“I don’t think she only came to see me because of that thing with her landlord. I mean, I think that was part of it, but not the only reason. I think she hadn’t gotten around to telling me the rest yet. She was probably going to, which was why she signed our client agreement and sent me the retainer.”

“How much was that?”

“Five hundred. Which is lower than our usual, but I quoted her our discount rate because she seemed worried about money.”

She took another sip of water, and Brandon tried not to get distracted by her mouth.

“Like I told you the other day, I get all kinds of clients.” She set the bottle down. “But the two most common problems I handle are revenge porn and stalkers. I’ve found several clues that suggest to me that Vanessa might have a revenge porn problem. The first one is that she found me through an informal referral from another client with a similar type of case.”

“Informal? What does that mean?”

“This client of mine is friends with Vanessa. They work together at Pura Vida. Anyway, I talked to her, and she never actually gave Vanessa my contact info, but they discussed her case and she told Vanessa I represented her.”

“And her case was revenge porn?”

“That’s right.” She slurped a noodle off her fork.

“Were you successful?”

“Yep. We got a big fat settlement—which doesn’t solve my client’s problem, but it helps.”

“Okay. You said ‘several clues.’ What was the other thing?”

Leigh sighed. “The other thing is based on personal observation. Vanessa had cut marks on her left forearm.”

“Cut marks?”

“A lot of people dealing with nonconsensual sexual images become depressed, sometimes suicidal. I would definitely describe Vanessa as under duress the last time I saw her, and she showed signs of self-harm.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he asked.

“I’m telling you now.”

“It goes to her state of mind.”

“I know.”

Brandon watched her carefully. “Do you have any reason to think Vanessa might have taken her own life?”

Her eyes grew somber and she picked at her noodles. She looked up.

“I really don’t know,” she said.

Brandon hadn’t told Leigh about the blood pool in the woods. Investigators were keeping that detail under wraps for now. But he and Antonio had considered the possibility that Vanessa could have gone into the woods and killed herself, maybe ending up at the bottom of that lake. He wished he’d known about the self-harming stuff before now.

Leigh watched him, her expression solemn. From the beginning, he’d known she was holding out on him. No doubt, she still was. But she was also providing lots of good information that he hadn’t had, so it was probably better to keep her talking rather than nitpick her timing.