“Gary.”
Annie’s brows shot up. “Your… your stepfather?”
Daniel nodded. “He was special ops before he became a contractor. He was smart and well-connected. If anyone could do something like this, it’s him, believe me.”
Annie was dumbfounded. It was too far-fetched. Too outlandish. Surely Daniel knew that, but his eyes were full of sincerity.
“But… but why? What possible motive would he have to kill Jamie?”
Daniel spread his arms out at his sides and looked around. “Wouldn’t this be the perfect form of revenge? Tracking me down, making it look like I really did kill someone? It would dredge everything back up, put him in the spotlight again, and land me in prison for the rest of my life, which is what he wanted in the first place; a fitting punishment for what he thinks I tried to do to him.”
For a moment, Daniel’s eyes circled the clearing, as though his stepfather might appear through the trees at any second, and Annie stared at him with her heart thudding behind her ribs. The idea was unhinged. Truly unhinged.
“You have to know how crazy that sounds.”
Daniel turned back to her. “I do, but I’m telling you, Annie, you don’t know the guy. He could be living out in the woods somewhere surviving off of squirrels and mice, that’s the kind of person he is. He could pull something like this off just like any of the other crazy military missions he went on. He could have been scoping me out for weeks. Months. Honestly, a part of me feels like I’ve just been waiting seven years for something like this to happen.”
Annie scanned the dark forest behind the boathouse. What Daniel was saying was unthinkable. And yet, twice, she’d come across unthinkable scenes out there in those very woods. Was the theory really crazier than anything else that had happened?
Her thumb twitched back and forth over the Ruger’s safety as she contemplated the idea.
“You seriously think that’s a possibility?” she said at last.
“I kind of have to. What’s the alternative? That I somehow blacked out and killed her without meaning to?” Daniel lifted a hand and raked it through his hair in frustration. “I didn’t do it, Annie.”
Annie hesitated, wishing there were a way to see inside his head. But there was no litmus test for truth.
Remember, Annie girl, when push comes to shove out there, trust yourself. Have faith in your instincts and follow your gut, it’s the best compass you’ve got.
Annie tucked the Ruger into its holster. “I better go. Pool should be open for another couple of hours. Maybe Ian’s down there, or one of Jamie’s friends I could talk to. You stay here. It’ll be worse for you if you’re gone when Jake gets back with the warrant.”
Daniel blinked at her in what looked like genuine surprise. “You’re going to help me?”
Annie nodded.
“Why?”
Silence fell again as she met his searching gaze.
“I have to.”
She turned her back on him and jogged toward the gate, climbing up and over and ducking into the cruiser.
For the first time as she pulled away from the lake in the woods, Annie did not look back.
Chapter 32ANNIE
Annie drove the miles between the lake and town with her foot hard on the gas, aware of every second that ticked by.
Time was precious. Minutes and seconds were all she had in the race against Daniel’s arrest, against his being sent to trial, and after that, the unthinkable possibility of a lifetime in prison.
Annie knew next to nothing about murder trials. She had no idea if the evidence stacked against Daniel was enough to convict him, but if the reaction of Lake Lumin’s citizens to the crime had been any indication, it was hard to imagine a jury finding him innocent.
As it stood now, she was his best hope, his only hope, and if he didn’t kill Jamie, then someone else had. There was no such thing as a perfect murder. There was evidence out there somewhere, truth to be uncovered, and she was determined to try, not just for Daniel, the man she’d come to care for, but for sixteen-year-old Nico, who had been running for his life for far too long.
With the red and blue lights swirling atop the Crown Victoria, Annie sped through the town’s lone stoplight and hit the speed bump before the pool with such force that she briefly left her seat. She whipped into the parking lot and mashed down on the brake, easing the cruiseraround the lot with her eyes on the wooden lifeguard stand on the other side of the gate, once inhabited by Jamie, and now by a burly teenaged boy watching a couple of kids splash around in the water with a look of supreme boredom on his face.
Annie rolled by the gate, her heart surging up into her throat as she gazed at the turquoise water filling the massive pool. It rippled like satin in the bright sunlight, beautiful and lethal.
