Read Intent to Kill for Free Online

again at the base of the granite staircase. Doug Wells had no cameraman with him, however, and Emma knew that the mike was just a prop.
    “Predictions,” she said, stopping to ponder the question. “Maybe just one: you and I will never have a second date.”
    “Aw, come on,” he said, with the smile that had won him two local Emmy Awards. “You know I don’t take no for an answer.”
    “That was the problem with the first date.”
    “Fair enough. I came on too strong, I admit. But we’ve seen each other around the courthouse for so long that it just didn’t feel like a first date to me. I said I was sorry.”
    Emma felt a mild sense of irony. She’d just spent the last three days prosecuting a case of date rape in which her final words to the jury had been “No means no.”
    “And I accept your apology,” she said. “But let’s leave it at that, all right?”
    Doug’s smile faded, his feelings obviously hurt. “Okay. Sure. I can keep it professional. But you do realize what this means, don’t you?”
    “What?”
    He smiled again. “My cameraman will now only film you from your bad side.”
    “I can live with that,” she said.
    “I’ll catch you later, Emma.”
    “Later,” she said, happy to part amicably.
    Rush-hour traffic was already crawling toward the interstate entrance ramps, and Emma was in a hurry to return to the office across the street before her division chief left for the day. She was still at that stage of her career where an integral part of the trial experience was recapping the drama for her boss, which was much more fun to do in person than over the phone.
    She stopped at the corner before crossing the street. Several copies of the Providence Journal were still in the self-service newsstand. In today’s world of real-time reporting it contained nothing but old news by 5:00 P.M. , but she bought a copy anyway and saw that the man who’d hired her out of law school was on the front page. Brandon Lomax had served as Rhode Island’s attorney general before launching his campaign for the U.S. Senate a year ago, and he was the front-runner heading into the fall election. Emma smiled at his photo. But it was the date on the ProJo ’s masthead that had caught her attention: September 6.
    The three-year anniversary of Chelsea James’s death had not been lost on her—Emma was the prosecutor on the vehicular homicide investigation.
    Public outcry over the accident had been considerable, especially when it leaked that—for reasons not made public—the police believed the hit-and-run driver had been drunk. The community wanted justice, and for a time it was a high-profile investigation at the attorney general’s office. Emma worked her contacts at local papers and used the Providence television media to appeal for leads. It turned out to be one of those frustrating cases that never turn up a suspect, never come close to the filing of criminal charges. Emma even felt mocked by one of the state’s most well known bumper stickers: IN RI DRUNK DRIVERS GET COURT . It was a play on words rooted in a dialect where the letter r appeared out of nowhere—where a soda was a “soder” and an idea was an “idear.” Did it literally mean “court,” or did drunk drivers get “caught”?
    In the Chelsea James case, it meant neither.
    After two years without a single lead, Emma still fought to keep the case active. When she was transferred to the sexual assault unit last year, all but one of her DUI prosecutions had been reassigned to other prosecutors. The James case she held on to. Or, perhaps more accurately, it held on to her.
    Emma stood at the busy street corner flipping through the newspaper pages. She didn’t even realize that the traffic light had cycled from red to green and then back to red. Today’s local section contained not a single word about Chelsea James. Not that she’d expected to find one. It was as if the world had forgotten.
    But Emma hadn’t.
    She tucked the