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on my three-inch thick plastic-covered straw mattress, I stared down at my orange jumpsuit—decorated with the letters JCSO for Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office—to my tan inmate-issued flip-flops and decided for the nth time that whoever murdered Wicked had picked the CrimDefs retreat to do so because I’d be nailed for the crime. A walking, quacking fucking duck.
    Who did it?
    I again went over everyone who’d been at the retreat, from Iris to Max to that foppy looking rock star dude to any one of the several dozen other attorneys present that evening. Who had motive? Obviously everyone had opportunity. And means as, from what Sam had learned from the medical examiner’s office, the knife stuck into Wicked was the same kind I’d earlier wielded, meaning the killer lifted the knife from our kitchen. If only I hadn’t taken that stroll to clear my head and breathe in some mountain air…if only I’d asked Sam to accompany me. Or Laura. Hell, even Mavis…detectives could’ve pulled physical evidence from her paws, seen the part of the property we’d been walking on, the lack of blood spatter on the fur. Yeah, even Mavis could’ve been my alibi, but no, I was alone, no witnesses, motive up the wazoo.
    A Jeffco detention deputy sheriff whose stomach seriously strained the green fabric of his shirt sauntered in front of my cell. I vaguely recalled grilling the dude in a trial years ago, assault and battery case. From the smug, I-got-you-asshole look on his face, he remembered, too. I had to be his dream-cell fantasy come true. A lawyer in chains.
    “Levine,” he barked, opening the door. “Visitor. Chop chop.”
    He secured my leg shackles and escorted me to the visitation cell, a square cinderblock room with a thirty by forty-inch window of thick glass. On the other side sat Laura, looking pale and drawn with circles so dark under her eyes, they looked painted on. I hated what I was putting her through.
    “I’ve missed you,” I said into the phone.
    “Me, too.” She closed her eyes, reopened them. “Cancelled the housekeepers, caterers…even the laundry service. Figured there won’t be business for a while.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Not your fault.” She forced a small smile. “Mavis and I are doing fine, really.”
    “She must love having my chair all to herself.”
    “When she’s not there, she’s lying at the kitchen door, waiting for you to come home.”
    That got to me. I had to swallow, hard.
    She straightened, looked almost eager. “Judge set bail, and I’m working on making it.”
    Good news, as most people charged with first-degree murder aren’t even entitled to bail. But if it was a judge who hated my guts, bail could be higher than Jerry on his eighty-four summer tour. “The number?”
    “Half a million.” Seeing the look on my face, she quickly added, “We’ll be able to post it using the equity in the lodge.”
    “You can’t do that. Even if you could, it’s your livelihood. Your home.”
    I knew what roots meant to her. She’d grown up in a series of dusty, broken-down trailer parks throughout Arizona and California. Her dad had fancied himself a construction worker, and had occasionally even found jobs pounding nails, but the truth was he spent more of his time chasing jobs than keeping them. Which meant Laura and her family were good at packing up the trailer and towing it to another town, another possible job. Her mom had been lonely and depressed, her main outlets bitching about her old man and drinking. Laura was more a mom to her kid sister, Becky, who at fifteen ran away with a boy and was never heard from again. When I’d first hooked up with Laura, I’d tried to help find her sister, but there were no links to her maiden name, I couldn’t dredge up a social, and nobody had a clue where she and the boy might have gone.
    All of which had left Laura with a yearning to have a stable, predictable home. The very thing she could lose, thanks to me.
    I blew out an