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Hez sat in the front row of the old courtroom gallery, stomach full of razor-winged butterflies. He was a veteran of dozens of felony trials—many in this very courtroom—but he’d always been one of the attorneys dueling in the front or a spectator watching from the gallery. This would be the first time he experienced one as a crime victim—and a witness.

Hez’s old friend Hope Norcross stood from the prosecution table at the front of the courtroom. “The People call Hezekiah Webster.”

Hez walked down the aisle and across the open space known as the “well of the court”

to the witness stand. He could feel every eye on him, and for once he didn’t like the sensation.

The bored-looking bailiff pushed himself to his feet as Hez approached. “Raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

Hez took his seat on the witness stand. The courtroom seemed bigger and more intimidating from this perspective. Rows of reporters filled the gallery benches, watching expectantly. A man and a woman in expensive suits sat at the defense table. The defendant was Beckett Harrison, the slimy former provost of Tupelo Grove University who had first tried to steal Savannah’s heart and then attempted to murder them both, along with their nephew, Simon. Beckett’s dark hair was perfectly coiffed, and he looked relaxed and comfortable, like he was waiting for a board meeting to start. But his brown eyes followed Hez with cold hatred.

The woman beside Beckett watched Hez with an unsettling smile tugging at the corners of her perfect lips. Beckett’s attorney, Martine Dubois, wore a charcoal-gray suit and a white blouse that set off her tan. A silver clip gathered her blonde hair at the nape of her neck, accentuating her strong cheekbones and almond-shaped brown eyes, the only features hinting that her mother was half Vietnamese. Hez had known her since law school, and he did not look forward to being cross-examined by her.

Hope arranged her notes on the lectern. She was five years younger than Hez and barely reached five and a half feet, even with the three-inch heels she wore to court. Still, she managed to project strength and confidence—a confidence Hez knew she didn’t feel today.

Hope couldn’t tell Hez what she thought about the Beckett Harrison case, but she didn’t have to. She and Hez had been friends since she first walked into the DA’s office as an intern a decade ago and he became her mentor. Ordinarily, she’d be bubbling with excitement over a high-profile trial like this. She couldn’t say anything specific because Hez was a witness and not her co-counsel, but her enthusiasm and energy should have been palpable over the past few weeks. They weren’t. In fact, she had been tense and unhappy whenever they got together for coffee or a run.

It wasn’t hard to guess Hope’s problem. There was a right way and a wrong way to try the Harrison case—and she was doing it the wrong way.

The right way to prosecute Beckett Harrison would have been to do it in at least two trials, maybe more. Beckett had committed a series of crimes, including two murders. The case against him for some of the crimes was a slam dunk. But the evidence for others—including both murders—was much thinner, at least for now. Hope could have tried Beckett on the slam-dunk charges now to put him in prison for a few years. Then she could have built her case on the murders and other crimes while he was safely behind bars and charged him whenever she was ready. Instead, she had charged everything at once. That decision would have come from the DA himself: Elliot Drake.

Drake was up for reelection, and he considered himself an excellent candidate for governor someday. Future governors didn’t bring piecemeal cases that would barely merit a mention in the local newspaper—they brought big, splashy cases that would capture the media’s attention statewide. So Hope was stuck trying a big, splashy case that she could well lose.

Compounding Hope’s problem, Beckett had hired a smart lawyer. Defense attorneys usually wanted months or even years to prepare for trial because the prosecution had a huge head start since they’d finished investigating the case before bringing charges. But Martine correctly read the situation and pressed for the earliest trial date she could get, gambling that her odds of an acquittal would only go down if both sides had time to do a full investigation.

Hope cleared her throat. “Please state your name for the record.”

Hez turned to the jury box and spoke directly to the jurors, just like he’d always coached witnesses to do. “Hezekiah Webster.”

“When did you first meet the defendant?”

“The day I started investigating the murder of Ellison Abernathy.”

“Why were you investigating that?”

“My wife, Savannah—or, well, she was my wife at the time—she found the body and the police initially showed interest in her. I’m a former prosecutor, so I was representing her.”

“Did you suspect that Mr. Harrison might be the killer?”

“Not at first, but I should have.”

“Why?”

“Because he immediately insinuated himself into the investigation for no obvious reason. He had no law enforcement background or investigative expertise. Also, he had a very busy job and he wasn’t particularly close to Abernathy, and yet he somehow always had time to work on this case.”

Hez shook his head, annoyed at the memory of his stupidity—which had nearly gotten Savannah, Simon, and him killed. “I should have suspected that he was trying to figure out whether he was a suspect and divert suspicion away from himself.”

