WALKING INTO THE DOWNING STREET COURT BUILDING, Anita was generally sure-footed. She knew how to do her job and she mostly did it well, unlike her performance in the messier areas of life. She’d started covering court stories when she was working for a newspaper in London. Then she came home, four years ago, just as the Sydney paper’s long-time court reporter was transferring to the Washington bureau, leaving a gap Anita could slide into. At a time when any print media job was rare and precious, it had been a piece of luck.

On her way through the foyer, she said hello to the security screening staff, waved to a cop she knew, nodded to a barrister she’d observed shredding a witness on the stand yesterday. She liked that this was her patch. She was familiar with the players and used to the rhythms of the place. This building was really her workplace, much more than the newspaper office.

Lately, she’d been covering a defamation case as well as assembling whatever background stuff she could on the upcoming Santino trial. Today, she was determined to wrap her head around a labyrinthine fraud case that was testing her grasp of fiduciary terminology.

She sat through the fraud hearing into the afternoon session, the lists of financial statistics unspooling for hours. After a while, the voices in the courtroom blurred into a meaningless drone in Anita’s ears.

Lapses of concentration had been happening in the weeks since Stacey was killed. Arguably, Anita should’ve taken leave from her job until her head was clearer, but time away from the noise and activity and deadlines, time alone with her thoughts—no, that held little appeal. Mind you, even at work she would still find herself revisiting moments with Stacey, replaying them again and again.

Twelve years ago. Dinner for Paula’s twenty-fifth birthday. Stacey had introduced them to her new boyfriend Matt. He was good-looking in a boyish way, hair flopping over his face, labrador puppy eyes. Stacey was fizzy, so infatuated was she with this guy, and that seemed to make her even more vivacious as she greeted the dozen people around the restaurant table.

Stacey was smitten with Matt, but it was obvious he was even more besotted with her. Anita recalled the way he’d gazed at her with those sooky eyes. As if he couldn’t believe he’d nabbed himself a woman this vibrant and clever. As if, by winning Stacey’s love, he’d won a prize he didn’t deserve. Which he fucking well didn’t.

Ten years ago. The day after Cameron was born. Anita went to the hospital to find Stacey propped up in the bed, puffy in the face and wincing with pain from the caesarean, but so beautiful. When Stacey looked at her newborn in the transparent plastic crib, anyone could see there was light shining out of her.