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Damon Gant meets her in their shared office before even the sun has risen, a manila folder in one hand, a steaming mug of coffee in the other.
“Sorry about the early start, Lana,” he says, in the somber, conciliatory voice he uses for press conferences. “But I thought it best you heard from me directly. Please, sit down.”
Lana drifts to her desk, face impassive even as the hairs on the back of her neck prickle beneath her scarf. When Gant’s wake-up text this morning sent her heart thumping, only the early morning hour had stopped her from sending Ema a panicked text. Nothing good ever comes from speaking to Police Chief Gant alone.
“Two cream, two sugar.” Gant slides the coffee mug to her handle first, a facsimile of kindness. So committed to the role he keeps it up even now, behind closed doors. A true method actor.
There was a time not so long ago Lana would have found that sort of behaviour fascinating. Now she leaves the coffee untouched and gazes impatiently at the manila folder. “What is it?”
Gant peers down over the rims of his glasses and sighs heavily. “Homicide,” he says, handing her the folder. “Suspect is in custody, arrested at the scene with the murder weapon. The autopsy’s already underway.”
Lana opens the folder to the crime scene photos. For a split second, the heartbeat in her throat seems to stop entirely.
“Family feud, it seems… nasty business.” Gant’s hand lands on her shoulder, a gesture of would-be comfort. “Give it to Manny’s boy, he always gets the job done.”
Lana doesn’t trust herself to speak. She manages to nod, unshed tears stinging her eyes.
“I really am sorry, Lana,” he says, and the worst bit is knowing he means it.
His hand falls away. His footsteps fade as he walks to his own desk, leaving her alone with the pictures of Mia Fey’s lifeless body staring up at Lana in silent judgment.
IX
Mia corners her in the parking lot beneath the prosecutors’ office. As soon as Lana’s through the stairwell door, Mia pushes off from the half-wall she’s leaning against. The brick clings to the ends of her long beige scarf as she steps forward, reluctant to see her go.
“Chief Prosecutor Skye.” The title sounds like a mockery, though Mia’s tone is impressed. A shiver of discomfort ripples down Lana’s spine. “It’s nice to see you’re finally using that badge.”
Lana walks briskly, eyes fixed on her car. Glimpsing concern or sympathy on Mia’s face is a risk Lana is too smart to take. “I’m busy,” is all she says.
“I’ll bet.” Mia falls into step alongside Lana uninvited. “Too busy to return my calls.”
“Yes,” Lana says. Missed calls turned to voicemails, deleted on sight. Mia’s name a dozen times in her inbox, between Jake’s, Angel’s, Ema’s.
“I talked to Jake,” Mia continues, tenacious, fired up. Readying her cross-examination. Catch the witness in a lie. “He told me what happened with Darke.”
Lana dreads to think. The Jake Marshall version of events can’t be flattering. It also can’t be nearly as bad as the truth. She grips her car keys so tight the metal bites into her palm.
“Good,” she says shortly. She walks to the driver’s side, unlocks the car. “Then you’re all caught up.”
“I was hoping to hear it from you.” Mia leans her hip against the car door, impeding Lana’s escape. “I’ve been worried about you.”
Lana shakes her head, tugging ineffectually at the door. “The only thing you should be worried about is facing my prosecutors in court.”
“I’m not an idiot, Lana. I know when you’re hiding something.”
Lana laughs, once, harsh and humourless, and looks Mia in the eyes for the first time. “I’m sure you think you do. You’re the master of keeping secrets, after all.”
Mia straightens up, arms still folded, her eyes narrow, her face determined, unflappable—
But Lana knows Mia Fey, and Lana knows when she’s landed a hit. She sees Mia’s jaw clench, the muscle in her neck tense, the stone pendant lying untouched on Mia’s chest.
“Lana,” Mia says, low, like a warning.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to dig into other people’s business,” Lana hisses. She opens the door with ease and climbs into the driver’s seat. “See you in court some time, Ms. Fey.”
VIII
Shocking, Lana thinks, how easy it is to slide back into old habits. Like slipping on a worn pair of shoes so comfortable you overlook the scuffed soles and worn tread. A sweater so cozy you don’t mind that it has a hole.
