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  On those occasions, she had found him pouring over the boxes of files and reports he kept on a shelf in the downstairs closet. They were everything he had on the disappearance of Shoshanna Green.

  Those were the nights where the little girl haunted him, where his guilt at setting James Klodd free grew so crippling that his only relief was to sift through the files. He would read every word, every detail, while night spun slowly into morning and then into day. When he was certain there was nothing he’d missed within the police reports or in his own case notes, only then did the guilt relent and allow him to carry on with living. The boxes would return to the closet shelf and the man she loved would appear at their law office late in the afternoon, tired and plagued with an abiding sadness, but present.

  “You know what?” she said. “I’m going to get a glass of wine.”

  “You don’t have to stay up with me, Izzy. I’ll come back up in a minute.”

  “It’s a nice night. I’ll be right back.”

  Darren’s phone chimed.

  She heard him mumble, “its Theresa”, as she walked back inside.

  In the kitchen she selected a bottle from the wooden wine rack suspended from the ceiling. She uncorked it and poured herself half a glass. From the refrigerator, she retrieved a wheel of smoked Ricotta and a half-pound of Pancetta wrapped in butcher’s paper. A sharp knife produced several thin slivers of the cheese and she arranged them on one side of a glass plate. On the other side, she fanned a dozen pieces of the Pancetta. Finally, she laid a clump of green grapes in the center of the plate and took a sip of her wine while she admired the pretty arrangement.

  Issabella poured a splash more wine into her glass, took the plate in hand, and walked back out to the terrace. She set the plate on the table between them, eased into her chair, and looked at him. Darren was holding his phone in one hand and staring out at the bridge with a wide-eyed alertness that was at odds with the brooding doubt he’d displayed before she fetched her wine.

  “You look very awake all of a sudden,” she said and selected a thin slice of Pancetta. “How’s Theresa? I made snacks.”

  Darren stood up without glancing at the plate.

  “Forget your brother, Darren. Have some cheese. It’s good. I swung by the Eastern Market yesterday and picked it up. Good cheese trumps rotten siblings. Or it should, anyway.”

  “We need to get moving, Izzy.”

  She glanced at her glass of wine and at her prettily arranged plate of snacks.

  “That’ll probably require an explanation,” she said.

  Darren looked confused and agitated.

  “Darren?”

  He rushed past her and she followed at a walk. As she crossed the living room, Sam stirred and hopped off the couch. When she reached the bedroom, Darren had already pulled on a pair of slacks and was taking a blue dress shirt down from a hanger in the closet. Sam trailed into the room after her, his tail thumping against her calves. She reached down and scratched the back of the dog’s neck.

  “Ready for an explanation,” she said. “Really ready.”

  Darren had one arm shrugged into a sleeve.

  “Theresa found a dead guy behind the bar. Stabbed in the neck. Let’s get moving, kid.”

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  Available February 2016 wherever

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  Copyright ©2016 by Jonathan Watkins

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgments must be offered to those people who helped shepherd this book along its journey to you. Thanks and appreciation to Curtis P. Russell, Kerri Buckley and Janice May (for the early enthusiasm).

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  About the Author

  Jonathan Watkins is the author of the Bright & Fletcher Mysteries series of novels. A lifelong Michigander, he lives in Ann Arbor and practices as an attorney when not busy writing. He adores his wife, is proud of his sons and suffers a profound suspicion that he is far luckier than he has any right to be. You can find him online at brightandfletcher.blogspot.com.

  Don’t miss the first books in Jonathan Watkins’s BRIGHT & FLETCHER MYSTERY series! MOTOR CITY SHAKEDOWN and DYING IN DETROIT are available now!

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  As soon as criminal defense lawyer Issabella Bright’s long-lost father blows into the Motor City, kidnapping, ransom and murder follow him and threaten to tear asunder the work-and-romance partnership she’s built with the man who will go to any length to keep her safe. And that man, Darren Fletcher, soon learns that shielding Issabella from danger could swiftly end...

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  ISBN-13: 9781459290334

  Isolated Judgment

  This is the revised text of Knights and Knaves, first published by Jonathan Watkins in 2013

  This edition published by Carina Press, 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Jonathan Watkins

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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