Free The Ancient Rain by Domenic Stansberry

Owens family.
    At the last minute, though, the session had been pushed back till the afternoon, while council convened in chambers.
    â€œWhat’s this delay about? I don’t understand,” said Elise.
    She was skeptical of Blackwell and the other government attorneys. Sorrentino couldn’t blame her. She’d been through a lot trying to get the case to trial. Even so, she seemed a little too obsessed on the matter of the bail. Now that Owens had been jailed, she didn’t want him back out.
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Sorrentino. “It’s the usual thing.”
    â€œI got a call from one of Blackwell’s assistants. She told me not to wear yellow. Or talk to the press.”
    Elise scoffed, and he did, too. They both took pleasure in scoffing at the feds, at Blackwell and his obsequious assistants. Part of him understood, though. Elise had a tendency to go off sometimes.
    â€œWell, anyway, what you are wearing now,” said Sorrentino, “I think you have made a nice choice.”
    Elise was in gray—a longish dress with pleats and a faux collar. The collar was white. He didn’t know much about these things, but the gray wasn’t so dark as to be funereal, and it gave her a touch of dignity. She had bought a rash of new outfits, and part of him wondered about the money for it all. Regardless, the shadows under her eyes were plain enough. She had not been sleeping, he knew. Partly this had to do with the trial, and the events surrounding it, and her desire to keep the case in the public eye. Also, there was the Remembrance Day march, upcoming in Sacramento, a victims’ event at which she’d been asked to speak.
    â€œI don’t think I can take it if they let Owens out on bail—if they just let him walk out of there.”
    â€œIf he gets bail, it will be high,” Sorrentino said. “That’s the important thing.”
    â€œThey can’t set it high enough.”
    He reached out and put his hand on hers, trying to reassure her. At an adjacent table, a woman saw the gesture—saw, maybe, how Elise smiled at him—and he could see the disapproval on the woman’s face. He didn’t care.
    Anyway, it wasn’t like that. People could think what they wanted.
    *   *   *
    Sorrentino had met Elise maybe three years ago at one of those grief groups, or survival circles, whatever they were called. Sorrentino had not been there by choice, but on account of a road-rage incident on the El Camino. To avoid charges he’d agreed to see a counselor, and the counselor had sent him to the group.
    Elise had told her story that first night, or part of it anyway, and she’d told him the rest sitting with him in his car in the parking garage under the psychologist’s office. Maybe she had told him because he used to be a cop, and she thought he could do something. Or just because he listened. No matter, she told him how she’d spent years trying to ignore the past, but there had been a gaping hole. After her father had died, she tried to fill that hole. She became obsessed with the case—with trying to reopen it. Until eventually the victims’ advocates and the state legislators and the people in the DA’s office went cold at the sight of her.
    She’d gotten divorced in the process. She’d had a breakdown. At one point, she’d followed Owens and his family on the street …
    â€œIt’s all about career with these people, the prosecutors, all of them,” she said now. “Whatever’s expedient. I have seen them operate. I heard the promises made to my father, but nothing ever happened.”
    â€œIt’s different this time.”
    â€œIf they let Owens out on bail, what that means to me—it means they are getting ready for a plea bargain.”
    â€œThat’s a leap.”
    â€œWhat?” Elise snapped.
    â€œThe atmosphere,” he tried to explain,