Three hours after Dahlia Hawthorne is found guilty, Lana finds herself in Mia Fey’s bed.
“What will you do now?” Lana traces the line of Mia’s collarbone as she asks, down through the valley in the hollow of her neck, brushing away the long caramel hair stuck to her sweat-slicked skin.
“I’ve been considering a shower,” says Mia, dry as ever, but the corner of her mouth gives her away. A smile.
Lana’s not seen many of those from Mia this past year. She’d forgotten how alluring it is. She rolls closer and presses a kiss to the corner of Mia’s mouth.
“You know what I mean.” Lana’s hand slides to the pendant at Mia’s neck, running her finger along its edge, the strange, smooth stone warmed by Mia’s body heat. “You got your verdict. What’s next?”
Mia frowns in thought. “I’m definitely done pushing papers for Grossberg. That trial…” She closes her hand over Lana’s and guides it away from the necklace to rest atop her stomach. “It felt good,” Mia admits. There’s that smile again, and the fiery determination in her eyes even Dahlia Hawthorne couldn’t extinguish. “I mean, terrifying… but good.”
“You belong in court,” Lana agrees. Her leg slots in between Mia’s, and Mia snakes an arm around Lana’s back.
“Maybe I’ll start my own practice.” Mia’s grip is firm on Lana’s waist. She mouths at Lana’s shoulder, whatever skin she can reach. “You could get your badge.” She hooks their ankles together. “Come work with me.”
Lana hums through her hormone-fogged daze. The hand on Mia’s belly travels further, lower, until Mia gasps into her shoulder. “Skye & Fey?”
“Fey & Skye,” Mia corrects, smirking as she loops Lana’s hair around her hand. “It was my idea.”
She tugs Lana down by the hair into a proper kiss—deep, languid, appreciative. Lana curls her finger, and Mia rocks against her, pulling Lana even closer, nails biting into Lana’s skin, hand tangled tight in Lana’s hair. Caught between them, Mia’s pendant presses into Lana’s chest.
“I’m serious,” Mia pants, breathless and honest, when Lana takes a moment to nibble at her neck. “Come work with me. You’d be so good, Lana.”
Lana’s fingers work faster in appreciation. “Good, hmm?”
“You could do real good,” Mia says. “You could be helping people.”
Everything grinds to a halt.
Lana breaks away, sits up, withdrawing her hand and untangling their legs. “What does that mean?”
Mia watches her from the pillow, surprised but unapologetic. “We both know you’re wasted in that job.”
Lana narrows her eyes. “I’m a homicide detective. You think that’s a waste of time?”
Mia’s stare is unrelenting. She shrugs. “It wouldn’t be, if the police ever arrested the right people.”
“We do. The conviction rate in our district—”
Mia laughs. The rapid thump of Lana’s heart tips easily into anger.
“The only thing the conviction rate tells me is how dirty your prosecutors are,” Mia counters. “If the police and the prosecution had any idea what they were doing, Dahlia Hawthorne would’ve been in jail a year ago, before she had a chance to double her body count.”
“It was an open investigation—”
“It was useless!”
“There are rules,” Lana reiterates, chopping her palm in frustration. “We’re working in a framework here, we can’t make arrests without evidence.”
“Your ‘framework’ is bullshit.” Mia sits up too, as tall as Lana in the bed, her eyes fierce and narrowed. “No one on the force was treating Dahlia like a serious suspect, and you know it. Phoenix was showing that necklace to everyone he met, and she still had the time to kill again—nearly twice!”
The ghosts of old arguments haunt Mia’s bedroom like a mausoleum, the euphoric afterglow of the trial and its epilogue fading fast. Lana sees the inevitable collision on the horizon and finds herself accelerating.
“Our job is difficult enough without the defense getting in the way, playing vigilante. If Diego really believed she was so dangerous, maybe he should have known better than to confront her alone.”
Lana is prepared for a yelling match. Instead, Mia’s fury descends like a wall of ice between them. The thread tying them together—one that has been fraying for years now—snaps entirely.
“Get the hell out,” Mia says.
VII
Lana has to redial twice before her persistence breaks through Mia’s self-imposed caller ID screening.
