Chapter 5

Mitchell prepared for the Bassett case as she had never prepared for anything else in her life.

She lived, breathed, ate, drank, and became subsumed in the case, consuming every bit of information as greedily as she could. She was the first one at Blue County Law Firm every morning and the last one to leave. Some nights she didn’t leave but instead stayed through the night until she could see the sunrise over the horizon. The cleaning lady would come to find her still at the office facing her laptop screen.

“You should slow down, Miss Edwards,” she would gently counsel. Mitchell would often smile kindly at her but say nothing. Her home life wasn’t so good anymore anyways. Neither her father nor her siblings understood how much she wanted a thriving law career, how much she wanted to make something of herself by herself.

They couldn’t see beyond their driyn paranoia. It was another reason Mitchell avoided the house as much as possible. She stayed nights and would on