Classes don’t start for several months. That doesn’t stop her. After testifying, she’s thrown herself into studying. She doesn’t even have a class schedule yet, but she found the syllabi online that the professors used in previous years. They list the textbooks and the journals and the supplementary reading material. She’s probably going to have them memorized forward and backward before she starts. She’s scribbling notes in the margin right now, beside old notes already there.

These are secondhand textbooks with notes and highlights on the pages, with frayed binding. I couldn’t talk her out of it. She refused to buy new books. That fucking defense attorney got under her skin about the money.

“Dinnertime,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.

I don’t really expect her to get up, and she doesn’t. She briefly lifts her eyes, which are red from lack of sleep. “I’m still working. Don’t wait up for me. I can just grab a snack before I go to bed.”

Five days. That’s how long it’s been since the courtroom. And for five days, I’ve tried to coax her to eat and sleep. For five days I’ve tamped down the overprotective urge to lock her in the basement.

That ends now.

“You’re done working for tonight.”

It takes a second for the words to register. She lifts her head. “Why?”

“Because you’re exhausted. Because you’re punishing yourself for the bullshit that the defense attorney said to you. Because I want to hold you down and fuck you. Any number of reasons. Take your pick.”

A slow blink. “If I’m so exhausted, then why are we going to—”

She has the same stricken expression on her face, the way she looked on the witness stand when she started to repeat what Joe Causey said to her. He made her feel ashamed of what we do together, and for that alone, I could kill him. “To fuck? Trust me, sweetheart. You aren’t going to have to lift a finger. I’m going to do all the work.”

“I’m not punishing myself,” she says, pushing the book aside. “It’s for school.”

“Which doesn’t start until the fall. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to read the books during class, not before it starts.”

“I don’t care about what Campbell said to me.”

“Little liar,” I say, pushing away from the doorframe and prowling across the room. “He got into your head.”

She looks away. “I hate to think I could have ruined the case.”

“You didn’t ruin the case. The case is fucked up because Causey is a dirty cop with lots of money and friends in high places. You did what you could, but you don’t control the criminal justice system.”