Jingjing picked up the eviction notice. “So where he live now?”

I shrugged.

“And what he use for money?”

She really was the smartest person I knew. She’d homed in on the biggest question of all.

THAT AFTERNOON WE were both summoned to the attorney consultation room at the same time, me to see my PD and Jingjing to see the ADA.

“You okay on your own?” I asked her as we entered the room. Harold Watkins was at one table; the ADA was at another one across the room. “I can blow this guy off if you want me to come with you.”

“No, you go talk to Mr. Lardo. I handle Ms. Bitch just fine.”

She peeled off, and I sat down across from Watkins.

“I have news.” A smug smile creased his fleshy jowls. “We lost the expert funding motion.”

His announcement barely registered. I never expected to win that motion. That wasn’t the point.

“I have news, too,” I said. I slapped the eviction notice down on the table in front of him. “It would have been posted on the door. Your people would have seen it there.”

Watkins frowned at the paper. “All they told me was nobody was home.”

“They never even went,” I hissed.

He had the good grace to redden. “I’ll look into it, okay?”

“Have you filed a motion for the release of my briefcase?”

“There’s no real point—”

“Here.” I slapped another paper on the table. “I drafted it for you. File it.”

“Listen.” He folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “They blinked. They want a deal.”

I stared at the flesh of his ring finger where it swelled out around his wedding band. His other fingers were pink, but that one was white. The ring was cutting off the blood supply. He was heading for an amputation. “No deal,” I said. “I told you.”

“There’s a lot of sympathy building for you out there. People understand what it’s like to be trapped in an elevator. On top of everything else you had going on? Anybody could flip out. The DA’s willing to take all that into consideration.”

“Tell them to consider this,” I said. “I hadn’t been fired, the video was doctored, and the résumé was planted.”

He sighed a blast of air that could have come from a blacksmith’s bellows. “The company framed you, you’re saying.”

“Yes! I’ve been saying it all along.”

“They went to all that trouble just to cover up a suicide.” He rolled his eyes.

“They have their reasons. Reasons that have nothing to do with me.”

He threw his fleshy hands into the air. “Then tell me what they are!”

“File the motion. Get my briefcase back. Find David. Then I’ll be happy to tell you, the DA, and everybody else.” I stood up and looked around for Jingjing, but she’d already left the room. “You need to get that cut off,” I said to Watkins.

“What?”

I pointed to his wedding ring, and he was still staring at it as I left.