Page 49 of The Ashes of Summer

"I don't know." She shakes her head.

"You do."

"I don't." She meets my stare without flinching. "All I know is there was a meeting. Hospital administration, Dr Khan and...Michael Miller was there.”

I genuinely think I've misheard her.

“Miller?”

She nods once.

“No.” The word leaves me before I can stop it. “No, that doesn't make any fucking sense.”

I push back in the chair, dragging a hand hard across my jaw, trying to force my thoughts into some kind of order and failing miserably. Michael Miller spent fucking months building that case. I'd watched him tear Jackson Moore apart in court, watched him dedicate every waking hour to making sure the bastard never walked free again. If Khan had found something that strengthened the prosecution, Miller would've welcomed it. If he'd found something that weakened it...

Fuck that.

No.

I kill the thought before it can go any further.

“Miller wanted Moore convicted,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. “He hated the piece of shit. Everyone knew that. Why the fuck would he have anything to fear from a pathologist asking questions?”

“I don't know.”

“You're telling me he sat in a meeting with a forensic pathologist who thought something about the murder didn't add up.”

“I'm telling you he was there.”

“And after that?”

“Khan stopped asking.”

Silence settles over the room again, broken only by the rain tapping against the windows and the steady beep of the monitor measuring out seconds I can't afford to lose.

It's fucking hearsay.

That's all it is.

A rumor passed between exhausted doctors over bad coffee. No reports. No statements. No evidence. If one of my deputies had brought this to me six months ago, I'd have thrown it straight back at them and told them to come back when they had something worth a damn.

So why can't I let it go?

My jaw tightens until it clicks.

Because smoke usually comes from somewhere. Because a pathologist doesn't start asking for witness statements without a reason. Because Michael Miller had absolutely no business sitting in that meeting. And because if there is even the smallest chance we've all been looking at Annalise Raynor's murder the wrong way… Then what the fuck else have we got wrong?

“What happened to Khan after that?”

Tamara doesn't answer immediately. She looks away. Whatever she's about to say, I already know I'm not going to like it.

“He disappeared.”

The words hang in the room.

Outside, rain continues crawling down the windows in uneven trails while the monitor beside the bed keeps marking out the seconds with the same relentless indifference it has all night.

“What do you mean disappeared?”