“No. I was wrong.”
“It’s okay. You’re right. Both of our faces have been all over the news. It was a stupid move. I should have at least told you where I was going.”
“For a minute there,” Jason admitted, “when I saw that you were gone, I thought you’d changed your mind.”
She turned to him then. “About getting involved?”
“Yeah.”
“You thought I left?”
“I knew it was a possibility.”
She waved a hand through the air. “I couldn’t just walk off and abandon you.”
“You don’t owe me a thing. I never should have dragged you into this in the first place.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Sure, kidnapping me wasn’t your best move, but—”
“I doubt you would have helped me out if I had asked nicely.”
“No, of course not. But now that I know you, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to help.”
“It’s been a long journey,” he said. “I do wonder how you can be so sure about my innocence when nobody else believed in me.”
“Your mother and your sister are behind you.”
“My mother, yes. Sis, not so sure. It’s always been clear to me that she has her doubts.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have an inkling of how that feels. In med school I was accused of cheating on my exams. I had to fill out endless forms and talk to a panel of professors. It was a long, humiliating process.”
“What happened?”
“The guy sitting next to me during the exams was the cheater. I dropped out after that. Not just because of what happened, but because I couldn’t afford the tuition. Anyhow, there was one professor on the panel who believed in me from day one and he told me so. He had the same evidence as everyone else. Sometimes a person just needs to go with their gut. I know that sounds foolish, but that’s what I’m doing.”
“Well, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“You haven’t heard the best part,” she went on. “I have proof that the key witness in your murder trial, Stephanie Carr, lied.”
His gaze locked on hers. “What are you talking about?”
Angela pulled out her computer and powered it on. “Don’t touch anything because I won’t be able to pull the pages up again without WiFi, but look at this.”
“What is it?”
“Stephanie Carr has been blogging for years. Nine years to be exact.”
“What sort of blog?”
“She used to write about the life of a teenager, never having enough money to do anything, living with her parents, the struggles of finding a decent job, but the past five years have mostly been about dating.”
He waited for her to continue on.
“Of course, I spent the morning focusing on the months before and after the trial. Six months after your trial ended, she was able to move out of her parent’s house and into an apartment of her own.”
“Maybe she snagged her dream job.”
“She’s a secretary for a law firm. It could be her dream job, but there’s no way she makes enough money to afford expensive cars and live in a luxury apartment.”
“A large inheritance?”
“I can’t say that didn’t cross my mind,” Angela told him, “but all of her grandparents are living.” Angela clicked on another tab. A picture of Stephanie Carr in a brand new Lexus filled the screen. “A few months after moving out of her parent’s house, she was driving this little beauty.”
“It looks bad,” Jason agreed, “but it’s still not proof.”
“Read the third comment under the post about her new car.”
The comment read: Stephanie, you need to pick me up in that car and take me back to Freddie’s Bar & Grill. It’s been a while. Let’s raise hell!
Jason raised an eyebrow. “What am I missing?”
Angela clicked on another page she had opened earlier. “This is the site for the girl who commented on Stephanie’s page.”
“Is she a blogger, too?”
“Nope. She’s just a party girl. Most of her pictures are of her and her friends at different clubs, dancing and having a good time. This is the picture that stood out.”
She turned the laptop so Jason could take a closer look.
The picture filled the screen. Five girls, all in their early twenties, stood at the bar with raised shot glasses. He read the caption: Partying it up at Freddie’s with my friend, Stephanie!
“Look at the date showing when the picture was taken.”
“Same date that Dirk was killed,” Jason added.
“That’s correct. What time were you and Dirk talking in his office?”
He had replayed the night over in his head so many times, every movement he’d made that day was etched into his mind. “Sometime between eight and eight-thirty.”
“That’s also correct.”
“Is this some sort of test?”
“No. Just making sure we’re on the same page.” She gestured at the computer screen. “Now look at the picture of the girls again and this time look at the wall clock in the background.”