“When did you first begin to think that he might be the killer?”

“It wasn’t until I saw his number on the phone of his coconspirator, Erik Andersen, that I—”

Martine rose in a fluid motion. “Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence. Specifically, assumes that the defendant and Mr. Andersen conspired together.”

“Sustained.”

Judge Achilles Hopkins leaned over the bench and arched a bushy eyebrow at Hez. “You know the rules of evidence as well as I do, Mr. Webster.”

Hope smiled. “Let’s take it step-by-step, Mr. Webster.”

Hez’s face grew hot.

It had been a stupid mistake brought on by nerves.

He started over, with Hope helping him to “lay a foundation,”

as all rookie litigators were taught to do, before launching into the story of how he and Savannah caught Beckett’s crony, former TGU European history professor Erik Andersen, red-handed with a smuggled artifact.

Andersen tried to call Beckett, but Hez had grabbed the phone before Andersen could press Call.

Hope walked Hez through the rest of his investigation of the murder and smuggling case that dominated his life during the past few months.

The jurors listened raptly, and one elderly woman was literally on the edge of her seat.

But Hez couldn’t help seeing the holes in the case Hope was building.

Someone knocked out Hez while he was outside Beckett’s home, but it probably wasn’t Beckett.

He had been inside talking with Savannah—and denying that he had anything to do with the artifact smuggling or anything else.

Hez found a bug in his office light fixture, but there was no proof that Beckett planted it.

Only the evidence from Erik Andersen’s phone and home—all of which later vanished—connected Beckett to the artifact smuggling.

And nothing at all tied him to the scenes of the two murders or the knife used in both.

The only direct evidence tying Beckett to either murder was a security-camera video that appeared to show him stealing a fleece from Hez’s former client Jessica Legare.

That fleece was later found soaked with Abernathy’s blood, wrapped around the murder weapon, and buried on Jess’s property.

But the video only caught the thief’s leg, which had a scar that resembled one on Beckett’s left leg.

The best evidence in Hope’s entire case was what Beckett did after Hez and Savannah found the video.

Beckett kidnapped them and Simon, knocked them unconscious, and took them out on Bon Secour Bay, where he planned to kill them all.

Fortunately, Hez had been wearing a wire, so the police had heard everything Beckett said.

Even so, law enforcement barely arrived in time.

Hope milked this part of Hez’s testimony, drawing out every detail.

He understood why she was doing it, but reliving that day was brutal.

“What did you see when you woke up on the boat?”

“The first thing I saw was Savannah’s face, right over mine. She looked terrified.”

“Then what happened?”

“She kissed me and told me she loved me.”

Hez took a deep breath and fought to keep his voice steady. “I think she wanted me to know before we both died.”

“Did you think you were going to die?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We were lying in the bottom of a boat with our hands and feet bound. Beckett had already threatened us, and that was before we had hard evidence that he was a murderer. His intentions were clear, and he removed all doubt a few seconds later.”

“What did he do?”

Hez forced himself to look at Beckett, who returned his gaze with a stony stare. “He came over holding a pistol and said he really enjoyed seeing us helpless. Then he kicked me in the stomach.”

“Then what happened?”

“I thought he might start shooting any second, so I tried to get him talking. If I was going to die, I wanted you to have as much evidence as possible to prosecute him for murdering us.”

He pushed his mouth into a half smile. “Fortunately, he’s more of a talker than a thinker. You know the old law enforcement saying: ‘We never catch the smart ones.’”

Hez savored the spasm of impotent rage that flashed across Beckett’s face. He hoped the jury saw it too.

“What exactly did he say?”

The jury would doubtless hear the tape several times over the course of the trial, but Hez knew the impact live testimony could have, and he was sure Hope did too. He turned to the jurors, making eye contact with each one as he spoke. “He said he’d rented the boat and bought the gun using my credit card. He told me that he planned to make it look like a murder-suicide—that I was unstable and killed my wife and nephew before turning the gun on myself. He said it would be how the world remembered me, my epitaph.”

He paused as the memory rushed back over him. “I’ll never forget the look on his face. He was smug, proud of himself. He was about to kill three people, including a child, and he was patting himself on the back.”

“What happened next?”

“I heard another boat approaching and then a Coast Guard air horn.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’ll never again complain about how loud those things are.”

Several jurors smiled and one suppressed a chuckle.

Hope turned to the judge. “No further questions at this time. Pass the witness.”