SPOILERS!!!
The novel takes a turn I didn’t expect. During the hearing of Trejo, the man who supposedly run the boy over, Tracy is summoned to testify, and Cho, the prosecutor, wants to play the store tape, showing Trejo in the area. When Cho asks his assistant, the tape is not in the evidence box, and there is an uproar. Cho says that the last time he saw the evidence box, it was on Leah’s desk. Leah admits to having checked the evidence box last night, but she didn’t check the tape and doesn’t even know if it was there at all. After she finished, she left it on the court reporter’s seat because he had left for the day.
As a consequence of this, the hearing is adjourned and Leah is suspended and become the subject of the investigation.Tracy talks to her, and she swears she didn’t get rid of the tape. Even though the tape was incriminating for her client, she would be mad to risk her career in this way.
Tracy talks to the state prosecutor and her superiors, and she thinks that Trejo knew that the tape wouldn’t be found. He was opposite Tracy during the hearing, and he showed no expression at all. She also thinks that there is someone involved who must have helped him when he killed the boy. Someone who told him where to leave the car and who must have given him a lift home. Tracy tells her superiors and Cerrabone that she wants to investigate the case, and eventually she is given the go-ahead.
As for Del and Faz, Del has Allie’s mobile and computer unlocked, and he reads the exchange of emails with someone called J-man, who tells Allie he has missed her and how good stuff he has to share, and Allie eventually agrees to meet him. Del’s nephews tell him that J-man is Jack Welch, and Del and Faz pay him a visit. He is not in, and his mother says that she is desperate because she doesn’t know how to control her son. Jack appears and tries to escape Del and Faz, but in his attempt to flit, he is attacked by a dog, and the police apprehend him. Del and Faz threaten him, telling him that he could be prosecuted for homicide. Jack eventually tells him that his supplier is Nicholas Evans, the leader of the band he is in. Curiously, what worries Jack is that revealing that information would mean he would be out of the band. Del thinks that Jack only wanted Allie for the money he could get from her for drugs, and I think he is right. I feel so sorry for these kids who have their whole life ahead of them and spoil it so uselessly for the use of drugs.
My Reading Journal 