Old Larkinsville Road
Scottsboro, 4:45 p.m.
The mobile homewhere Shane Carter lived stood on a stretch of road flanked on one side by older homes, including Carter’s, and on the other by railroad tracks. Since his truck wasn’t in the driveway, it was safe to assume he wasn’t home. But they were here. Might as well check it out.
When they parked in his driveway, Chance sent a text to his colleague, Max Granger, at the agency to run a deeper dive on Shane Carter and Leonard Wade. They’d already done so on Patterson. He was just a low-rent attorney with a fairly good case record. But he was barreling toward retirement age. Maybe his nest egg was lacking, and he’d decided his future was more important than Rory’s.
The steps up to the small, uncovered porch at Carter’s front door were a little rickety. Chance knocked on the door and listened for any sound coming from inside. Like Wade’s house, there was nothing but silence.
“We’re having no luck at all,” Rory mentioned, clearly frustrated. “Kind of like me during the trial.” She exhaled a big breath. “I had hoped that would change this time.”
Chance sent her a smile. “It has. You just haven’t seen the results yet.”
She managed a smile back at him. “You’re right. I need to be patient and not sound unappreciative of what you and the agency are doing.”
“I get it,” he assured her. “It’s difficult to have patience when the stakes are so high.”
Her cell phone rang. She jumped. “Good grief, I think that’s the first time my phone has rung since Austin gave it to me.”
She’d gotten text messages from her brother, but this was the first call Chance had heard. He hoped this wasn’t the kind of call that would have her doubting his assurance that her luck was changing.
Her face paled as she listened to the caller.
So much for the value of his pep talk.
When the call ended, she met his gaze, hers worried. “That was Detective Fowler. He’d like me to come in for an interview. Right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right there with you. This won’t go the way it did two years ago.”
His promise seemed to bolster her courage some as they returned to his car and headed back into town.
He wasn’t actually surprised by the call. Quite possibly it was a good thing. It was time he and Rory got some feel for where the other side was going with the investigation this second go-around.
Not that he had any doubts about their intentions. They wanted Rory right back in that prison whether she was guilty or not.
But Chance and the Colby Agency were standing squarely in the way.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Scottsboro Police Department
South Broad Street
Scottsboro, 5:30 p.m.
Chance had said all the right things to shore up her confidence to the degree possible on the drive over. Still, Rory was so nervous. They waited in the lobby atrium. Seated together. Chance looking all calm and composed and Rory’s foot tapping nervously, her hands knotted in her lap.
She felt like a ticking bomb ready to explode at any moment.
What if Detective Fowler was about to tell her they’d found some previously overlooked evidence that confirmed she was the murderer?
Rory closed her eyes. That was not possible because she was not a murderer. She had not hurt her husband, much less killed him. The only overlooked evidence that existed so far was some sort of green and blue fibers they still knew exactly nothing about. She didn’t see how that would help. For that matter, would anything?
She looked to the man beside her and reminded herself she still had every reason to be hopeful.
Fowler exited the corridor on the other side of the lobby and headed their way. Rory sat up straighter, dread swelling in her chest.
“We’ve got this,” Chance said quietly with a glance in her direction.
