A Matter of Trust

Chapter 49





When Mia turned onto her street, a strange car was in the driveway. Although it wasn’t completely unfamiliar. She had seen the car someplace before, but it didn’t belong to any of her friends. And it wasn’t the car that Zach from the football team had been driving. Still, seeing it made her uneasy. Her cell phone started ringing, but she ignored it.

Through the windows at the top of the front door, Mia glimpsed something that turned her blood to icy slush. A blur of moving heads, swinging arms—it looked like there was some kind of a fight going on inside her house.

Throwing the car into park and turning it off, she scrambled out so fast that she left the keys still in the ignition and the car door wide open. All Mia’s energy was concentrated on getting to her kids.

At that moment she wasn’t a prosecutor. She wasn’t anything but a mother.

She ran up onto the porch and threw open the front door. Too late, she realized that Gabe was just on the other side. He let out a grunt as the edge thumped into his left shoulder.

At first she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Gabe was gripping the tail of his skateboard. He held it cocked by his right ear as if it were a bat. His teeth were bared in a grimace. He looked like an animal.

The other person standing in the entryway was Katrina. Bright rivulets of blood were running down her face from a nasty-looking gash on her left temple. She raised her hand to it and pulled back fingers that looked like they had just been dipped in red paint. Her eyes widened.

“What’s going on?” Mia demanded. Had Gabe gone berserk?

“Mom—she’s the one who killed Colleen!”

Shaking her head, Katrina looked at her with pleading eyes. “Your son’s gone crazy, Mia—you’ve got to help me!”

If the past few days had taught Mia anything, it was that teenagers couldn’t be trusted. That even her son was capable of lying.

She hesitated.

Katrina’s expression hardened. She wiped her fingers down the front of her trench coat, then slid her hand into her purse. When it reappeared, it held a small black pistol. A pistol that she pointed at Mia’s chest. “Put down the skateboard, Gabe. Or I’ll shoot your mom.”

Mia’s mouth fell open. Nothing made sense. Gabe set the skateboard on the floor.

“Now roll it down the hall and out of the way,” Katrina ordered.

He complied, at the same time turning his head to give Mia a look that mingled fear and determination. The skateboard came to a stop near the kitchen.

“What’s happening?” Mia said. “I don’t understand.” Her thoughts were sludgy. They kept getting stuck on Katrina’s icy eyes. On the blood that was now dripping from her cheek onto the floor. On the round eye of the gun pointed right at Mia’s heart.

It was Gabe who answered her. “When you had me listen to Colleen, I heard something right after she died. Like classical music. I thought she must have been listening to the radio, and that I could hear it because she stopped breathing. But it was Katrina’s ring tone. She’s the one who really killed her.”

Katrina puffed air out of her pursed lips. “I came over with my ski equipment like I told you about, and then all of a sudden your son picked up his skateboard and hit me in the face. He’s gone crazy, Mia. I had to threaten you to protect myself. To stop your son from hitting me again.”

What was the truth? Whom should she believe? But Mia’s brain was picking up speed. And Katrina hadn’t put down her gun.

She looked from Katrina’s eyes to Gabe’s. And then she made her choice.

“So why did you do it, Katrina? Why did you kill Colleen?”

Mia watched her decide whether to continue to lie. But then she shrugged and said, “Colleen didn’t understand.”

“What didn’t she understand?”

“She didn’t understand that you could still do a good job even if you were getting a little something extra.”

“Something extra?” The light dawned. She remembered what Eli had said about a plea bargain that seemed too good to be true. “You mean like bribes?”

“I’m just keeping the court system from getting clogged,” Katrina said. “But then Colleen started poking that big red nose of hers where it didn’t belong.”

Mia remembered Colleen’s words. “If there’s one thing this job has taught me, it’s to turn over rocks—but sometimes you don’t like what you find underneath. Lately I’ve been thinking how flat-out ugly it can get.”

