He hit a button and the drawing came alive as if a camera were moving through the house. There was even fake furniture in place to give it a lived-in look.

  “I like that sofa,” Trish said.

  “Me too. That’s why I picked it.”

  “You decorated the house?”

  “Yeah, I’ve stored an inventory of furniture, and the program selects from that when furnishing the house.”

  “Go to the kitchen,” Trish said.

  As Keith moved the cursor, the camera traveled through a dining area and into the kitchen.

  “Doesn’t that seem too narrow?” Trish asked.

  “The walkway is three feet across.” Keith leaned closer to the computer screen. “But it can be expanded without changing anything except the laundry room and the garage. Let’s add two feet and see what you think.”

  Trish watched the kitchen widen by one-third. “That makes a lot of difference,” she said.

  “And adds seventy-seven hundred dollars,” Keith said, directing her attention to a bar at the bottom of the screen that projected construction costs.

  “But there’s room for two people to be in there at once without running over each other.”

  “I like that thought,” Keith said with a smile.

  Keith rode to church with Trish and Marge. On the way home, they took a slight detour and drove past the property on Cockburn Road. The sun was setting and the trees along the creek cast long, spindly shadows on the rows of soybeans. After seeing the house plans, Trish’s level of interest was higher. She pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

  “Are you worried the property might sell before you decide what to do?” Marge asked Keith.

  “No,” Keith responded. “After we came over on Sunday, I signed an option that gives me the right to purchase it anytime I want within the next six months. It’s been on the market for a couple of years without any takers, and the seller was happy to work out a deal. I even negotiated a reduction of $750 an acre.”

  Trish listened slightly wide-eyed. “This is going to happen, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “It’s what I want. Not many people go from living at home to home ownership without an intermediate step or two.” He paused. “And the thought that I could drink my own well water sends me over the moon.”

  Trish smiled. “That’s not going to work now. The time has passed.”

  “The time for what has passed?” Marge asked.

  “For me to be silly,” Trish replied. “I’m going to have to start pretending I’m an adult even if I don’t always act like it.”

  Holt finished the last page of Tony McDermott’s report. There wasn’t much new in the packet from the former detective beyond a brief reference to Cecil Burkdale that included the bookkeeper’s phone number and a note from McDermott to follow up with a second interview. There was no mention of Claudine, the housekeeper, which increased Holt’s doubt about Burkdale’s description of the events on the night of Rex Meredith’s death.

  Holt spent most of the morning making final corrections to his brief in the Sanford case. He felt good about his chances. Generally, the court of appeals didn’t disturb a jury’s verdict in a criminal trial, but no judge was completely predictable. He’d already seen cases in which a ruling at trial that didn’t seem crucial at the time turned out to be so when examined in the academic air of the appellate court.

  For lunch he picked up a salad for himself, another for Angelina, and took the food to the salon. Brittany greeted him with a half-eaten apple in her hand. She put her fingers over her mouth as she swallowed. Angelina and Holt were scheduled for a double date with Brittany and Skip on Saturday night.

  “I think there’s a piece of peel stuck in my teeth,” Brittany said from behind her hand.

  “Don’t touch it. Skip Patrick thinks girls with stray bits of food in their mouths are super attractive.”

  “Gross.” Brittany rubbed the front of her teeth with a tissue, then ran her tongue over them. “I think I got it.”

  Holt leaned over the counter as she flashed a bright smile. “Blinding white,” he said. “And tell me, because Skip and I both want to know. How did you get to be so totally gorgeous?”

  “Quit.” Brittany blushed.

  “Whoa, I didn’t know I could make you blush with a compliment. That is going to be my new game—make Brittany blush in ten seconds or less.”

  “Don’t, or I’ll tell Angelina something terrible about you.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll make it up.”

  “Where is she? I’m the delivery boy for her lunch.”

  “Finishing up with a customer. Go to the kitchen, and I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  Holt headed toward the kitchen.

  “Holt,” Brittany called after him, “thanks for setting this up with Skip. I know it may not lead anywhere, but my social life has been stuck in neutral for a while—actually, a long while—and it will be fun to do something, especially with you and Angelina.”

  “We’re looking forward to it.”

  “Just promise me that you and Skip won’t go off in a corner and talk about law stuff.”

  “Only if you and Angelina promise not to talk about new shades of nail polish.”

  Holt went into the kitchen. He knew not to wait for Angelina and started eating his salad. After a couple of bites, Angelina appeared in the doorway. Her countenance was a dark cloud.

  “Starving?” she asked curtly, raising her eyebrows.

  Holt swallowed his bite. “I would have waited,” he said, “but I didn’t know how long you’d be.”

  Angelina sat down across from him at the little round table. Holt could tell she was ticked off. His first instinct was to ask why, but he knew that might make her madder because he didn’t know in advance why she was upset. There was nothing to do but wait until the storm clouds revealed the source of their rain. He ate another bite and watched her as she vigorously stirred the dressing into her salad.

  “I can tell when you’re preoccupied,” Angelina said, “and if you’re hiding something from me.”

