A Matter of Trust

Chapter 33





Mia checked her watch. She still had a few minutes before the service began. “I’ll be right back,” she told Katrina and Gabe, then threaded through the crowd to Charlie. Like Vincent, he was also standing in the back of the room, but on the other side of the chapel.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Leaning close, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “See what Riester is wearing?”

Charlie cut his eyes to the right and then back to her. “Yeah? So?”

“Thursday night I was followed by a man dressed like that. Maybe last night too.”

He pulled back to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Thursday night after I was done teaching, a guy in a hoodie and a baseball cap followed me through the parking lot. I thought he was after my purse. When I yelled at him to go away, he took off. And last night after the football game, a guy dressed like that seemed to be watching me.”

Charlie’s mouth twisted. “Why didn’t you say anything last night?”

“I thought it was a coincidence. Or that I was being paranoid. A baseball cap and a hoodie—that’s like Seattle’s version of an umbrella.”

He shot a second quick glance in Riester’s direction, but the other man didn’t seem to be paying them any attention, just looking at the program for the service. “Did you see the guy’s face either time?”

“No. He didn’t get that close, it was night, and with the cap, his face was in shadow. All I can say for sure is that the guy—or it could have been guys—I saw weren’t wearing dark glasses.”

“I’ll talk to Riester again after the service.”

“Thanks.” Mia touched his sleeve.

He gave her a long look. “If it was him, he must think you know something.”

“I only wish I did.” The organ began to play, and she returned to her seat.

“What was that about?” Katrina whispered, looking intrigued.

“I had an idea that I wanted Charlie to check out.”

“About whoever did this?” Katrina nodded at the shiny wooden casket at the front of the room.

“Yes.” The plain hard fact of the casket brought it home to Mia: no one was truly safe. If Colleen could be killed, so could she. Scott had asked her to stay home for two reasons. One was to be there for their kids. The other was that he felt her job was too dangerous. Until today, Mia had thought he’d been wrong to believe that.

But maybe Mia had been wrong to believe that she was safe.

If only Scott were still here, she could ask his forgiveness. Maybe if he hadn’t felt so shut out he wouldn’t have started drinking again, after swearing on the lives of their children that he had stopped. He would have shared the money problems with her, and together they could have found a way to solve them.

But instead he had pulled away. By the time he died, the gulf between them had seemed unbridgeable.

And now Mia had to run in place just to keep up, work longer and longer hours while her kids were either in daycare or raising themselves. But she couldn’t keep pretending that it was all right, that she was coping just fine, that she had worked through her grief and anger and fear. She couldn’t even make sure Gabe had clothes that fit. And what if there was something seriously wrong with Brooke?

Scott was dead, and Mia could never fix what had broken between them. And now Colleen was gone too. Her husband and her best friend.

As the service began, Mia bowed her head and wept.



“If somebody killed Colleen, and killed that guy Stan, then why are you still working there?” Gabe hissed as Mia drove home after the funeral. “Quit and go do some other kind of law. Boring law. Not prosecuting killers and crazy people and drug dealers.”

After the service he had overheard enough to realize that Colleen wasn’t the first King County prosecutor to have been murdered. He had stormed out to the car ahead of her, barely waiting until she had gotten behind the wheel before he started fuming.

Mia tried to speak calmly. “We don’t know that the same person killed both Colleen and Stan. And we don’t know that their deaths had anything to do with their jobs.” She was gripping the steering wheel so hard it hurt. “Besides, I’m working with Detective Carlson. He’ll make sure I stay safe.” Charlie could do no such thing, but she didn’t want Gabe to be consumed by fear for her. “Of course, if you ever see someone acting suspiciously or think something is wrong, call me or call 911.”

“Like that would have done Colleen any good,” Gabe retorted. “She was on the phone with you when she was shot.”

There was no way she was going to win this argument, so Mia kept silent. Her eyes ached like fresh bruises. In the past few hours, every negative emotion had coursed through her: fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, hopelessness. Now she just felt empty, like a big hand had reached down and scooped out her heart, leaving a hollow space in her chest.

