5:00 AM
Mountain Brook
Annette parked the sedan she’d borrowed from Kim Schaffer along the side of the deserted road. She stared through the darkness. Light glowed from the two windows on the front of shack where Maxwell West resided. His old pickup truck stood to one side of the shack. She didn’t see any sign of Max.
With her cell phone tucked into her pocket, she opened the car door and got out. She listened for several seconds. Too quiet. Where were the rants of a mentally ill man? No sounds of things being tossed around inside his house though half an hour ago he had been in a desperate rage according to Carson.
He could have injured himself. Could be dead.
Fear snaked along the column of her spine.
Walking quickly, she made her way along the gravel drive. Her heels crunched, jarring the silence pressing in around her. She glanced back to the car twice, three times, her fingers wrapped tightly around the cell phone in her pocket.
Annette wasn’t usually so jumpy. But this could very well be a setup. She wasn’t sure Carson had considered that possibility, but she sure as hell had. Even if it weren’t, it was unfamiliar territory.
She understood how to handle her sister’s outbursts, but this was a man with an entirely different problem set. He would be far stronger than Paula.
Once Annette reached the small porch, she moved a bit more stealthily. If he had worn himself down, fallen asleep, she didn’t want to startle him.
At the door she tried the knob. Not locked.
Annette braced herself and slowly, noiselessly turned the knob. The locking mechanism clicked as it moved to the open position. She flinched. Stay calm. Be ready. Then she opened the door.
The room was well lit.
The Spartan furnishings were turned upside down. Items had been ripped from their shelves, cabinets, and drawers. Photographs had been torn into pieces. But no sign of the man who had carried out such destruction.
She listened a few moments more. Nothing.
“Max?”
Silence.
Her nerves jangled.
She squeezed the phone in her pocket tighter.
“Max! Carson sent me to see if you needed any help cleaning up.”
“Shhhh!”
Annette whirled toward the door.
Max West grabbed her, held her close to his body. “Shhh,” he hissed in her ear. “They’ll hear you.”
Her heart thudding against her chest wall, Annette nodded. He must have been hiding behind the door.
“They’re gonna get me this time,” he muttered. “I know it.”
Annette turned her face up to his. That was about the only part of her body she could move at the moment. “What do they want?” Instinct told her to play along. If the man was delusional, arguing wouldn’t work.
He stared down at her, his face a mask of confusion and frustration. “Me, of course!”
She nodded. “We should make a run for it.” The idea gained momentum quickly. “I have a car. Should we go get help?”
Max moved his head from side to side in a slow, resolute manner. “If we go out there, they’ll get us for sure.”
“I understand.” She glanced around the room. “We should find ourselves weapons.” She looked back up at him. “Maybe prepare something to hide behind. Like that couch over there.”
He seemed to consider her suggestion, then shook his head adamantly. “We can’t touch anything. It’s all evil. That’s why I had to fight it.”
“Carson is worried about you.” She didn’t know what else to say. “He wants me to—”
“Where is that boy?” Max demanded, his tone loud and gruff. “He should’ve been home by now. The last time he did this …”
Annette’s insides froze. Was he referring to the night Carson’s family was murdered? Or some other night that had suddenly flashed through his muddled gray matter? “What happened last time?”
Max shook his head hard. “I can’t say.”
Annette lowered her voice to a more soothing tone. “You can tell me anything, Max. I’m Carson’s friend. He trusts me.”
He looked away from her as if he’d heard someone else speaking to him. “She’s not Carson. I can’t tell her,” he said to the voice only he could hear.
“No,” he screamed. “I won’t tell her!”
“It’s okay, Max,” she urged. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Let’s just stay calm and be quiet so they won’t hear us.”
He snapped his mouth shut, surveying the room as if he fully expected to see someone else standing nearby.
“I can’t tell her,” he growled.
His arms tightened around her, and Annette felt the first glimmer of panic.
“Where’s your medicine, Max?” she asked tentatively.
He leaned his mouth close to her ear. “It’s evil. I can’t take it.”
She was going to have to disable him. There appeared no way around it.
“I WILL NOT TELL HER!”
Annette cringed at the words screamed so close to her ear.
When her ears had stopped ringing, she studied the man’s face. Whatever was going through his head, he was scared to death. “Max, can you show me what you’re afraid of?”
If she could distract him from the voice, that might be helpful.
