Merrimack steepled his fingertips and rested an elbow on a tasseled throw pillow. “The cottage is not covered by a camera.”

“The exits to the property all are. And what about the truck?”

“There are a number of trucks.”

“Including the one you impounded. As evidence,” Lane snapped.

“Again, I’m not clear on what you think this proves, in light of everything else.”

“My brother is a cripple. You think he snuck out under cover of darkness and jogged all the way here from Ogden County?”

“Look”—the detective motioned to the laptop—“I’m happy to take this downtown to the station and add it to the file. But this case is closed as far as we’re concerned. We’ve already sent it to the D.A.—with your brother’s confession.”

Lane jabbed a finger at the computer. “My brother didn’t leave the farm and those recordings prove it.”

“I’m not convinced the footage goes that far.” Merrimack popped the USB drive out of its slot. “But I’ll take this to the D.A.”

“Oh, come on, did we not look at the same thing?”

“What I saw was that nothing unusual happened within the sight of six cameras on a farm that’s a thousand acres in size. The Red and Black has seven trucks of the same year, make, and model, with the same paint jobs, with winches on the back—and from the camera angle shown here, you can’t tell the license plates of those three parked at the barn.” The detective held up his palm as Lane tried to cut him off. “And before you tell me there are only three exits, I’ll caution you that I’ve walked the property and identified at least a dozen cut throughs, lanes, and trails that will take you out to the county roads. You think your brother doesn’t know all of them? Couldn’t have taken one of the trucks from an outbuilding? He tried to get away with the murder by erasing the footage at Easterly. You’re going to tell me that he didn’t think about how he could leave the farm without being seen?”

“Edward said that it wasn’t premeditated. That he came here just to talk to my father—if that were true, why didn’t he simply leave the farm through one of the main gates? He had nothing to hide.”

“And you believe that?”

“It’s what that footage shows!”

“I’m talking about the premeditated part. You mean to tell me you haven’t considered, even for a second, that that whole lack-of-malice-aforethought argument might not just be a smart guy trying to get the charge down so that he doesn’t get the death penalty? Do you really know what your brother had in mind that night?”

“He didn’t come with a weapon.”

“He cut off that finger. With a knife.”

“My father wasn’t stabbed.”

“My point is that who’s to say your brother didn’t sneak off the farm with a knife, in a truck with a winch, with the intent to kill the man—only to find that Mother Nature helped with his plan first.”

“Edward couldn’t kill someone the size of my father with just a knife.”

“Most murderers do not have good plans, Mr. Baldwine. That’s why we catch them.” Merrimack got to his feet and smiled. “I’ll turn this over to the D.A. But if I were you, I wouldn’t plan on welcoming your brother home anytime soon. I’ve worked a lot of cases in the last decade, and they don’t get much more solid than this one. I can understand your wanting to save the man, but that’s just where things stand. I’ll let myself out.”

As the detective headed back for Easterly’s front door, Lane wanted to scream.

Instead, he finished the bourbon in his glass . . . and poured himself some more.

FIFTEEN

Lizzie woke up in the dark, and she was not alone. Strong arms were coming around her and she recognized instantly Lane’s scent and warmth.

“What time is it?” she asked as she lifted her head. “Oh, wow. Dark. Like, really dark.”

“I’ve been debating whether or not to let you keep sleeping.” He stroked her waist. “I decided you might want dinner.”

As she turned and faced him, a shimmy of unease tripped her heart up. “When did you get home—”

“I’m really sorry.”

“About being so late? Oh, listen, I was asleep—”

“About what Chantal said to the medics. I made it clear to everyone down at the hospital that we were separated, also.”

“It’s all right.”

“Not really.”

Lizzie had to agree on that one, but what the hell was Lane going to say or do to change the situation? Chantal was on the periphery of their lives until the divorce was final, and it felt like the equivalent of a hammer over a bare toe: You could only hope the damn thing wasn’t going to fall, and if it did, that it missed.

You couldn’t take a deep breath, that was for sure.

“Are you okay?” Lane asked as he brushed some hair out of her face.

“Oh, absolutely. Sure. I mean, there’s just a lot going on, and I really needed to sleep. Did, ah . . . did Chantal lose the baby?”

“Yes. She was actually pregnant.”

Lizzie’s stomach rolled. “Is she okay? I know that’s a stupid question, considering everything, but I don’t care who you are, that’s a lot to go through.”

“I’m not sure. I called her best friend and had her come down so Chantal wasn’t alone. It was . . . horrible. I don’t want to get too graphic here, but, God, I’ve never seen so much blood. And she was in a lot of pain. There’s some follow-up stuff that has to happen. I guess they need to make sure she passed it all?”

As the bedroom went on a spin, Lizzie tried to keep calm. “I’m really sorry for her. No one deserves that.”

“Yeah, there’s no love lost between Chantal and me, as you know. But she was suffering.”

There was a long pause, and Lizzie told herself not to jump into it. “Have you, ah . . . do you think about children? Of your own?”

Crap, had that really come out of her mouth?

Lane’s headshake was immediate. “No. Absolutely not.” Then he seemed to catch himself. “But you know, with you? That’s a different story, of course. I mean, sometime in the future? I might be open to it if it was important to you, sure.”

Wow, there was a ringing endorsement of the prospect.

“What about you?” he prompted.

“I can’t say as I’ve given it much thought.” Then again, she hadn’t had to. Until now. “I’ve always been too busy working.”

“Well, after the example my father set? I had decided no kids, for me.”

“And yet you married Chantal because of it.”

He shrugged. “I had to. I wasn’t not going to live up to my responsibilities—and you know, I had certainly used protection with her. She swore it was mine, though, and sometimes things fail. I will never know the truth—and in quiet moments? And I hate to admit this? I’m . . . not glad, no . . . but I’m relieved that I don’t have a child with her. Anyway, enough about Chantal and the past. I’m only about you and me and the future—and if, someday, you want to have kids, we can talk about it then.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Lizzie fixated on her nails, inspecting the tips. “Yup, very good.”

God, her heart was pounding in her chest. And not in a happy way.

“So you’ll never believe where I went after I left the hospital,” he said.

The change of subject was good. Yessir—oh dear God what was she going to do? “Um, Disneyland?”

“No.” He smiled. “The Red and Black.”

With the efficiency she had always valued in him, Lane shared what Shelby Landis, a stable hand out at the farm, had told and showed him. Then he talked about his meeting with Detective Merrimack. Lizzie followed most of the update, which was a miracle considering the banging and crashing in her head. Part of her wanted to just blurt out that she was pregnant, but like he didn’t have enough going on already?

Take another test, she decided. In a day or two. Make sure before she jumped the gun.