Then Emily understood. “You’re doing this for Ray.” She tried to take comfort in that. Misty and Justine had killed Ray. His men likely wanted vengeance.
But these were officers of the law. The bizarre combination of fear and dread and even understanding churned, confusing Emily further. She tried to rationalize how this could be right in some capacity.
Mike nodded thoughtfully. “In part, you’re right. We are doing this for Ray. But Granville and I spoke shortly before midnight last night. We reached an agreement about how this would be handled. He alerted me a little later to the possibility that Justine might go after you and Clint.” With a heavy sigh, he added, “That’s behind us now, but there are other things. Things we don’t need to go into, that simply shouldn’t be aired in public. We don’t want any more harm done to the community and certainly not to the reputation of our fine school. It’s better if we do it this way.”
Her entire body quaked during the expanse of silence that followed his dissertation.
“Mike?”
“Yes, Emily?”
She held her hands tightly together in an attempt to keep them still. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Well, now, there’s a perfectly good reason for that.”
Tiny blasts of fear detonated in her veins.
“We don’t want that nasty business about Ray having tampered with evidence to ever end up in the media. We know you and Clint stole that report. It really isn’t that significant, since the necklace could have belonged to you or Heather or really anyone, for that matter. Unless, of course, you were to make it significant. We all feel that the best thing to do is just let all this ugliness fade into history where it belongs. We want this to end. Now.”
He had just admitted to her that the Pine Bluff Police Department intended to kill a suspect and suppress evidence. Why not just do it and let her believe, along with the rest of the world, that it was whatever they decided to report to the media? There had to be more. Her palms began to sweat with the urge to try the door, but she couldn’t escape, not from the back seat of an official squad car.
Clint. The idea that he could be killed just like Misty ripped through Emily. “What about Clint?”
“Oh, we’ll see that he’s fully exonerated,” Mike assured her. “The state owes him a small fortune for his wrongful conviction. He’ll be fine. Just fine. We don’t need anyone getting restless down the line and asking questions. It’s best that we all move on with our lives and put this terrible, terrible tragedy behind us once and for all. Don’t you agree?”
Funny, everyone had been telling her that for ages. She met his eyes, tried her best not to allow accusation to enter hers. “Sure.” Terror pounded in her ears. “You’re absolutely right.”
He stared at her for what felt like a whole minute. Maybe assessing her reliability. Emily tried all in her power to look utterly unfazed and entirely agreeable.
“One last thing.”
She held her breath.Please don’t let this be worse news.“Yes?”
“I’m certain you understand that if you fail to stand by our arrangement Clint will have to pay the price.”
She wasn’t sure what she was expected to say to that. “I ...” She cleared her throat but couldn’t dislodge the wad of dread there. “I thought you said he would be exonerated.”
“You can count on that,” Mike insisted with an affirming nod, “just as long as we can count on you to keep up your end of this arrangement. I’m sure you know that these things take time. There’ll be an official inquiry, perhaps questions from the ABI or even the FBI. We’ll need to be sure we all stay on the same page for that. We certainly wouldn’t want any fuss to come up over your father’s perjury ten years ago.”
Ice slid through her veins. “No. No we wouldn’t.”
Mike smiled, the act unholy somehow. “That’s good. And just so you know, we have that video of the two of you breaking into the courthouse. That would look really, really bad in court—particularly for Clint given his history.”
“There’s a video?”
Another of those evil smiles. “We were pretty sure the two of you would try something foolish like that. It was Ray’s idea. He knew if he dragged his feet on those files, you’d get desperate. So we took the liberty of keeping an eye on you. For insurance if we ever needed it.”
If we ever needed it. Emily had to remind herself that this was real ... not just a nightmare. She’d known these people her whole life. How could this be possible?
The rest of the picture cleared for Emily; her stomach filled with dread. If Clint ever ended up back in that awful place again, he would never come out. They would make sure. And her father ... dear God, she couldn’t put him through this.
They had her. Had her and Clint both right where they wanted them.
Evidently her silence told Mike she’d reached the proper conclusion. “I’m glad you can see our dilemma. We just want Clint to move on with his life. Maybe even move to another town the way you did. Too many reminders of the past here.”
Emily bit her lips together to hold back the emotions mounting inside her.
“You do your part,” he assured her, “we’ll do ours.”
