“Who knows about your past? The storm killings?” he asked.
“Just the marshals. I swear. I had to tell them. I couldn’t make all these deals just to end up in jail for something else.”
Charlotte frowned. “You must have had some awfully good testimony for them to drop murder charges.”
She nodded. “You have no idea. My testimony probably saved a dozen people. I was already reformed... It had been years...” She took a beat and then added, “Still in therapy. But good. Really good.”
Charlotte hung her head. “But the person setting you up had to know about your past. Both deaths were made to look storm-related.”
She nodded. “More than that. It’s how two of my setups worked. A fake ladder fall and asphyxiation.”
“What about the third?” asked Declan.
Corentine’s pupils bounced in Charlotte’s direction. “She already said.”
Charlotte gaped. “A fire.”
“Yes.”
“Only the marshals knew? You’re sure?” asked Declan.
“That means Jamie knew,” interjected Charlotte.
Corentine shrugged. “Sure. But she’s in jail.”
Declan and Charlotte exchanged a glance and Corentine took a step back, seemingly panicked.
“She’s out?”
Charlotte nodded. “She might be. There are rumors.”
“But, but...why would she come here and try to frame me?”
“That’s a good question.” Declan pulled out his phone and held it up for Charlotte to see. “I’m going to call Stephanie. Corentine, sit, please. We’re not after you.”
“Apparently,” added Charlotte.
Corentine wrung her hands together. “Can I borrow your bathroom?”
Charlotte hesitated and then stepped back to clear the way to the hall. “Sure. First door on the left.”
Corentine headed to the back of the house and Charlotte took a step back to give herself a clear view of the hall.
“Keep an eye on her,” said Declan.
“Make your call outside. Make sure she doesn’t climb out the window.”
Declan nodded and stepped outside to call Stephanie. She answered as if in a panic.
“Declan? What is it? I was just about to call you.”
“Why?”
“For starters, I was tailing Mom until you ran her into the lake.”
“You were following us?”
“Following her. At first. Until you both took off at a thousand miles an hour. I didn’t figure out where you went until I heard the story about the car in the lake. How did that happen?”
“She drove in there. I never actually saw her. She never came up.”
“She’s dead?”
“No. The car was empty. She got away.”
Stephanie sighed. “Okay. That makes more sense. She checked out of her hotel. She’s in the wind.”
Declan frowned. He didn’t like the idea of Jamie being anywhere. “I have a question for you. We think she’s been setting up one of her WITSECs.”
“How so?”
“She’s been calling this person to murders mimicking the way this person used to, uh, do things.”
“She’s copying the witness’s old murders?”
“Yes.”
There was a sharp knock on the glass sliders behind Declan and he jumped.
“Tell her someone dropped off a fingerprint, too,” said Charlotte through the glass before hustling back to her post near the hall.
Declan nodded. “Someone left the witness’s fingerprint with the sheriff, too, like they wanted them captured.”
Declan heard a low growl on the other side of the line.
“Stephanie?”
“That bitch.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“Yes. I’m going to kill her. She hedged her bets.”
“What do you mean?”
She tried to hit you with a sniper last night.”
Declan gaped, remembering the rifle crack he thought he’d heard in the parking lot. “At the restaurant?”
“Yes. Nearly did it, too. He got off one sloppy shot.”
Declan closed his eyes.
The lamppost.
His eyes popped open again as Stephanie’s words repeated in his memory.
“Wait, how do you know all this?”
“Don’t ask.”
“You were there?”
“Don’t ask. The important part is I made her promise not to kill you, so she took me super literally and hired someone else to do it.”
“But she didn’t ask Cor—, uh, this person to kill us.”
I don’t think. He realized he’d never asked Corentine that specific question.
“She didn’t have to,” said Stephanie. “She’s implicating her. If hiring the shooter didn’t work, she planned to kill you herself, but blame it on someone else.”
Declan shook his head. “If Charlotte and I were killed, by a sniper or some accident, wouldn’t that be a heck of a coincidence? You’d never believe she didn’t have a hand in it.”
“She’d have plausible deniability.”
“In what world?”
Stephanie sighed. “Bottom line, you’d be gone and I’d have choices to make.”
Declan rolled his eyes. “You might as well tell her to go ahead and kill us if all it takes for your forgiveness is the tiniest whiff of innocence.”
“Hey, I’m the one giving you a fighting chance.”
“Gosh. Thanks. So you don’t know where she is?”
“No. Where’s this witness?”
“Here.”
Stephanie laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Don’t you see? Mom’s work is done. If you end up dead, the witness has already been seen at your house.”
He raised his hand to his forehead. “Plausible deniability.”
They’d unwittingly made Jamie’s life easier.
“She’s coming for you. Be—I gotta go.”
The line went dead and Declan lowered the phone.
That was abrupt.
He slid open the slider to reenter the house. Corentine had returned to take her place on the sofa.
“What did she say?” asked Charlotte. “Anything useful?”
Declan focused on Corentine.
“You need to go. Far away. Drive somewhere hours away and check in. Make sure people see you. Get seen on camera as often as possible. It’s your best chance of this not getting pinned on you.”
Corentine stood. “This?”
Declan sighed. “Our murders.”
Corentine grabbed her bucket and hustled past Charlotte.
“I’m sorry,” she said, throwing open the door and disappearing into the rain.
Charlotte watched her go and then turned to Declan.
“What’s going on?”
Declan slipped his