  It was an obscure clue, but it was all Holt had to work with. The first thing that popped into his head was the Meredith investigation. Angelina stabbed her salad with vicious intensity.

  “Eaten any good sandwiches lately?” she asked in a clipped tone of voice.

  “Uh, I fixed a roast beef and Swiss cheese on rye for supper last night,” he said. “But what made it good was a farm-grown tomato I bought at that little stand beside the gas station on Eastway Drive.”

  “Yeah.” Angelina nodded. “Eastway Drive. You’re getting hot.”

  Mystified, Holt ignored his food. Angelina glared at him.

  “The blond deputy sheriff,” she spit out. “The one we met at the steak house the other night. I knew in my bones she was interested in you when you introduced me to her, but I tried to ignore my instincts.”

  “Trish Carmichael?”

  “Yes. Am I supposed to be surprised that you remember her name?” Angelina shook her head angrily. “You ran out of here the other day after giving me a long kiss so you could meet her for dinner at the sandwich shop on Eastway Drive.”

  “That was business.”

  “That’s not the way it looked to my customer who came in this morning and asked if you and I were still dating. Unlike today, when you couldn’t wait for me before stuffing your face, she said you ignored your food and stared deep into Deputy Carmichael’s face with tears in your eyes.”

  “Oh—” Holt started, then stopped. He wasn’t sure where to begin or end.

  “Give it to me straight, Holt,” Angelina said, her lower lip quivering. “What’s going on and when were you going to tell me?”

  “Nothing is going on between me and Trish Carmichael,” Holt said, trying to keep his voice calm. “She’s been helping me with an investigation into a cold case, and we needed to talk about it away from the sheriff’s department.”

  “And this case makes you cry?”

  “No”—Holt paused—“that was something else I’ve never mentioned to you.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Holt desperately wanted to call them back. “Not that I wouldn’t tell you,” he quickly added.

  But it was too late. Angelina slammed shut the top of her salad container and stormed out of the kitchen.

  “Angelina, wait!” Holt called after her.

  She didn’t slow down but held up her hand to keep him from saying anything else. When she reached the door, she paused for a second and glared at him. Her face was red.

  “Don’t call, text, or come by,” she said in a trembling voice. “I mean it.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  22

  Stunned, Holt remained in the kitchen. He and Angelina had argued before. They’d had misunderstandings. But this had a deeper feel to it. He tried to think what he should or could do to make it right. Options from flowers to a handwritten note to use of an intermediary such as Skip crossed his mind.

  But nothing felt right.

  Pushing his chair away from the little table, he dropped the uneaten remains of his lunch into the trash can beside the refrigerator. Angelina would need time to cool off before he’d have any hope of reconciliation.

  Holt cautiously opened the kitchen door and glanced down the hallway. There was no one in sight. All he had to do was run the gauntlet past Brittany. He eased down the hall. He could see that the receptionist was on the phone, so he picked up his pace and briskly walked past her workstation.

  “That was a quick lunch,” Brittany called out after him in a cheerful voice. “See you Saturday.”

  With his back to her, Holt raised his hand in the air in farewell as he continued out the front door. Numb, he drove back to work and retreated to his office. Hunkered down behind his desk, he tried to convince himself this was a temporary problem. Eventually Angelina would give him a chance to explain himself. When that happened, he’d tell her about Calico’s death and how his memories were triggered by the tragedy in Trish Carmichael’s family, which had nothing to do with any romantic feelings toward the female deputy. One key would be timing. Another would be place. A neutral setting would be best. It couldn’t look like a date.

  And it couldn’t be the sandwich shop on Eastway Drive.

  There wasn’t time for Holt to mope and feel sorry for himself. He had work to do. He listened to his voice-mail messages. The second one sent him back into the black hole he’d crawled out of. It was from Skip.

  “Hey, buddy. Do you want to strategize a little bit about Saturday night? My cleaning lady is coming tomorrow to straighten up my place, so we could come back here for a drink or two after dinner. I sure hope she can find what’s causing the foul smell around here. I think it’s a pair of socks you left after we went for a run a few weeks ago. Did you stick them someplace as a joke? Anyway, call me before the end of the day. Oh, and maybe Angelina can find out what Brittany likes to do. I’d just as soon chill and talk as put together something organized. But if they want to do something else, let me know. You know how I hate card games, except Texas Hold’em poker.”

  Holt deleted the voice mail. He wasn’t ready to call Skip and unpack the disaster with Angelina. He listened to the rest of his messages. Several required immediate action on cases, so he returned the calls. The process of talking with people about matters unrelated to his romantic woes nudged him back into his work groove. One message was from Butch Clovis about a bad-check case on the trial calendar in a couple of weeks. Holt called the detective.

  “I’ve lined up someone from the bank who can testify that the account had been closed for six months,” Clovis said. “And there are eyewitnesses from both of the stores where the defendant passed off the checks. They knew him from previous transactions at the stores.”

  “The defense lawyer claims the defendant’s brother wrote the checks without his client’s permission,” Holt replied.

  “If he did, the defendant is the one who negotiated them to the tune of almost twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  “Okay, e-mail the witnesses’ contact information to Belinda so she can prepare subpoenas. Copy me so I can talk to them myself before our trial date.”

