A rare smile lit up Nicole's face, but she still shrugged. "You would have done the same for me."
"How about you, Allison?" Cassidy asked. "How are you doing? Really?"
"Physically, I'm back to normal." Allison realized she was resting her hand on her now-flat belly. "Emotionally--well, first I was sad, then numb, then scared. I've also been angry, and depressed, and through it all I've been exhausted. Now I'm back to sad. But I've been praying a lot, and I feel like God is really walking beside me."
"How can you say that?" Nicole asked. For once it sounded like a question, not an accusation. "You had this horrible, horrible thing happen to you. How can it have anything to do with God? If He really loved you, wouldn't He have stopped this from happening?"
It was a question Allison had asked herself, and she tried to answer as honestly as possible. "You know what, Nic? I don't really have an answer. But I'm coming to terms with that. Life is full of mystery. Not everything folds up neatly into boxes. But I believe that God sometimes allows something to happen that in His wisdom and power He could prevent. I will probably never know why. Maybe
I'm not capable of knowing why. The peace I'm beginning to find isn't something I can explain in words. It comes from knowing that God is good, and from looking for the good that can come from this."
She watched Nicole as she spoke. Allison knew her friend wouldn't argue with her, not when she was so raw, but she was unprepared for the tiny flicker of vulnerability in Nicole's eyes. It was like she was really hearing Allison's words.
Cassidy said simply, "I'm so glad to hear that."
Allison added, "All I can do is get through each day the best I can. But I need something to focus on. That's why I'm going back to the office tomorrow."
Cassidy looked shocked. "You're not going back to work?"
"What am I supposed to do? Sit around at home and think about what happened? I feel like God is telling me to move forward. I'm tired of talking about me and thinking about me. I'd much rather think about my cases. Especially Jim Fate."
"You're not the only one who can't stop thinking about Jim Fate," Nicole said. "And I've got news for you. Right before I came here tonight, I got the lab results on his blood."
"And?"
"It was fentanyl after all."
Allison's mouth opened in surprise. "Fentanyl! Then Glover must have done it." Despite his claims, Chris must not be as good at telling voices apart as he had thought.
Nicole's nose wrinkled. "One odd thing was that the dosage was amazingly high. The lab people are still trying to figure out how Glover was able to concentrate it like he did."
"So what does fentanyl do to you when you inhale it?" Cassidy asked.
"They say it would have caused an almost immediate opioidinduced apnea," Nicole said. "Basically, he would have wanted t9 breathe, but his lungs wouldn't have cooperated."
Cassidy winced. "That sounds painful."
"Everyone says it only took a couple of minutes for him to die," Allison said. She didn't point out how long a couple of minutes could be. She had once won a conviction on a murder case by simply asking the jury to think about the strangling victim while she timed two minutes on her watch.
Two minutes had proved to be an eternity.
Chapter 40
Channel 4 TV
Monday, February 20
Allison Pierce is here to see you," the receptionist told Cassidy.
"Great. Could you send her down?" Cassidy wanted to get a little bit more work done before she took off. She didn't have any stories on tonight's news. Her entire day had been spent working on the half-hour special about Jim Fate--"Death of a Talk Show Host"--that was scheduled to air at the end of the month.
The special would have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But something about Jim Fate's death still felt like unfinished business.
"Hey," Allison said. "Are you ready to hit Nordstrom Rack?"
The plan was to do a little window-shopping and then grab a bite to eat, with Nicole joining them if she could. Cassidy guessed that Allison just wanted to check up on her and see if she was doing okay. But the joke was on Allison--Cassidy wanted to do the exact same thing to her.
"Give me a minute, would you?"
"What are you working on?" Allison leaned down to look over her shoulder. One side of Cassidy's computer showed the transcript of an interview she had conducted with a nationally known talk show host right after Jim's funeral. On the other was the script she was writing.