He stared at her a moment, then started ushering her deeper into the shack. Bedroom. The panic bloomed larger. Images and voices from her past whispered in her whirling thoughts.
She forced the memories away. This was Max … not her mother’s boyfriend or one of her foster fathers.
The coppery odor of blood yanked her full attention back to the moment a split second before the crimson trailing up the tousled bedcovers registered. As her sluggish brain grappled to wrap around what it all meant, her gaze locked on what was lying in the center of the bed.
Lots of blood. Something big. Brown. Long tail.
A dog.
Her stomach roiled.
The dog had been mutilated. Had bled out in Max’s bed. Judging by the odor it had been there a day or two.
She swallowed back a gag. “Max, is that your dog?” Damn, anyone who would kill a helpless animal had to be seriously twisted.
“It’s my daughter’s dog.”
Before Annette could crane her neck around and see beyond Max’s shoulder, he started to howl and cry. He pushed Annette away and ran to the corner. He huddled there with his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs.
Annette faced the woman who had spoken.
Patricia Drake.
The gun in her hand was the next thing Annette became aware of. Well now, this was certainly an unexpected development. The senator’s wife definitely wasn’t anyone Annette would have considered a threat.
“I couldn’t tell her!” Max cried. “She’s not Carson!”
Patricia sent a glare in the old man’s direction. “Shut up! I need to think.”
Annette mentally shook off the surprise and evaluated her situation. This woman intended to kill her. The certainty with which she understood that reality made her pulse react.
Annette’s mouth went dry.
Could Patricia Drake be responsible for Dr. Holderfield’s death? For the senator’s? Surely she wouldn’t have killed her own husband.
That was … impossible. The way the two had doted on each other in public. No. The idea was preposterous. An uncharacteristic tremor of fear rattled Annette. But … if she had killed her husband, she damned sure wouldn’t have any qualms about killing Annette.
For the first time in over a decade Annette had no idea how to fix a situation.
She was screwed.
“Carson’s dear uncle Max has a message for his nephew,” Patricia explained in a haughty voice. “He was in his sister’s house that night. He committed the murders. Carson needs to hear that so this nuisance can be put to rest once and for all. That’s the way it should’ve been handled from the beginning.” Patricia inclined her head and glowered at Annette. “But Carson isn’t here. Where is he?”
There had to be a way to turn this around. “He’s with the FBI.” Annette looked the other woman straight in the eyes and went for broke. “He’s telling them his suspicions about you and your son. We found Dane. He told us everything.”
Patricia laughed. “Don’t be foolish, you ridiculous whore. Carson has no idea what really happened to his parents. Dane would never tell. Never. He loves his sister too much. Besides, I don’t think Dane has been talking to anyone.”
“You,” Annette argued, fury bursting inside her at what those cruel words undoubtedly meant, “should have gone to the police about Dane years ago. Why did you let Carson live in hell all those years?” What kind of person could do that to another human being?
The front door flew open. Annette hoped it would be help. But her hope was short-lived.
“Mother! What’re you doing?”
Elizabeth.
No way could Annette hope to win against the two of them.
Patricia pointed a disapproving look at her daughter. “Stay out of this, Elizabeth. I have everything under control.”
Elizabeth ignored her mother, unleashed her fury on Annette. “You’re a fool. You should have left town while you had the chance.” Then she wheeled on her mother once more. “Answer me, Mother. What are you doing?”
Annette considered her chances of survival if she took a dive at Elizabeth right now. Too risky. Patricia Drake would shoot her for sure.
“I told you,” Patricia snarled, “I have this under control. All will be exactly as it should be very soon.”
Elizabeth’s face puckered into an expression of disgust. “What is that smell?”
“I used the dog to scare him,” her mother explained impatiently. “Max is going to confess to Carson. That story makes far more sense than that ridiculous Stokes scheme. It should have been done this way years ago. Wainwright’s an idiot.”
Patricia killed the dog? What a sick bitch. Hearing Wainwright’s name was no surprise. Annette had known Wainwright was in this up to his eyeballs. The bastard. She hoped he got his. If she were lucky maybe she would live to see it.
“Why did you do that?” Elizabeth demanded, her voice small and high-pitched, like a child whining over a lost toy. “You do it every time! The dog was mine! You had no right!”
Patricia scoffed. “Don’t be foolish. He was too large. Too much trouble. You didn’t need him. Besides, he was nothing but a distraction. You need to be focused on work. On Carson.”