“I have a case for you,” Lana says, the second the line activates, before Mia can shut her down.
“You already know what I’m going to say, detective.”
The barb passes by Lana without leaving a scratch, nullified by the pride bubbling in her chest. She’s reminded of her and Ema’s childhood cat, leaving dead birds as offerings on the back porch.
“You’re better than being Grossberg’s secretary,” she says, swift and certain, forging ahead even as Mia starts to object. “Art student at Ivy U, arrested for the murder of one of his classmates. Story goes: they were fighting over a girlfriend when things got out of hand, and now one of them’s dead. The suspect’s been wailing ever since we brought him in. Swears he didn’t do it. He needs representation.”
On the other end of the phone, Mia sighs, her exasperation and irritation nearly potent enough to break through her recent inertia. “Lana—”
“The girlfriend is Dahlia Hawthorne.”
For three seconds, there is perfect silence on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” says Mia.
VI
Seven months after their parents died, Ema slipped off the top of a park play structure and broke her ankle. Lana had watched the fall in heartstopping slow motion, a spike of white-hot rage piercing through her panic. I told you to be careful.
She’s in the lunch room when Angel tells her about the chaos in the courthouse: an attorney poisoned, a suspect at large, a search that turned up empty.
“They should leave interrogating to the professionals,” Angel says, dripping with disdain. “They go sniffing around after crime but they’re not prepared for what happens when they find it.”
Lana’s on her way to the hospital before Angel has even started on her bento.
She dials Mia from the car, over and over, that old selfish rage boiling in her chest each time it goes to voicemail. I told you to be careful!
The sight of Mia in the waiting room, tear-streaked and distraught, snuffs out Lana’s anger like a tea light.
“Diego,” Mia chokes out, pendant gripped so tight she may well rip it from her neck. “Dahlia, she…”
Mia dissolves into sobs in Lana’s arms. Awash in shameful relief, Lana holds her tight, strokes her hair, and thinks: thank god it wasn’t you.
V
“I’m not sure caffeine’s the right idea,” Lana says, gentle but amused, watching Mia’s fingers fumble and shake as she digs in her change purse.
“I just—I need—” Mia flashes a nervous smile at the impatient barista and promptly spills her change on the floor, coins scattering across the tile. “Shit.”
“I got it,” Lana says placidly, handing her card to the barista and, once Mia straightens up again, handing over the matcha latte. The paper cup begins to bend under Mia’s grip; Lana closes her hands over Mia’s own before she makes a mess. “Deep breaths, Mia.”
To her credit, Mia tries: she closes her eyes, inhales like she’s gulping down air, exhales like she’s trying to single-handedly inflate a dinghy.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Mia announces, though her fingers slowly relax around her latte. “Why did I think I could do this?”
“Because you can,” Lana insists. “You passed the bar. You’ve got the badge. This is what all that work was for.”
Mia pulls a face. She chugs half of her latte in one swig.
Together, they leave the cafe and head down the block to the courthouse. The February air is brisk, and Lana wraps her scarf a couple loops tighter around her neck. Mia, though, walks as though impervious to the chill, her hair and the ends of her scarf billowing behind her.
“I might lose,” Mia says. “What if I lose?”
“One of you has to,” Lana says simply. “Part of the process. Losing’s not the end of the world.”
“Easy for you to say,” Mia mutters against the lid of her cup. “I don’t think I want humiliating myself to be ‘part of the process.’”
“Shouldn’t have become a defense attorney then.” Lana grins, cheeky.
Mia glowers. “Do you know who’s prosecuting?”
“No,” Lana lies.
Manfred von Karma’s protégé has been the subject of precinct gossip since he arrived, Damon at the centre of the whirlwind like a proud uncle. A prodigy, people say—punctuated afterward by knowing looks and raised eyebrows, whispers following him like a shadow. In Lana’s opinion, Mia’s better off for being the underdog. There’s much further to fall when you’re on a pedestal.
That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Mia wants to hear, though, so instead Lana says, “Don’t stress so much. All the pressure’s on the prosecution here. Valerie was one of us; the whole department wants justice.”
