But what happened today? Him putting that document back in his pocket. Wade didn't expect that. That's going to make him angry. She looked up.
When Wade is angry, he stops being patient. And when he stops being patient, he makes mistakes. You're counting on that. I'm planning around it. She pressed her palms flat on the table.
Wade's entire case rests on the story that I am unstable and Harold was worried about me, and the household was loving, and I fled of my own chaotic free will. The moment Calhoun saw these bandages, that story developed a problem. She turned her wrists over, looking at the white bandages with a kind of clinical assessment. Wade is going to need to explain the bandages. He can say I did it to myself.
He will say that. It's the next move. But Calhoun saw his face when I pulled back my sleeves. Calhoun is not a good man, but he is not a stupid one. And he saw Wade's face.
Sam pulled out the chair across from her and sat. What do you need from me for the next three days? She looked at him steadily. You've already done more than That's not what I asked. A pause.
She held his gaze. Then she said, I need to write a statement. Everything that happened, in order, with dates and specifics. If Thomas Garrett is going to help me, I need to give him something to work with when he arrives. She glanced toward the small writing desk in the corner.
Sam's, spare and practical, with a stub of pencil and a few sheets of paper. Do you have more paper than that? I can get it. I also need to speak to Reverend Holt. Sam frowned.
Agnes said Wade got to him first. He did. But Joseph Holt is not a corrupt man. He's a man who was given one side of a story by a very convincing person and hasn't yet been given the other side. She was quiet for a moment.
Harold used Reverend Holt the same way he used everything else in this town, as a tool, as a character witness, as a layer of respectability. Holt genuinely liked Harold, genuinely believed in him. And when a man you genuinely like dies and his grieving son comes to you with a story about a troubled widow, you believe it because you want to believe Harold Briggs chose his wife wisely. She paused. I need Holt to see my wrists.