Free A Bookmarked Death by Judi Culbertson

you were at the house with me all Saturday night.”
    “You—what?” He did not seem accusing, just as if he was trying to understand.
    “Because she was sure, after Ethan’s comment, that you had set the fire. I couldn’t let her think that!”
    He nodded.
    “When they were on the way to your condo I thought about calling you so we could run off and just leave. Hide out somewhere.”
    He actually smiled. “That doesn’t look guilty?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Just until they found out who really did it. We could still go, we still have the van. Or we could just fly somewhere.”
    “We wouldn’t get very far.”
    I blinked at this roadblock. “Why not?”
    “They have my passport.”
    “Oh, God.” The net had already dropped over us.

 
    Chapter Ten
    I SLEPT WORSE than ever that night, if I slept at all. When I’m upset it goes first to my stomach, then sends my mind racing like a gerbil banging against its wire cage. A caged creature who knows there is no escape but can’t stop trying. I twisted back and forth under the quilt and blanket that were much too hot and finally set my arm free into the chilly night.
    Why couldn’t I have Colin’s confidence that justice would prevail? He knew he hadn’t killed Ethan and Sheila would never take any life. He was appalled by the death penalty and lectured me about it when I wavered over some horrible serial killer, But though I knew he was innocent, the part of me that wanted to run and hide had no faith that it would all work out. If someone had planted the boots to make Colin look guilty, why would they stop there? What if they had tampered with the red plastic gas can he kept in his trunk, to make it seem as if it had been recently filled and emptied? I had no idea who “they” were except that they were the real murderers of the Crosleys.
    I suddenly remembered the noises I had heard early Monday morning, a car door clicking shut, the sound of footsteps on the gravel driveway. Could it have been someone returning the boots? The house had been dark and they would have assumed I was sleeping. It was only chance and anxiety that I had not been.
    If the police arrested Colin, what would it do to our already fragile family? Hannah would suffer the most. It would have been better for her if we’d never found her sister. She would drop out of veterinary school, start collecting abandoned animals, and live like a hermit in a shack somewhere in upstate New York. She wouldn’t find it such a bad life perhaps, but I would mourn what she had lost.
    The world tilted dangerously. My exposed arm was suddenly icy cold, its chill threatening to freeze the rest of my body with it. I jerked the arm back under the covers as if out of danger and rubbed it back to life.
    Things couldn’t get any worse.
    Don’t ever tell yourself that.
    A T 4 A . M . I was awake, as alert as if someone had pulled me out of bed and slammed me against the wall. The mud! One thing they were checking Colin’s car and the boots for was the Southampton dirt. If they found nothing in the BMW, my van was where they would look next. And what would they find? Mud from when I walked around the Crosley house Monday morning and climbed back into the driver’s seat. I could protest that that had been the only time I had been there, but why would they believe me?
    I had watched enough television procedurals to know that they did not need a large sample. CSI was so good that a few grains could be identified as coming from a specific locale. Put Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme on the case and you would barely need that. If they couldn’t prove Colin had driven his car out there, they would make a case for his using my van. Or my using the van.
    Panicked, I pushed out of bed and pulled on the jeans and sweatshirt that were draped over the rocking chair. It was still dark outside, which I found reassuring until I realized I would have to turn on some lights. My small portable vacuum that I used to remove