When they reached the San Francisco pier, Teddy shut the car door and boarded the ferry without a word.
“Teddy, you okay?” Nick’s voice interrupted her thoughts. She hadn’t even realized they had arrived on Angel Island. She made her way down to the dock. Nick followed. Kate was well on her way back to campus.
April played havoc with the normally placid bay. Waves churned against the rocky cliffs. Teddy had expected Nick to wonder whether she was all right. She hadn’t expected him to ask. Nor was she prepared to see such genuine concern in his eyes. It threw her.
“Teddy?”
She chewed her bottom lip, not sure where to begin. Or, for that matter, if she should say anything at all. But the temptation to tell someone else what had happened—or at least part of what had happened—was too strong to resist.
“What did you see?” he pressed. “Do you remember?”
She’d never seen a dead body, let alone a murder. What she knew would haunt her forever: seeing the fear in Marlena’s eyes just . . . cease to exist. She would have expected death to be gradual, not sudden. One moment Marlena was there, fighting, alive. The next, she wasn’t.
Teddy wasn’t conscious of moving toward Nick. Or maybe he was the one who moved toward her. Somehow her body was pressed up against his. And she just stayed there. His shoulders were broader than she’d imagined, the muscles beneath his shirt harder, more defined.
She finally pulled herself together and took a deliberate step back. “We already knew that Marlena was strangled to death,” she said. “Jillian had that communion back in the library. But when I was with Corey, I accessed his memories. I . . .”
He studied her. “Yes?” he prompted.
Teddy struggled to put the experience into words. “I was right there with him and Marlena in the wetlands.”
Nick’s brow furrowed. “It’s hard. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t get easier. That’s the job, Teddy. When it gets easier, it’s time to quit.” He let out a breath. “I called in the tip. We have people tracking his hat. And officers working on a full confession with his lawyer present—” He paused. “I wanted to ask you back there. How’d you know about the handwriting? It was a neat trick.”
Teddy stiffened. “Just a hunch.” She didn’t want to tell Nick that she had met a man named Derek Yates; she wanted to ask Nick about Yates without telling him about Yates.“I’m still in shock, honestly. We assumed he was innocent,” she said. “For a time it seemed you did, too, otherwise we wouldn’t have taken on the case.”
Nick sighed. “I never like to see an innocent person put away. It’s our job to be sure.”
This was her opening. “So it’s possible for an innocent man to be convicted of a crime he didn’t commit?”
He gave a reluctant shrug. “Yeah. Of course. Cops screw up. Witnesses make mistakes. Juries get it wrong. It’s not something anyone wants to happen, but—”
“What if they did?”
“What?”
“What if that’s exactly what they wanted to happen?” She looked at him, wondering if she should go on. But she wanted to know. She needed to know. “What if evidence was altered in order to force a conviction? To lock away someone who knew something he shouldn’t know?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Nick held up his hands, palms facing out, like a traffic cop intent on slowing her down. “What you described between Corey and Marlena wasn’t planned. Now you’re saying that Corey was framed because he knew something he shouldn’t?”
Teddy made a vague motion with her hand. “Not Corey. I’m talking in general terms.”
His eyes narrowed. “No, you’re not.” Nick wasn’t stupid. “Something else happened at San Quentin, didn’t it?” he said, his voice harsh.
Again she felt the urge to unburden herself. Even stronger was the urge to ask for his help. Could she bet on Nick? She still wasn’t sure.
Nick let out an exasperated sigh. “All right, fine. Don’t tell me,” he said. “Let me see if I can guess. Some inmate in there got to you somehow. Fed you some tale of woe. ‘I didn’t do it. I was framed.’ Christ, Teddy. We’re talking San Quentin here. Five percent of inmates openly brag about their crimes. The other ninety-five percent insist they’re innocent bystanders who were set up by crooked cops and paid-off judges.”
She leveled her chin. “So that never happens, huh?”
“Of course it happens. People get struck by lightning, too. Does that mean you run every time you hear thunder?”
She looked up. “Sky’s clear. But thanks for the advice, Agent Stavros.”
He caught her arm as she turned away. “Look, the justice system isn’t perfect. I have no doubt I’ve messed up a few investigations, but never deliberately. The same is true for the rest of my colleagues.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “You’re all a bunch of Eagle Scouts. No manipulation at all on your part, or Clint’s, in getting me to come to Whitfield. But maybe that’s a bad example.” She wished she hadn’t said it. She wanted to let it go, but after her conversation with Yates, she didn’t know how.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Teddy—”
“Do you mind?” she said. He was still holding her arm. “I’ve got a class.”
He released her. “Document what happened on the McDonald case. That’s the investigation that matters. You’ll find out soon enough that half of all crime-solving is paperwork.”
She walked away from