“You never do anything right,” Elizabeth snapped. “Never, never, never! Every time Father got us a dog you found something wrong with it. Wanted it out of the way. I think you were just jealous, Mother. Jealous of how much Dane and I loved those dogs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth,” Patricia patronized. “It was for the best. I know what’s best for you.”
This just got more and more twisted. Annette had to make a move. “What about Carson?” She directed her appeal to Elizabeth. “Hasn’t he been hurt enough? Does your mother have to drag his uncle into this nightmare, too?”
The princess of Birmingham morphed instantly from helpless little girl to psychotic bitch. “Don’t pretend you know Carson. He only fucked you because he couldn’t have me.”
Okay, so Elizabeth wasn’t a potential ally. “Or maybe,” Annette tossed back, “it was because I was helping him find the truth.”
“Liar.” Elizabeth snatched the gun from her mother’s hand and moved in a step closer to Annette. “You don’t know the truth any more than he does.”
Annette wasn’t sure whether Elizabeth was less of a threat than her mother or not. Might as well take a stab at throwing her off balance. “Were you going to kill Carson when he came here? The way you did your father?”
“How dare you even suggest such a thing!” Elizabeth leveled the barrel of the weapon on Annette. “I loved my father. And no one’s going to hurt Carson. We’re going to be married. Father would have come around in time.
He loved Carson. My father was only worried that Carson would cause trouble with all this digging into the past.”
“That’s why we have to do this now,” Patricia urged. She looked from her daughter to the gun in her hand and back. “We can’t take any more risks.”
Annette had to keep them distracted and divided until she had a plan. “Maybe your mother killed your father for you.”
Patricia Drake’s chin jutted out. “He went too far.”
Elizabeth watched her mother as she spoke. Her lips quivered. “He did,” she agreed, her voice low, grim. “But he didn’t have to die. You could have talked to him. You always kill everything!”
“He wasn’t listening.” Patricia’s cold expression melted as she peered lovingly at her daughter, brushing a strand of dark hair from her cheek. “I couldn’t let him hurt you all over again. He wanted Carson dead.”
When Elizabeth would have argued, Patricia implored, “I heard your father give the order, Elizabeth. I had no choice. He had to be stopped.”
Annette shuddered. A part of her had wondered if Wainwright and Drake would really go to that extreme. Killing her was one thing, but Carson? For all intents and purposes he was one of them. Now she knew. If she didn’t get out of here alive to warn him … it could still happen.
Say something! Anything! “The way you stopped Lana Kimble when you were afraid Randolph might choose her over you,” Annette insinuated. More conjecture, but it was worth a try.
Patricia’s face darkened with renewed rage, but there was no mistaking the flicker of surprise in her eyes. “I didn’t kill her. She fell. It was an accident. We were arguing. Besides, Randolph never really loved that pathetic little slut. It was me he needed. She would have ruined him.”
Jesus. Annette had guessed right. “So you were just protecting the man you loved?”
“Of course,” Patricia insisted. “He would never have achieved all that he has without me. I’ve always made sure my family was protected.”
No shit. Like a bear protecting her cubs. Annette fought the quaking that had started in her limbs. She needed more time. Think! The prescription bottle in Dane’s room. It had belonged to his mother. “The way you protected Dane?”
“He wouldn’t stop causing trouble!” Patricia’s voice grew higher and thinner as she spoke. “I told him to stop, but he refused. Trading the rings for drugs was the last straw. He left me no choice.”
Elizabeth stared at Patricia. “What did you do, Mother?”
Patricia glanced around the room as if buying time while she came up with an excuse. “I … I gave him something to help him sleep, dear. That’s all. Maybe he’ll do better after he’s had some rest.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Annette blurted, hoping to keep the tension mounting between mother and daughter. Both glared at her. “Like I said,” Annette improvised, “Dane told us everything. I know what you did.”
“Dane’s an idiot,” Elizabeth contended. “Drugs have ruined him. But he would never do anything to hurt me.”
What now? Annette had just one genuine ace up her sleeve. “Dane is dead, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth’s mouth went slack. Her eyes widened for a moment before the fury resurrected. “I don’t believe you.”
“He took those tranquilizers your mother gave him, rented himself a hotel room, and checked out.” Annette needed Elizabeth confused, emotional. Anything but determined.
“You’re lying.”