Mia’s eyes narrow, inspecting Lana keenly. “And justice is a guilty verdict?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lana objects, true in technicality if not in spirit. She wonders if Mia can tell the difference. “But as first cases go, it’s actually kind of low stakes for you. Fawles is on death row already. It’s not like his freedom or his life are on the line.”
Mia stops short. “I thought you wanted justice.”
Lana does too, a step ahead. “I do.”
“He says he didn’t do it.”
Only years of raising Ema grant Lana the patience to resist rolling her eyes. “Mia, everyone says that.”
“I know, but…” Mia’s free hand travels up to her neck, to the stone pendant hanging there. A nervous tic Lana knows she’s been training herself out of. “I believed him.” She watches Lana closely, a challenge and a question. “Do you think it was a bad idea for me to take this case?”
Lana starts up the stairs to the courthouse; after a second’s delay, Mia follows. “I think in the interest of professional ethics, we shouldn’t discuss particulars.”
“But you do. Don’t you?”
He’s a convicted killer, Lana thinks. He had a grudge against the victim. He kidnapped his teenage girlfriend and now he’s murdered her sister for putting him behind bars. The prosecution shouldn’t need a prodigy for this one.
She smiles tight and avoids Mia’s expectant gaze. She holds open the courthouse door and Mia lingers outside, clutching her necklace and waiting for an answer.
“Everyone’s entitled to a full and just defense,” Lana recites, as rote as any study session. “It’s the foundation of our justice system.”
The challenge written on Mia’s face fades to disappointment. The hand on her necklace finally relaxes back to her side. “Right,” says Mia, without really agreeing.
They cross the threshold together, but then the courthouse swallows them up. Lana finds her place with Jake and Damon in the gallery; Mia heads off to Defendant Lobby Number 4.
IV
“Brought you some food,” Lana announces from the doorway. Anticipating Mia’s complaint, she adds, “For after. I’m putting it in the fridge.”
From somewhere inside the pile of books and papers entombing her, Mia groans. “You shouldn’t have bothered. Tomorrow’s going to kill me.”
“You’ll be fine.” There’s a Post-It stuck to Mia’s forehead: an exaggerated frowny face, crudely drawn in frustration. Lana plucks it away and kisses Mia there instead. “And when my shift ends tomorrow, we’ll celebrate properly.”
Mia scrunches her face, too exhausted or too nervous to look enthused. “Will you still love me if I fail the bar exam?”
“Objection: irrelevant. You’re not going to fail the bar exam,” says Lana. Mia’s bottom lip juts out in a pout; wrong answer, apparently. “But hey, if law doesn’t work out, you could always come work with me.”
That sparks some life back into Mia—her pout turns to outright disgust. “No chance. I’d rather be Grossberg’s assistant forever.”
It’s the response Lana expected. One she’d been fishing for, even, in hopes of dragging Mia from her pit of despair. But the shot stings more than Lana bargained for, a pang of worry through the heart.
She has no fear that Mia will fail the bar. But what happens when she passes?
“Now that’s a nightmare,” Lana says truthfully. “But don’t worry: I also got you a good luck charm.”
With a flourish, Lana drops the shopping bag atop Mia’s stack of notes. Mia’s head tilts in curiosity as she reaches inside, and then her eyes widen as she pulls out a long, brown cashmere scarf.
“So you can stop stealing mine,” Lana teases.
It’s only half the truth. The other half is this: months ago, Mia went home for the holidays, a rare event shrouded in the layers of mystery and deflection Lana had long since learned were part and parcel of Mia Fey. When she returned to the city, the string of oversized pearls she’d worn religiously were missing, her stone pendant hanging by its lonesome on a simple thread. Sometimes, Lana catches Mia rubbing her neck, reaching for something that’s gone.
Mia’s eyes are misty with wonder as she threads the scarf beneath her hair. “If I get my badge…” She pauses, gives her head a shake as she ties the scarf around itself. “When I get my badge, you should come work with me.”
“With Marvin Grossberg?” Lana laughs.
Mia drapes the scarf properly. It cascades down her shoulders, and Lana thinks, it looks better on her. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Lana kisses her in lieu of an answer. The scarf is soft beneath Lana’s hand when she reaches up to stroke her thumb against Mia’s jaw.
“I have to get back to Ema,” Lana says, “and you need to study.”