Once they got back to the house, Gabe stomped inside without saying anything. Mia walked into the family room, where her dad was watching some history show. “Where’s Brooke?”

“Oh, she’s taking a nap.” He muted the sound. “How was the service?”

She had to press her lips together and take a deep breath before she could answer. “It was tough.” How could she put into words the despair that had gripped her? “It all just started feeling so useless, Dad. I mean, I know this sounds melodramatic, but we’re all just going to die. We run around and try to keep busy and try to fool ourselves, but in the end doesn’t it basically all add up to nothing?” She was aware that she sounded like a teenager, some kid who had just taken his first philosophy class and felt himself enlightened, but what she was saying still felt true and real. “I mean, what’s the point?”

Her dad met her gaze with unshadowed eyes. “It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it?”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything more. “You’re not going to talk to me about our reward being in heaven?”

“Nope.”

Mia surprised herself by laughing and then plopping on the couch next to him. “I kind of wish you would. So we could have a big knock-down, drag-out fight.”

“Sometimes it feels really good to yell, doesn’t it?” Her dad had done plenty of yelling back in the day. “It’s great stress relief, at least as long as you’re not the person being yelled at.” He put his arm around her.

After a moment, Mia melted against him. “It just feels so empty. I feel so empty.”

“I don’t think you can fill yourself up with big things, big concepts, big philosophies. What matters are the little things. What we do today. How we treat each other this very minute. It’s how we live our ordinary days that matters. Because today is all we have.” He gave her a hug. “Now go over to Colleen’s and I’ll hold down the fort.”

In the car Mia thought about what her dad had said. Something had definitely changed him, because the dad she knew would never have thought about how he treated others.

At Colleen’s, Mia parked across the street in front of the house with its listing For Sale sign. It looked sad and closed off, with all the blinds closed tight.

There was a much smaller group here than at the funeral, but still the house felt crowded. She said hello to Frank, who was busy shaking hands and promising that they were making progress finding Colleen’s killer. She had been giving him daily briefings, so he knew exactly how much progress they were—or weren’t—making, but he appeared to be in full campaign mode. She nodded at a handful of her co-workers who were looking at a series of framed watercolors that Colleen had painted a few years ago.

In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of red wine from one of the many freshly opened bottles. When she went back out into the living room, Anne gave her a sideways hug. They hadn’t talked since Anne had given her the advice about keeping her heart where her shoes were.

“Doing okay?” Anne looked at her. Really looked. And for a second Mia felt less alone.

“It’s not easy,” she said, and decided to leave it at that.

Katrina came up carrying a plate filled with snacks. “How’s the list on that flip chart of yours going?”

“It keeps getting longer, not shorter.” Mia drained the last of the wine from her glass, then held it up. “If you guys will excuse me, I’m going to go get some more wine.”

Back in the kitchen she poured herself another glass, her hand shaking ever so slightly. She didn’t know much about wine, but this one tasted of oak and fruit. And it was making everything pleasantly distant. Making it so she could stand to think about how she would never see Colleen again, or Scott, or even Stan.

Mia snagged an unopened bag of Trader Joe’s sesame seed honey cashews, an irresistible mix of sweet, salt, fat, and crunch, and then picked up an untouched bottle of wine. She slipped out the back door and went out into the side yard. She settled back against a maple tree, out of sight of the house. It was warm, nearly seventy degrees. If she didn’t look up at the scarlet leaves, she might not know it was fall. If she didn’t turn and look back at the house, she wouldn’t know she was at the wake for her best friend. Instead, Mia alternated sips of wine with handfuls of cashews. The two flavors didn’t really go together, but after a few swigs, she didn’t notice it as much.

“I was wondering where you got to.” Charlie stood over her. She couldn’t see his expression because the sun was behind his head like a halo. Charlie an angel? She didn’t think so.

“I’m still here,” Mia said, trying to enunciate her words. “Still here even if no one else is.”