“Dane.” Annette shook him. He didn’t respond. She drew her hand away. “He’s cold.”
“Dane.” Carson put his face close to his old friend’s. “He’s not breathing.” Carson checked his carotid pulse. Dread settled in his gut. “Call nine-one-one.”
As he assessed Dane more closely, he recognized that it wouldn’t matter how fast help arrived.
Dane was already dead.
“Wait,” Carson said, desperation fueling him, “don’t make that call.”
Annette stared at him in disbelief and no small amount of horror.
“Just . . . don’t,” Carson reiterated.
42
1:50 a.m.
“It’s over.”
Carson turned in his seat at the sound of Annette’s voice. They sat in the Rover, in the dark, in the hotel parking lot. They’d been doing that for about fifteen minutes. He still couldn’t believe what he was about to propose. But he was out of options.
Dane was dead.
There was no place to go from here. No way to find any answers, much less the whole story.
He stared beyond the windshield, into the night. He’d risked everything, and he’d gotten nothing in return.
He’d failed.
“I have to move Paula. Tonight.”
Carson’s attention shifted back to the woman in the passenger seat. She had lost everything as well. Her sister’s safety was in jeopardy. She was on the verge of being charged with two high profile murders. The citizens would demand justice. Annette Baxter would be painted as a cunning, manipulative harlot in the media. Then the witch trial would begin.
He and Annette didn’t have a shred of evidence to support their theories. Hell, he didn’t actually have a fleshed-out theory. He was stillreeling with all that she had told him. With the visit to Stokes. With all that he suspected.
Frustration coiled inside him. How the hell had he allowed himself to be backed into a corner like this? He never lost a case. Never got so caught up he couldn’t properly assess a motive or a suspect.
Never gave up.
His gaze dropped to the steering wheel, where his hands were clenched as if he were racing along a winding road. He could not give up like this.
Fury tightened in his gut.
Hell no. He wasn’t giving up.
They had one opportunity here.
“I have a plan.”
“You’re wasting time. We can’t beat them.” Annette leaned against the headrest. “They’ve already won.”
Anticipation roared through Carson. “They’ve only won if we give up.”
She looked at him. Though he couldn’t make out the emotion in her eyes, he could feel the intensity there. “There’s a time when you cut your losses, counselor. Or didn’t they teach that technique in law school?”
He started the Rover. “I must’ve been absent the day they discussed that technique.” He shot her a look, wanting her to see the determination on his face even in the dim lighting. “We don’t have any solid evidence, that’s true. But”—he shifted into drive—“we do have a witness.”
“Dane is dead!”