Annette shrugged. “Call the Holiday Inn Express in Fultondale. Ask them to check room two fourteen. Your brother’s there, he’s dead.” She glanced at the older woman. “Why don’t you ask your mother exactly what she did?”
The weapon in Elizabeth’s hand shook. “I don’t believe you.” She jerked out her cell phone, entered a number, and waited for an answer.
“Don’t listen to her,” Patricia scolded.
Elizabeth ignored her mother. “Dane! Call me as soon as you get this message. I need to hear your voice.”
“He won’t get your message,” Annette warned. “He’s dead. She killed him.”
Elizabeth stared at her phone as if willing it to ring.
“Elizabeth, baby,” Patricia pleaded. “I had to do it. It was the only way to protect you. Dane just kept getting worse and worse. It was time to give up on him and put him out of his misery for all our sakes.”
Elizabeth’s demeanor went abruptly and eerily calm. “You didn’t have to do that, Mother,” she said placidly. “I could have talked to him.” She backed a step or two away from Patricia. “You always overreact. You kill everything I love. I can’t even have a pet because of you! You’ll probably kill Carson, too, if he makes a single mistake.”
Annette felt sick at the idea of what these two had done. What they would continue to do if someone didn’t stop them.
“I’ve always protected you,” Patricia reminded as she reached out to her daughter. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you.”
The sound of the weapon discharging exploded in the room. Annette’s breath trapped in her lungs.
Patricia stared at her daughter for one long beat before looking down at her chest. Blood gurgled from the small hole near her heart, spilled down her pink blouse. Patricia opened her mouth to speak but crumpled to the floor in a lifeless heap instead. Her eyes remained open as if even in death she wanted to see how this ended.
“Max, come here!” Elizabeth commanded.
Annette’s body shook with equal measures fear and shock. She tried to rationalize what she’d just witnessed. Elizabeth Drake had killed her mother. Annette’s muscles
quivered once more then turned to lead. She told herself to breathe. She had to make a move or stand here and let this bitch kill her, too.
“Noooo!” Max wailed. “Don’t make me!”
“Come here,” Elizabeth ordered, “or they’ll come for you and I’ll let them.”
The old man struggled onto all fours and crawled unsteadily to where Elizabeth stood.
“Please,” he begged, “I don’t want them to come.”
“They brought you that dog as a warning,” Elizabeth told him. “Don’t make me call them back.”
Max began to moan and weep.
What the hell kind of power did Elizabeth have over that poor man? Who the hell were they?
“No one’s coming, Max,” Annette promised, anger mounting inside her, overtaking the fear. By God, she wasn’t going down without a fight. “You don’t need to be afraid. Elizabeth is lying to you. Patricia brought the dog.”
Elizabeth’s gaze collided with Annette’s. “Shut up!”
“What’s the matter?” Annette smiled as if victory already belonged to her. “You afraid he’ll realize you have no power over him?”
“I said, shut up!” Elizabeth pointed the weapon at Max. “Shut up or I’ll shoot him.”
Max howled in agony, curled into a ball of pure terror.
Annette refused to let go of her courage. “You can’t shoot us both at the same time. Who’re you going for first? Him or me?” She eased one foot in front of the other as if bracing to make a move.
The gun’s barrel swung back in Annette’s direction. “Maybe I’ll just shoot you and blame it on Max. After all, you’re a stranger. No one would question it. You showed up and he shot you. Everyone knows he’s crazy.”
“Does Max own a weapon?” If Annette could keep her talking a little longer, she might just be able to come up with a plan.
Elizabeth smirked. “That can always be arranged after the fact, as you well know.”
Determination fired in Annette’s veins. No way was she letting this spoiled brat win. “You’re not that smart, Miss Deputy Mayor.”
“I was smart enough to figure out how to make you squirm.” She smiled sweetly. “Ms. Anderson.”
Murder roared in Annette’s chest. “It was you.”
“The whole plan was so easy,” Elizabeth taunted. “I was touring the center with a group of potential donors and I saw you there. Finding out about your sister, Paula, was simple after that. The staff adore me. My family and I help keep them fully funded. They have to love me.”
Annette wanted to kill her for what she’d done to Paula. But not yet. Dane was dead. Patricia was dead. She needed Elizabeth alive. She needed the whole truth. “Did your plan include murdering Dr. Holderfield, too?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m not telling you anything else.”
“Wainwright probably gave the order,” Annette goaded. “Did he make you do it?”
