Free Sense of Deception by Victoria Laurie

physical custody. She was quoted in one of the articles I read saying that, all her life, Skylar had made poor choices with the notable exception of her ex-husband, who’d been a wonderful and loving husband and father, but Skylar’s drinking and abuse had driven him away, and since then her mother had watched Skylar devolve into a secretive, conniving, mentally unbalanced alcoholic.
    Now, it was no secret my own parents and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms, but even I couldn’t imagine my mother getting up on the witness stand and testifying against me when the death penalty hung in the balance.
    The defense’s argument was that, since getting out of jail in 2000, Skylar had been a model citizen who’d turned herself around in an effort to win back her life, and custody of her son. Her attorney argued that even though Skylar was receiving enough money from her ex to live on, she hadn’t quit work as a medical biller, and often put in extra hours on the job after Noah went tobed. She wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, he’d argued. She was a model to struggling addicts everywhere, an example of what you can achieve when you devote yourself to getting help and facing your demons head-on.
    In his closing arguments he’d further stated that it was a travesty of justice to charge her with murder—the murder of her son—given how hard she’d worked to get her life back on track. This was a son she loved. Fought for. Devoted all her efforts to. And on a hot, muggy night, he’d been taken away from her in the most heinous way when an unknown assailant had invaded her home and murdered her son in cold blood. Somehow the intruder had left behind no physical evidence—no DNA, no hair samples, no fingerprints, and no footprints anywhere inside the house or out. He’d been careful, her attorney had argued. He’d been good. Practiced even. And, most important, he’d been the one to kill Noah. And he was still out there. The police hadn’t been looking for him because they’d been lazy. They’d set their sights on Skylar from day one, and like old dogs with a new bone, they hadn’t let go. So the killer, this random, malicious psychopath, was still free while his client was being railroaded for the crime of loving her son enough to take back her life from the brink of ruin.
    I frowned as I read the closing statements from Skylar’s attorney. It was hard even for me to believe a random stranger had entered the Millers’ home, killed an innocent nine-year-old boy, and left no physical evidence of himself behind.
    Skylar hadn’t testified, and the defense had called precious few character witnesses. Only her neighbors, her AA sponsor, and the social worker who’d monitored her visits with Noah, and had helped her fight for physical custody of him the year before, had been willing to testify on her behalf. Furthermore, her attorney had tried to poke some holes in the prosecution’s case, but either he didn’t try veryhard or his tactics hadn’t been very effective, because the jury had deliberated for all of three days and returned with a guilty verdict and a recommendation for life without parole, but the judge had apparently been swayed enough by the prosecution’s case to ignore the jury’s recommendation, and had ordered that she be put to death.
    I read all of this, pages and pages of articles, and at the end of it I sat back in my chair, closed my eyes, and pinched the bridge of my nose. I had a headache forming as the full weight of what I was up against settled onto my shoulders.
    â€œRough day?”
    I jumped and maybe let out a small shriek. “Oh! Oscar, I didn’t hear you come in.”
    He was grinning. “Obviously,” he said, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from my desk. “You okay?”
    I nodded. “Yeah. It’s just this case I’m about to start work on. I knew I