She sticks the frowny face Post-It on on the back of the door as she leaves.
III
There’s a job waiting for Lana in the homicide department. Damon Gant pulls her aside one afternoon to say as much, plying her with coffee and donuts like a cliche as he ushers her gregariously through the criminal affairs department.
“Now, I know you wrote the bar this spring, and you’re waiting on the results, and I’m sure you’ve got it,” he tells her. “But the best an attorney can hope to do is set things right, as best they can, after something’s already gone wrong. Here on the force”—he gestures around, sprinkling powdered sugar from his half-eaten donut while he does—“we can stop things going wrong in the first place.”
A blatant contradiction, Lana thinks, coming from a homicide detective. But she leaves the tête-à-tête with a salary offer ringing in her ears that would make a nice dent in her student loans. It’s in her mind the next morning when she takes Ema to the mall to buy a present for a classmate’s birthday party, and later that day, when she meets Mia for another “study session” that ends in Mia’s bed.
“But you’re getting your badge soon,” Mia frowns, twirling a lock of Lana’s hair pensively around her finger.
“We don’t know that,” Lana says. “I might’ve failed.”
Mia rolls her eyes. “You didn’t fail.” She sobers, dropping Lana’s hair to look her straight in the eyes. “You’re too good at law to give it up.”
“Law enforcement is a crucial part of the legal system,” Lana counters. “Good pay, great benefits. Better than any of the firms around town give their juniors.”
“Start your own firm,” says Mia. “How hard can it be? When I get my badge, I’ll come work with you. Skye & Fey.”
An utterly impractical suggestion made with such sincerity and confidence that Lana glimpses the unusual girl she first met, fresh from her tiny mountain village. Lana finds it equal parts admirable and naive.
“It’s got a better ring to it than ‘Grossberg Law Offices’,” Lana laughs. “Tell you what.” She tucks her head into Mia’s shoulder, cheek pressed against the pearls around Mia’s neck. “You get your badge first, and we’ll see.”
II
Lana stacks two plates’ worth of carefully-prepared snacks on her arm. Brain food, she reasons. It’s a study session, like all their others. If the campus library happens to be closed for fumigation after a bedbug outbreak, and Lana’s place is the next best substitute, well….
“This is Ema, right?” Mia calls into the kitchen, lifting a photo frame from the bookshelf. “She’s cute.”
Lana knows the photo just from a glimpse of the frame: Ema’s wide smile, front tooth missing, cheap plastic binoculars pressed against her face. Her first birthday since the accident. Lana had cried when the box cake didn’t rise, but Ema had eaten it all the same.
“It’s a few years old now,” Lana admits, weaving over to Mia like a waitress. She sets the plates on the kotatsu next to Mia’s copy of Criminal Law and Its Processes. “She’s turning eight soon.”
Mia’s smile is wistful. “Maya’s nine,” she says. “My sister.” She sets Ema’s picture back on the shelf and her face falls. “I should call her.”
Sister, nine years old is quietly added to Lana’s growing mental case file on Mia Fey. For all the time they’ve spent together the past year, for all Mia’s cleverness and confidence and bullheaded determination, she says very little about herself. Lana knows she’s from an isolated rural village, striking out in the city on her own for the first time. She knows Mia has a sister (nine years old, almost the same age as Ema) who lives back home with Mia’s aunt. She knows Mia’s parents are not around, though Mia has never said why.
And she knows that even as Mia’s dress sense has shifted—traditional robes swapped for blazers and short skirts and jeans that catch Lana’s eye more often than she’d like to admit—the stone necklace around Mia’s neck remains, unchanged, as permanent as any body part.
“Do you get to see her very often?” Lana asks, emboldened by Mia’s own testimony.
“Not as much as I’d like.” Mia tucks her legs beneath the table, avoiding Lana’s eyes as she pulls her textbook closer. “But it’s for the best, I think. She’s safe back home, and if we saw each other more often, we might not get along so well.” She runs her fingertip up and down the spiral of her pendant and puts on a smile. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder…”
Lana chuckles. “I love Ema more than anything. And sometimes I wanna hurl her out the window.”