“Please.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Wainwright doesn’t give the orders. My father was the one in charge. The others did what he told them.” Elizabeth straightened her jacket with her free hand and smoothed her hair. “No matter the mess, the cleanup is always quite civilized. Lynch makes sure every last detail is taken care of. Just like he’ll do here.”
Annette wasn’t surprised that Lieutenant Lynch was involved. He would know exactly how to ensure that the evidence, if any, pointed in the right direction. “I guess he screwed up on the gun that’s supposed to be registered to my alias.”
Elizabeth laughed drily. “Don’t you worry. That minor issue will be resolved, and you’ll be charged.” She sighed. “Posthumously, it seems. Now put your hands up, away from your body. Make any sudden moves and I will shoot you.”
Slowly, Annette raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “So, you’re going to kill me and pin it on Max,” she wondered aloud. “But then there’s Dane’s admission to
having killed Carson’s family. Who’s going to fix that? Carson’s not going to forgive you for keeping Dane’s secret.”
“Please,” Elizabeth rebuffed, “my brother couldn’t have admitted all that. He doesn’t have the guts to say it, much less go through with it.”
“I suppose you had the guts, Princess.” The sweet, wholesome image the media played up made Annette want to puke. If they only knew …
“Don’t call me that!” Elizabeth waved the gun. “You have no idea what I can or cannot do.”
“I wouldn’t even believe you killed your mother,” Annette countered, “if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
Elizabeth cocked her head, stared down the length of the barrel. “Maybe I will kill you just to shut you up. Then Carson and I can finally be happy.”
Annette kicked back the panic that threatened her cool. “If you really loved Carson, why murder his family? What did they do to you?”
“Shut up!” Elizabeth crowded in on her, jammed the barrel of the weapon into Annette’s chest. “You don’t know anything about me!”
Renewed terror held Annette mute for a pulse-pounding instant. Elizabeth’s eyes danced with something that looked exactly like insanity. An epiphany hit Annette. Like mother, like daughter. No matter that the business end of a weapon poked her sternum, Annette pushed a knowing smile into place. “Genetics can be a bitch sometimes.”
Fury claimed Elizabeth’s face. “I am not like my mother!” she screamed. “She was the one, not me.” A moment passed as she visibly struggled to regain her composure. “She did it so they wouldn’t know.”
Annette had to keep her talking. She needed every last detail. “Wouldn’t know what? That you loved Carson and his family? Your mother must not have known or she wouldn’t have killed his family.”
“Are you stupid? Of course she knew I loved Carson. That’s why she had to do it.”
What the hell? Keep it together, Annette. Get all the facts. If you survive you’ll need them … for Carson. “I think maybe you’re just as nuts as your mother.”
“I am not like her!” Elizabeth screamed. “I never did anything that bad.” She shook her head adamantly. “It’s not like I killed the stupid girl. She fell down the stairs and broke her shoulder. It was an accident. She was clumsy. Just because she was a cheerleader didn’t mean she wasn’t clumsy. But then she wouldn’t come back to our house anymore and Father blew it all out of proportion.”
Annette felt cold with certainty. Though she didn’t know this story, she could easily imagine what really happened. “You pushed her.” It wasn’t until she saw the rabid look on Elizabeth’s face that Annette realized she’d said the words out loud.
Silence thickened between them for one endless second.
“It … was … an … accident.” Elizabeth’s lips quivered with rage. “But he wouldn’t believe me so he forced me to be evaluated. To endure therapy sessions.”
Annette’s heart thumped hard with her next realization. Carson’s mother. The renowned child psychologist. Annette suddenly knew where this was going. “Dr. Tanner was your therapist.”
“That stupid woman wanted to send me away.” Elizabeth jeered at the idea. “She said there were indicators that I might have uncontrollable violent tendencies. Father was going to do it, too! He thought it would be best for me. He would tell everyone I was away at a prestigious school. No one would ever know. And when I came back I’d be well.”
Annette now knew the truth that Carson Tanner had searched for all those years. “Patricia killed Carson’s mother to keep the truth from coming out. About you.”
“She was only protecting me.” Elizabeth tilted her chin in challenge. “There was no other choice.”
What next? What next? “You probably tried to stop her.” Good idea. Act like you’re on her side. “You knew it would hurt Carson, so you tried to stop your mother.”
