they have in common. Look at this,” she said, pointing to the narrative portion of the reports. “At every scene, he stays and gives police this full accounting of his day. I mean, the man has receipts, literally. At the co ee shop he had his drink receipt, which he kept. How often do you get one of those, much less keep it?” She shook her head. “Pharmacy, again, receipt in his pocket. At the farmer’s market, same

thing. He bought something from the very first stand right at the entrance. An ice cream at ten in the morning when it was sixty degrees that day. And then on the first day she goes to this new gym in a neighborhood neither of them frequent, he’s next door buying a boba tea—”

“Which he had a receipt for and happily provided it to the cop who showed up after Ms. Dominguez called 911 in a panic,” Ari finished.

“And that’s not all. Every time he interacts with the cops, he gives these long, super specific and detailed statements.

Like he just can’t wait to spin this story,” she said, her eyes fixed on his most recent statement. Sloane was right. It read like a monologue.

“I see what you mean. What are you thinking?”

“I think he’s going to testify,” Sloane declared, spinning toward her.

Ari was doubtful. “He has a private attorney. You think there’s really a chance they’d let him testify in his own defense? We’d get a chance to expose his prior convictions to the jury . . .”

“A person like this,” she gestured toward the years’

worth of evidence, “won’t be able to stop himself. He thinks he’s some master architect. He’s planned this all out, spending who knows how long plotting his actions. It will be the pièce de résistance. The ultimate power trip.”