  “Sure.”

  Holt paused for a second. “Do you know a guy named Cecil Burkdale?”

  “Yeah, he used to work for Rex Meredith. Is he in trouble?”

  “Not yet. Would you believe him?”

  “It depends. He runs a little bookkeeping business out of his house. I wouldn’t put it past him to cross the line if he thought he could get away with it. Is there something you want me to check out?”

  “No thanks.”

  After the call ended, Holt wondered why he’d brought up Burkdale to Clovis. There was no good reason to do it. The detective certainly wasn’t going to be an ally in the hunt for truth related to Rex Meredith’s death. Holt shook his head. His blowup with Angelina had made his judgment fuzzy.

  Holt worked until shortly before the time he needed to leave for his meeting with Trish Carmichael at the courthouse. He considered canceling the appointment with the deputy. In the bigger scheme of things, ending her involvement in the Meredith matter would be smart, both personally and professionally. He picked up the phone, called the sheriff’s office, and asked to speak with her.

  “She’s off duty,” the dispatcher said. “Would you like to leave a message with me or on her voice mail?”

  “No thanks.”

  The expanding Meredith folder in his hand, Holt left the office. It was a short walk across the parking lot to the courthouse. Whatever he had to tell Trish, it would happen face-to-face.

  Trish sat on a bench at the rear of the main courtroom, which was as empty and quiet as a church sanctuary on Monday morning. She looked up. There were flecks of paint beginning to loosen their grip at the creases where the elaborate crown molding met the ceiling.

  All day she’d been praying for Holt Douglas. In her braver moments, she saw herself telling him she knew the details of his high school friend’s death and was ready to offer sympathy and help. A passage she’d pondered many times from 2 Corinthians kept rolling through her mind: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Time didn’t heal all wounds. Unlike physical scabs, emotional hurts were outside the body’s capacity to restore. They needed the supernatural balm of Gilead. And the verses in 2 Corinthians revealed that God wanted his people to join him in the healing business. If he’d let her, Trish could comfort Holt with the measure of comfort she’d received.

  The tears in Holt’s eyes at the sandwich shop were signs of a grief that had no hope attached to its sorrow. His friend died, but God spared Holt for a reason, and Trish wanted to tell him that being thankful for the gift of life wouldn’t dishonor his friend’s memory. Rather, Holt’s existence was a flower growing out of dark soil. It should blossom with appreciation. And a godly gratitude would bring Holt a step closer to the Lord Jesus, whose love and forgiveness were the only remedy for the past and a sure foundation for the future.

  Trish sighed. All her thoughts hadn’t been filled with triumphant faith.

  In one imaginary scenario, Holt looked at her with disdain and told her to mind her own business. In another, he immediately started cross-examining her to discover why she wanted to dig up his past. In a third, he told her he’d called out to God for help and, hearing nothing, concluded there was no one there to answer. The back door to the courtroom opened, and Trish turned sideways. It was Holt.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “It’s been good for me to sit here for a few moments and be quiet. One of my favorite Bible verses is ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ ”

  Holt gave her a puzzled look.

  “Do you ever get quiet and pray?” Trish continued, trying to sound confident.

  “No, but I’m sure I should,” Holt replied. “Let’s go to the jury room and talk.”

  With each step, the place where Trish had been when she prayed for Holt seemed further and further away. The jury room contained a long rectangular wooden table surrounded by simple chairs. In the corner was an old-fashioned coatrack. On one wall was a chalkboard that gave the room a schoolhouse feel. Written on the chalkboard was the figure “$2,500” and, beside it, “nothing for pain and suffering.”

  “I bet a plaintiff’s lawyer was upset when that verdict was announced in court,” Holt grunted.

  Holt sat at the end of the table, and Trish slid into a chair to his left. She wasn’t yet willing to completely let go of her desire that they talk about something other than Rex Meredith’s death.

  “How’s your day been?” she asked.

  Holt turned to her with a look of shock that hit her like a cup of cold water to the face. “What?” he asked.

  “Um, I just asked about your day. I didn’t mean to pry into anything that’s going on at the DA’s office or your personal life.”

  Holt pressed his lips together tightly before he spoke. “Well, a little over three hours ago my girlfriend kicked me out of her life and her salon because she heard from one of her customers that I was cheating on her.”

  Trish grew pale. Holt leaned toward her.

  “And guess who Angelina believes I was seeing on the side?”

  “I don’t know,” Trish responded in a shaky voice.

  Holt raised his hand and pointed his finger at her nose.

  “Me?” Trish asked, trying hard to swallow.

  “Yes. This is all based on our meeting the other day at the sandwich shop on Eastway when you told me about your family, and I brought up the death of my friend. Angelina’s customer didn’t hear anything we said but interpreted from the emotion on our faces that we were sharing intimate secrets with each other.” Holt paused. “Which I guess was true but not in the way she believed. Then when Angelina met you the other night at the steak restaurant, she had some crazy woman’s intuition thing that you had a crush on me, and I was hiding my true feelings about you from her. Other than that, it’s been a great day.”