Elizabeth stared at her, those green eyes glittering wildly. Her respiration still ragged. But at least she wasn’t screaming or poking the gun deeper into Annette’s ribs. “I was with Carson that night. He’d had too much to drink because of the fight with his mother. Mother said the timing was perfect. We couldn’t wait.”
Annette remembered Carson saying he’d blacked out, didn’t remember anything. It wasn’t impossible that the alcohol alone had done that, but considering the rest of the story, Annette wasn’t convinced. “He was upset.” She lowered her hands a little, braced to tackle the other woman. “You had to be there for him. Calm him down.”
Elizabeth sighed as if she were weary of the subject. “The pills calmed him down.”
Annette restrained the outrage that burned in her chest at what these evil bitches had done to Carson. “Sure.” She nodded agreeably. “He needed the pills.”
“That’s what Mother said.” Elizabeth stared right through Annette as if recalling some faraway memory. “Put two in his drink and he’ll rest. Everything will be all right after that.”
Somehow Annette had to make sure Carson learned the truth. All of it. She had to keep Elizabeth calm. Had to figure a way out of this fucking shack without a bullet in her chest. “But you didn’t hurt his family,” she reminded. “You were with Carson. Dane and your mother were the ones.”
“She made Dane help her.” Elizabeth still had that distant look in her eyes. “He didn’t want to.”
“You and Dane were victims,” Annette urged with all the sympathy she could fake. “None of this was your fault.”
Elizabeth blinked for the first time since she’d stopped shouting. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” All signs of vulnerability disappeared as she firmed her grip on the weapon. “I have to decide what to do with you.”
So much for reverse psychology. Make a move. Any move. Now or never. Now! “Max, they’re coming!” Annette shouted.
Max clambered to his feet. “Huh?”
Elizabeth jerked her attention in his direction.
Annette rammed her.
They hit the floor in a tangle.
A bullet discharged, the sound exploding in the air.
Annette bit the other woman’s cheek.
Elizabeth screamed.
Using all her strength, Annette wrenched the weapon out of Elizabeth’s hand. It spun across the floor.
“Whore!” Elizabeth grabbed Annette by the hair with both hands. “You have to die!”
“Stop!” Max screamed.
Annette fought like a wildcat to pin Elizabeth down.
“Stop!”
In her peripheral vision Annette got a look at Max. He had the gun. Shit.
“He’s got the gun,” she warned.
Elizabeth released Annette’s hair. They pulled apart, scrambled to get up, both very much aware that anything could happen with the weapon in the hands of a mentally unstable man currently off his meds.
“Give me the gun, Max,” Elizabeth ordered.
“Don’t listen to her, Max,” Annette urged. “They came with her.”
Max blinked, focused the weapon on Elizabeth. “It’s you.” He nodded. “You’re the one who hurt them.”
Oh hell. “Max,” Annette pleaded, “let me have the gun.” If he killed Elizabeth …
“Drop the weapon, Mr. West.”
Annette’s attention veered toward the intrusion.
Lieutenant Lynch loomed in the open doorway, a lethal bead on Max. “I said,” he repeated, “drop the weapon.”
Max hesitated only a second, then he let go of the weapon as if it had burned his hands. It plopped to the floor.
“Thank God you’re here,” Elizabeth said, her posture sagging with relief. “She killed Mother!” Then the sobs began.
Damn. Just Annette’s luck that a dirty cop would come to the rescue. Had Schaffer called in backup? If this was Annette’s backup, she might as well kiss her ass good-bye.
She wondered if Carson would ever know the whole story. The idea that he might end up with this twisted bitch made Annette’s chest ache. “Detective, you don’t—”
“Don’t say a word, Ms. Baxter,” Lynch ordered. “Anything you say can and will be held against you.”
Fucking perfect.
Elizabeth sidled away from Annette, moving toward the door and the man who was her ally. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t gotten here when you did, Lieutenant. She would have killed me, too.”
“Turn around,” Lynch said to Elizabeth. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Birmingham’s princess stared at him in shock. “What did you say?”
“Do it! Now!” he commanded. “Or I’ll have no choice but to use force.”
Annette watched, bewildered, as the detective cuffed Elizabeth.
“You’re next,” he said to Annette. “turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
Then Annette knew. When she turned her back he would shoot. She would be out of the way without a lengthy, media-hyped trial. Damn.
“Do it,” Lynch demanded. “Turn around now!”
Annette had no choice.
She summoned the image of Carson Tanner, wished him well, and turned her back to the man with the gun.