Annie’s brows drew together. “What do you need a circuit judge for?”
Jake turned to meet her gaze with eyes full of misery. “A circuit judge is the one who issues an arrest warrant.”
Annie blanched, and for several seconds she could say nothing. She knew the indignation was unwarranted, but it welled up in her chest anyway, bursting out in a storm of words.
“You can’t be serious… You’re his best friend, Jake, you guys have known each other for years. He trusts you, and you’re just going to waltz up there and slap a pair of handcuffs on him?”
Jake didn’t look at her as the words fell like blows, and when she was finished, he merely shook his head.
“What else can I do, Annie? He’s avoiding me. There’s a reason he never went home last night. I know the guy. I know him better than just about anyone else does. Daniel’s a turtle, he gets into his shell and there’s no getting him out of it. I have to force him onto neutral territory. I have to put him into a situation where he has to answer questions. Where he has the fear of the law hanging over his head and can see me as something other than the guy he goes fishing with on Saturdays.”
Jake was right, and there was no arguing it, but stubborn tears pricked at Annie’s eyes anyway as her chest rose and fell in silence.
“If you haveanyoneelse we should investigate, I’m all ears,” he said. “But the fact is, you don’t. You and I both know we have more than enough evidence for a warrant. And frankly, putting it off is not just stupid, it’s negligent.”
Annie sat back in her chair, suddenly worn-out and exhausted and a hundred years old. Why was she fighting back so hard against Daniel as the obvious suspect? Why was she clinging to the hope that Jamie’s killer was someone else when Jake, who had known Daniel far longer than she had, was already willing to set his personal feelings aside in pursuit of justice. Jake, who didn’t even have the full story. Jake, who still believed Daniel Barela was, in fact, Daniel Barela.
When Annie remained silent, Jake sighed again and rose from his chair.
“Can I take your Jeep? I left the cruiser at my place, and I don’t feel like walking all the way back. I won’t be gone more than a few hours.”
“Sure.” She handed him the keys. “Just be careful on the freeway, it’s been stuttering a little bit over fifty-five.”
Jake nodded and turned to leave.
He was halfway to the door when Annie’s conscience got the better of her.
“Wait…”
He stopped, turning back.
Annie pushed aside her guilt. It was the right thing to do. And it was past time.
“There’s something you should know.”
He walked back around the desk. “I’m listening.”
She could feel the words bubbling up, rising from the place where she had buried them. “Jake… Daniel isn’t who you think he is.”
Chapter 30DANIEL
The paranoia was back, and much worse this time. Tangible and acute—impossible to shove into the far corner of his mind and write off as an overactive imagination. It surrounded him in the clearing, hunched in every flickering shadow, and sank into his skin with the sweet summer breeze.
Daniel raised the maul high over his head and brought it down on the splintered cedar round that waited on the chopping stump, cracking it halfway through. He swung again and again—tossing the quarters into the growing pile.
His sweat-soaked shirt lay in a forgotten heap behind him. The skin of his shoulders smarted with sunburn and his head throbbed with each swing of the maul. Even his eyes ached with fatigue, but he persisted.
Splitting the cedar rounds wasn’t on his list of chores for the summer. He already had enough firewood to last the winter. Two winters, actually, but he couldn’t sit still inside the boathouse for one more minute or he’d lose his mind.
It was torture, pure torture, just sitting and staring out the window with the door propped open and his ears tuned for the wail of Jake’s siren. The sound of his imminent arrest.
After yesterday, he knew it was only a matter of time. The town had turned against him, and Jake was next. Now that Justin Grimes was out of the picture, whom else would Jake suspect? Who else knew the woods up here like the back of their hand? Who else had Jamie been seen with, friendly with, ormorethan friendly with, by Jake’s reckoning?
The cards were stacked against him, so here he was, on exactly zero hours of sleep, chopping wood under a blazing-hot sun because he couldn’t bear to spend one more restless minute inside. Physical exertion kept the demons at bay, the ones that had haunted him last night as he sat alone in the truck.
It seemed crazy, now, that he hadn’t picked up on it at the Wards’. He hadn’t thought anything of it when Tammy Ward handed him his check with her arm all the way outstretched, the slip of paper in her thin fingers pinched by the far corner. Even her head was drawn back far enough to wrinkle her neck, as though she were protecting every last inch of space she could put between them.
When Daniel told her there was one more breaker he wanted to get behind to double-check the voltage, she’d shaken her head quickly and said it wasn’t needed; she’d call him if they ran into any more trouble. Odd, but still, he hadn’t thought much of it, until he stopped in town on his way home, and there had been no way to miss the sense of unease. Sideways stares and furtive glances were leveled in his direction from every passerby—and a group of three women that he greeted with a nod instantly crossed to the other side of the street.