“Colleen asked me about it over lunch. She was all lovey-dovey, pretending she understood. Like she was my mom and I was her little girl. I finally told her that I had helped out a couple of poor souls. And of course I said there was no money involved, just me trying to give a few people a second chance. That’s the kind of sappy stuff she liked. I gave it my best, but I could tell Colleen wasn’t buying it. And that it was only a matter of time before she took it to Frank.”

Mia nodded. She was listening, sickened, but her mind was also working double time. Where was Brooke? She wasn’t even going to mention her. Mia just hoped that she was safe upstairs. That her daughter had escaped Katrina’s notice.

“When Colleen went to the bathroom, I took her office key. And over the weekend I went through her files. I found a notebook she’d been keeping. I took that home and burned it. And then I cut another special deal with one of my defendants to help me take care of the problem.”

Gabe was looking, not at the gun, not at Katrina, but at Mia. He cut his eyes away to something behind Katrina. He did it again. Her son wanted her to notice something. But what?

“But we didn’t find any evidence at the scene.” Mia hoped that Katrina didn’t notice her eyes searching for what Gabe wanted her to see. “How did you manage that?” She managed a note of admiration.

“I got us both the same Danner boots the crime-scene techs wear.” There was a weird glint in Katrina’s flat eyes. Something oddly like pride. “I knew we could tramp all over her yard and no one would ever see it.”

Katrina must think there was no chance they would repeat her boasts. Which meant that she was going to kill both of them. Everything was lost, Mia realized. Everything. It wasn’t enough that Scott was dead. Now her family was going to die. And for what? For what?

She sent up an incoherent plea, a plea that wasn’t even really words. God, help us. Help my children.

Then she saw what Gabe had wanted her to notice. On the entry table behind Katrina was something flat and silver.

A knife. It was a knife. And it looked like a big one. Now was not the time to wonder why her chef’s knife had ended up on the entryway table.

Mia looked at Gabe and then the door. With both hands, she made a steering motion. Katrina’s face screwed up in puzzlement. Then Mia drove in hard, pushing Katrina’s gun arm up, while groping desperately for the knife with her other hand.

The gun fired into the ceiling, filling her nostrils with acrid smoke. Her ears rang as if they had been boxed.

“The keys are in the car,” Mia yelled. “Go get help!” Gabe didn’t even have his learner’s permit, but if he tried to run to the neighbors, Katrina might shoot him dead on someone’s doorstep. He fumbled open the front door and ran outside. Mia grappled for Katrina’s gun with her left hand while straining for the knife with her right.

Katrina elbowed Mia in the face, knocking her sideways. The gun fired again. It felt like someone had punched Mia in the shoulder. She staggered back, one step, two, as her left arm turned hot and tingly. Only the adrenaline coursing through her allowed her to ignore it.

Katrina stepped over the threshold and began to aim.

Mia lurched forward and grabbed the knife. She saw Brooke at the top of the stairs, her thumb in her mouth. “Go back to your room!” she screamed and then followed Katrina out the door.

Outside, Gabe was hunched over the steering wheel. Mia heard the engine turn over, but it didn’t catch.

The battery. The stupid battery that had been on Mia’s stupid to-do list. Too late now. Far too late.

Gabe jerked his head up and around. He saw Katrina and threw himself sideways. Just as she fired.

Mia ran toward Katrina, the chef’s knife clenched in her hand. Screaming, “No!” she raised it high overhead and brought it down, aiming for Katrina’s shoulder.

Katrina spun sideways, and the knife caught her in the bicep. Her gun went skittering across the driveway.

Mia yanked the knife free, yelling, “Get the gun, Gabe! Get the gun!”

Gabe scrambled out of the car. He had just picked up the gun when Charlie screeched into the driveway.

If it had been any other cop but Charlie, she and Gabe could easily have been shot. A cowering woman with obvious wounds facing a woman armed with a knife and a boy with a gun—who was the victim?

Instead, Charlie aimed his gun at Katrina and said, “Katrina Nowell, you are under arrest for the murder of Colleen Miller.”