7th Heaven

I guess you’re wondering why I’m writing to you, so I’ll get to the point.

The evidence you wanted is in the second envelope, and you’ll probably want to use it to give the Campions some closure.

I hope you understand why I can’t say any more.

Take care,

Junie Moon

Yuki read the letter again.

Her mind was swimming, trying to follow what Junie had said. “The evidence you wanted is in the second envelope.”

Yuki tore open the plain white envelope and emptied two items onto the tabletop. Item one was a shirt cuff, ripped from its sleeve, monogrammed with Michael Campion’s initials. The cuff was saturated with dried blood.

Item two was a small clump of dark hair, about three inches long, roots attached.

Yuki’s hands were shaking, but she was sobering up, starting to think about the call she would make to Red Dog. Wondering, if they put a rush on it, how much time it would take for the lab to process the DNA that would surely match to Michael Campion.

And she thought about how even if they were able to find Junie Moon and bring her in, the law was clear: she couldn’t be tried for Campion’s death again. They could charge her with stuff – perjury, obstruction, hindering prosecution. But unless they could establish how the evidence came into Junie’s possession, odds were that the DA wouldn’t even try to indict her.

Yuki looked at the gruesome evidence that had now dropped literally into her lap. She picked up the phone and called Lindsay. As she listened to the phone ring, she thought about Jason Twilly.

He was charged with attempted murder on the life of a peace officer, and if convicted he could go to prison for the rest of his life without possibility of parole. Or he could hire the best criminal defense attorney money could buy and maybe win.

Maybe he’d go free.

Yuki saw Twilly in her mind, sitting in some café in LA writing his book with everything he needed for his big-bang, gazillion-dollar ending. The news would get out about the bloody cuff, the hank of hair, the DNA matching to Michael Campion.

Who du

Twilly wouldn’t have to prove it. He could make her a character in his book. And then he could simply point his finger at Junie Moon.

The ring tone stopped.

“Yuki?” she heard Lindsay say.

“Linds, can you come back? I’ve got something you have to see.”

Chapter 125

JUNIE MOON LOOKED out the window and marveled again at the feeling of flight and at the amazing bright turquoise water below. And there, just coming into view, was a little town by the sea. She couldn’t even pronounce its name.

The pilot’s voice came over the speaker. Junie put up her tray table and tightened her seat belt, still staring out the window, seeing the beaches now, and the little boats and the people.

Oh, my God, this was just too fantastic.

She started to think again about that long-ago night when Michael Campion wasn’t a client anymore. They’d talked about their love and how hopeless it all was.

Michael had playfully tugged at the little braid hanging down the back of her neck.

“I have an idea,” he said. “A way for us to be together.”

“I’d do anything,” she’d said. “Anything.”

“Me too,” Michael had said.

It was a pledge.

They’d made plans over the next few weeks, plans that would take place six months in the future. And one night when everything was in place, Michael left her house and just disappeared. Three months later, someone called the police saying he’d seen Michael at her house. And then the police had come and she’d gotten confused and made up a story – and talked herself into a huge mess.

It had been hell: jail and the trial and especially not being able to get mail or phone calls. But she’d known he would wait for her. And if she’d been convicted, he would have come forward. But Junie had hung in, used the brains and the lawyer God had given her, and played her role to the hilt.

And thank you, God, she’d been acquitted.

Three days ago she’d taken the blood and hair he’d sent her and put it into that letter to Yuki Castellano. Now the hard part was over and Junie was traveling light. She had worn boy’s clothes on the bus from San Francisco to Vancouver, the flight to Mexico City, and now she was on another plane, on her way to a little village on a beach in Costa Rica.

This remote and enchanted place would be their new home, and Junie Moon hoped with her whole being that someday Michael’s heart would be fixed and that paradise would last for-fricking-ever.

She’d changed into a cute little sundress in the bathroom, fluffed up her newly straightened dark brown hair, put on the chic cat’s-eye glasses. The wheels of the plane bounced on the landing strip and all the passengers began to clap. Junie clapped, too, as the plane rolled to a stop.

Moments later the cabin door opened and Junie stepped carefully down the steps that had been wheeled up to the aircraft. Junie sca

And there he was.

He’d shaven his head, had grown a goatee, and he was brown all over from the sun. He was wearing a bright striped shirt and cutoffs, gri

No one would ever recognize him, no one but her.

This was her real life.

And it was starting now.