Mia’s eyes soften, genuine and concerned. Her hand drops to the table, next to Lana’s. “Must be hard, raising her by yourself.”
Lana shrugs the way she’s used to. “I don’t know how I would’ve done it without her.” Mia’s fingers ghost against hers, and Lana feels a lump start to form at the back of her throat. “I just wish I could talk to them sometimes, you know? Ask what I should do, or what I’m doing wrong, or…”
The lump in her throat swells, so Lana stops speaking. A curious shadow crosses Mia’s face. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but finds no words, and she threads her fingers through Lana’s instead, squeezing.
With Mia’s hand in hers, the burn in Lana’s throat recedes.
“So, um…” Lana continues, once she’s sure her voice will hold steady. “Chapter one, section C3A, the burden of proof…”
“Right.” Animated and passionate, Mia jumps tracks easily, though her hand stays in Lana’s. “I had a question about State v. Derer—I get that Mr. Derer was the only other person in the hot air balloon, but if they never actually found the knife…”
I
There’s a girl in Lana’s Advanced Legal Research class who doesn’t belong.
Classmates current and former, people she’s studied with, people who have cut in the cafeteria line in front of her on Wednesdays when they serve chicken fingers—Lana’s built a mental catalogue of them all, and this girl isn’t on the list. Lana would remember a face like that.
And even if her face weren’t remarkable, there’s the matter of her clothes: pink and purple robe tied with a bow, with an oversized necklace to match.
The mystery girl is an idle curiosity for Lana in the few minutes before the professor arrives, and then it’s business as usual. Lana’s paying quite a lot of money for this class, as well as the after-school science camp to keep Ema occupied, and there’s no time to waste on girls who got lost on their way to the theatre department.
But Mystery Girl shows up again the next week, too. On the third week, she sits right next to Lana and says, “I like your scarf.”
“Thanks,” Lana answers automatically, polite reflex winning out over surprise. “It was my mother’s.”
Lana doesn’t add she died four years ago and I’ve worn it ever since, even though she’s gotten much better at saying it without tearing up. But Mystery Girl’s brow furrows. She touches the beads around her neck, and Lana has the peculiar sensation of someone seeing right through her.
“I like your necklace,” Lana says, eager to shift attention. She gestures with the end of her pen to the stone pendant shaped like a 9. “It’s unique.”
“Thanks.” Mystery Girl looks down, as if she’s forgotten what it looks like, pressing the palm of her hand against the stone. “Family heirloom.” Then she pulls the hand away and extends it towards Lana. “I’m Mia, by the way.”
“I’m Lana.” Lana shakes Mia’s hand with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Mia.”
“I’m only auditing this class,” Mia says, answering a question Lana hasn’t actually vocalized while the last of the students file in. “You’ve been wondering, right? I’ve seen you staring.”
Lana’s face flushes, but there’s no point in denying an obvious truth. It’s hard for Lana to believe anyone in class might not have been staring. “Just curious,” she admits. “I recognize most of my classmates by now.”
“I’m new to the city,” Mia explains. “And law. And… everything. My village is nothing like this.”
“Where are you from?” Lana asks.
Mia doesn’t seem to hear. She turns in her seat to face Lana, determined. “I liked what you said last week, about Bouchard v Lucas. I was hoping after class I could ask you a couple questions… maybe in exchange for a cup of tea?”
The words are flattering, Mia’s smile confident and persuasive. Lana wants to say yes, of course. But…
“I can’t,” Lana says, “I have to pick my baby sister up from school.”
“Oh.” Mia’s smile shifts to wistful recognition. “Don’t worry, then. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
Mia turns to face the professor, polite in her resignation, but Lana feels a pang of regret. Call it sentimentality, or maybe projection, but Lana recognizes a sadness in Mia’s face rooted deeper than the rejection. Something familiar, somehow.
She’s new in town, Lana reasons. She could probably use a friend. So could Lana; between law school and raising Ema, friendship is a luxury Lana scarcely allows herself.
“I have a gap on Thursdays,” Lana whispers as the lecture starts. “Eleven to quarter-past one. I study in the library, if you wanna drop by. There’s a cafe not too far, they do a nice biscotti.”
Mia’s face brightens again. “I’d love that.”