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Levi’s murder.’
    His son had been high as he’d fled Mazzetti and her so-called investigation. After accusing Robinette of killing his second wife, she’d changed her mind, accusing Levi. Robinette’s son had been terrified and disoriented and he’d run. Mazzetti had mowed his boy down like a dog.
    ‘Well, have fun,’ Fletcher said, still out of sorts over Lisa. ‘I have to go.’
    When Robinette was alone he leaned back in his chair. Closed his eyes. This time tomorrow his troubles would be over. Thanks to Henderson, Stevie Mazzetti would be dead. And then, thanks to Fletcher, Robinette’s personal coffers would be running over for some time to come.
    Saturday, March 15, 1.59 P.M.
    Stairs. Shit . She hadn’t remembered stairs.
    Detective Stevie Mazzetti paused to stare, glare, and consider the four steps she’d need to climb to get into the front door of the Harbor House Restaurant. In all the years she’d come here, she’d never even noticed the stairs. Now, they seemed like a damn mountain.
    She gripped the handle of her cane so hard her knuckles ached. It’s just four steps. You can do four tiny little steps. But could she do them quickly?
    She cast a look around her to ensure no knife-wielding assholes lurked about, waiting for her to display a moment of vulnerability. She could – and had – held her own against an idiot with a knife and a thug with hams for fists. All in the last week. She could do it again.
    Of course, if it was a gunman, she was a sitting duck. Yesterday she’d been lucky. The gunman hadn’t had a clear shot and was foolish enough to chance a bad angle. So he’d missed.
    But this downtown street offered a lot more places to hide, and a lot more good angles. Under most other circumstances, she would have avoided walking out in the open like this, at least until the ongoing investigations wound down. But today was March 15.
    Eight years ago today, her life had been irrevocably changed, her heart had been broken into a billion little pieces.
    Eight years ago today, her husband and her son had been ripped away from her, murdered in cold blood. Stevie had found her way out of the darkness and the depression with the help of the woman waiting for her inside the restaurant and the friendship they’d forged.
    For the past eight years this lunch with her old friend, Emma, was a date Stevie never missed, no matter what was going on in her life.
    No matter who might be lurking, waiting to catch her unaware. Stevie refused to hide, no matter how much her family and friends nagged at her to do so.
    This is my life. I’m not living it as a prisoner in my own home .
    Gratefully, she didn’t see anyone lurking. What she did see was a sign pointing to the handicapped entrance, but at the speed she walked these days, getting there would take her ten times longer than just dealing with the damn stairs. She’d be exposed far longer that way.
    Plus, I’m late. Of course . Everything took her so much longer since she’d been wounded on the courthouse steps, the day the jury had returned the verdict in a controversial murder trial. She’d expected guarding the prosecutor to be dangerous. She hadn’t expected to wake up in ICU with a bullet hole in her leg. Three months later she was still struggling to find normality. Whatever the hell that is.
    Tensing every muscle, she grabbed the rail and hoisted her body up the stairs as fast as she could. When she got to the landing, she used her momentum to keep moving forward. A few more awkward steps put her under the porch gable. She leaned against one of the supports, out of sight of the street. She needed the cover to . . . recover.
    Because she was breathing like she’d run a marathon instead of having climbed four tiny stairs, goddammit. She was sweating, trembling. And then came the pain, shooting up her hip and down her leg. Gritting her teeth, she clenched one hand into an impotent fist and, with the other, held on to the cane for dear