You know what you have to do.
“Take the medicine and you’ll feel much better.”
He scrubbed his face to try to clear the haze fogging his brain.
“Take all of it, Dane.”
Did he say that? Maybe she did.
Whatever. She was right.
She always was.
He knew what he had to do.
41
Tuesday, September 14, midnight
Highway 11, Midfield
Dane Drake was nowhere to be found.
Carson wanted to beat the hell out of something ... or someone.
Annette had visited nearly every damned contact she had who knew Dane. No one had seen him in three days.
Dane was either hiding out or dead.
Carson needed him to be alive. Though they no longer socialized in the same circles, they had known each other since they were kids. Used to be best buds. Elizabeth and her mother couldn’t take losing him, too.
And, dammit all to hell, Carson needed answers. He had to find Dane.
Carson still refused to believe that his old friend would have hurt his family, but then he wouldn’t have thought Wainwright would just turn his back on him, either. Or manipulate a confession for crimes not committed. That was way, way out of character for the man who had been his mentor and friend for more than five years.
He was hiding something.
Or maybe Carson had never really known him.
Nothing added up to the bottom line Carson had expected to find. There were no clear-cut answers. No plain truths.
Senator Drake was dead.
Wainwright had kicked Carson to the curb.
When Elizabeth and Patricia learned the news, Carson doubted they would still think so highly of him. Whatever had Elizabeth coming to him would stop on a dime.
That left Carson with no one. Again.
He glanced at his passenger.
Except for Annette Baxter.
His jaw clenched.
An unholy union to say the least.
But he needed help. Obviously he couldn’t do this alone.
