Page 117 of The 1 Lawyer

JENNY CLUTCHED my arm. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

The hacker didn’t look up. “Wow, she’s hot. Somebody you know?” he asked.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. Automatically, I replied, “Somebody we’ve heard about. Never met.”

Jenny released my arm and bent over the guy to tap the image on the screen. “We need that. Save it on the flash drive for me.”

He nodded, hit some keys. “Okay, done. Where do you want to go next?”

I said, “Keep scrolling through photos. Slowly, okay? We want to examine every picture containing a female.”

The tension filled the room like a fog, making it difficult to breathe. Time seemed suspended as we surveyed the images, looking for a second hit.

Then I caught it. “That one, we need to see it.”

Jenny made a choking sound when he pulled it up on the screen. We exchanged a look. “What do you think?” I asked her.

She stepped over to the murder walls, pulled down a front-page article from the Sun-Herald, the daily newspaper based in Biloxi that covered the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She returned to the conference table. Her hand trembled as she held the picture next to the laptop screen.

She whispered, “You think?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”

I was certain, actually. The pictures were a match. Joey Roman had saved a candid shot of a young woman whose death was a cold case, a murder with the same MO as the other victims on the murder walls.

My mind was going haywire, spinning in different directions, as I absorbed what the images meant.

And then I had a hunch. “Can you scroll back to find the photos he saved from three years back? Start with pictures from the month of March of that year.”

It didn’t take long to spot her. Aurora Gates was there.

Jenny pulled out a chair and sat. “I’m getting light-headed,” she said, her voice cracking.

We studied the photo. It was another standard selfie taken by Roman. He was grinning like a chimpanzee and he had his arm around her, his fingers digging into her shoulder.

Aurora’s head strained sideways and her eyes looked away from the camera, like she was plotting her escape. Her smile was not convincing. It could easily be interpreted as a wince.

“Look at the background,” Jenny said. “They’re in Caro’s casino.”

She was right. The selfie was a close-up, so not much of the setting was depicted. But behind Roman’s head, a portion of a sign read CEDAR.

The restaurant promoted as the casino’s high-end-dining option was the Red Cedar Steak House.

“Can you check the date on that picture?” I asked the guy.

“Sure,” he said. “Here you go.”

The cursor pointed out the date.

“Jesus,” I whispered.

Jenny jumped out of the chair to check the date against the Aurora Gates coverage on the wall. “Stafford Lee. The date—that’s the date of offense on the criminal charge. Daniel Caro was accused of murdering Aurora Gates on the day that selfie was taken.”

I didn’t need Jenny to confirm it. I’d tried the case, seen the date on the criminal charge accusing Daniel Caro of murder, heard it from witness after witness on the stand.

I said, “Daniel Caro testified that they met for dinner at the casino steak house that night. Then she drove him back to his car. It was the last time he saw her alive.”

Jenny returned to the table. She stared at the picture, then at me. “What do we do with this information, Stafford Lee?”