No Safe Counsel

Book excerpt: TRIGGER WARNING: Murder, violence, rude language. Billie Landry had been dealing with haters her whole life. At six-foot-two and 250 pounds, she’s never had problems handling herself. In fact, Billie can handle most anything. Except high-school students. She’s never gotten over that kid who committed suicide. So she quit teaching. These days, she’s the state’s go-to person for digital forensics. There’s no computer, laptop, cell-phone, or digital appliance she can’t handle. In her line of work, she has seen it all from grisly murder to the worst child-porn cases imaginable. So, when a serial murderer is operating in the region, the state calls Billie in to look for “digital breadcrumbs”. She assumes that’s what the latest meeting is about. But this time, they’re asking her to do something she dreads, something she swore she’d never do again, something which cause her to weep at her lonely kitchen dinette: They want her to return to high school.