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Oh, what? Was it hers?
“The wife recanted, she?—”
“Even without her testimony, there was more than enough evidence to convict.” Flat, cold. “We both know that Trent was abusing her. The man was guilty as the devil, and we had the chance to stop him.” But he’d walked.
Then, well, died.
“We did.” The judge rocked back on his heels, and for a moment, he didn’t look as strong or as fit as he’d appeared in the past. He looked...tired. “I guess he’s stopped now, though, isn’t he?”
“I guess he is,” Jude noted, voice like a cool breeze.
Death had a nice way of stopping folks.
Harper flinched. “I didn’t know this would happen. I just—I just made the only judgment I could.”
Erin didn’t know what to say to the judge. After a moment, he turned away from her and shuffled back to his car.
Erin watched him, aware of Jude’s strong presence at her back. Harper felt guilty. She could see it, sense it. Guilty enough to seek her out.
And he’d come—to what? Neither one of them could go back and change the past. Too manyifsin the world. If he’d convicted Trent...if she’d worked harder to prove the bastard’s guilt...if Sylvia hadn’t faltered...
You couldn’t go back.
The judge knew that and so did she.
Harper stopped at his car. He glanced back at her. “I know what they say about me.”
On the take.So many criminals walked right out of his courtroom with barely a slap on his wrist. “Do you?” Erin murmured, but she knew he heard her.
“I want those bastards who break the law to pay,” he told her. “Just like you do.”
Then why didn’t they? Why did so many ease past him?
He pulled open the driver’s side door. “I do the best I can, Jerome. Guess it’s not always good enough.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you ever have regrets?”
Too many. Erin gave a grudging nod.
“Is the bastard ever gonna leave?” Jude muttered in her ear and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
A ghost of a smile curved Harper’s lips. “I thought you might,” Harper replied, sounding pleased. Then he climbed into his car.
Erin leaned against Jude. Damn but the man felt solid.
Harper drove away with a soft purr of his engine.
“You ready to get the hell out of this town?” Jude asked after a moment of silence. The thick, uncomfortable kind of silence that made her want to squirm.
“More than ready.” Before she had any other unwanted visitors from her past. Like a certain detective she’d prefer to avoid.Talk about regrets.Erin swallowed and tried to shove the past away. “We didn’t get any closer to finding the bastard, did we?”
He turned her toward him. “We’re gonna catch him, sweetheart.” Absolute certainty there.
But when? Before or after he killed someone else?
“Wewillcatch him,” Jude repeated.
And, yet again, Erin forced herself to nod.
* * *
