Free Key Witness by Christy Barritt Page A

jerked her gaze toward Elle. “Is what worth fighting for?”
    “Your marriage.”
    She stared at Elle a moment before scoffing. “I’m way past that, Elle. I gave up hope about my marriage a long time ago.”
    Silence stretched between them. So maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. Elle didn’t know what was, though. Everything that came to mind seemed like a platitude, and the last thing she wanted was to cause her mom any more pain. She’d had enough of that in her life already.
    “What can I do?” Elle finally whispered.
    Her mom shook her head. “Nothing. You should go help your dad with damage control.”
    “He sent Bentley to do that.”
    “Then go relax. Or try to, at least. All this stress is going to make your hair turn gray prematurely.”
    Elle had bigger things to worry about than her hair turning gray. She tried to pull herself together as she dragged herself downstairs. Somehow, she’d always seemed to make herself the mediator, the one who tried to smooth things over. She tried to stuff her feelings down deep in order to address everyone else’s. But, at the moment, they all threatened to spill out. Maybe it was the allegation against her father or Jimmy’s murder or the bank robbery. Maybe a mix of all those things. For some reason, she just felt ready to break.
    She sucked in a deep breath and forced a smile as she stepped into her father’s office. She felt everyone’s gaze on her, but the only person she dared to look at was Denton. His warm brown eyes studied her as they often did.
    Was Mark Denton trying to figure her out? Good luck with that.
    She cast aside her emotions, her questions, her fear and pulled herself up to full height. “We need to formulate what you’re going to say in your statement to the press, Dad.” She glanced at her father. “Has anyone heard from Bentley yet?”
    Brianna stepped forward, clipboard in hand. “He just left to go up to Northern Virginia a couple hours ago. He should be there in another hour. We’re waiting to hear back from him before we proceed.”
    “Smart thinking. Let’s go ahead and draft a statement that we can revise later.”
    Damage control. Between her rocky family life and her sister’s murder, it was almost like she’d been training her entire life to do this job. Sad, but true.
    “Brianna, how about if you and I go into my office to work on that. We’ll let the rest of the staff worry about how this happened. We’ll figure out how to handle it.”
    They headed down the hall and began working on drafting a press release for the next two hours. Elle tried not to let her mind slip to the issues and worries that kept begging for her attention. She tried not to think about Jimmy and the threat on her life. She attempted to not think about the allegations against her father. But in between writing an official statement, her mind wandered there.
    Denton made himself comfortable in a chair by the door, a laptop in front of him. He tapped away, doing something unknown to Elle. Every once in a while he’d scan the room. His gaze would focus outside the window. Still on the lookout for anyone planning an attack.
    At quarter past six, her father stepped into the room. Good. Maybe he’d heard from Bentley. She stood from her seat at the paper-covered table, smoothing her outfit as she did so, and stepped toward him. “Do you have an update?”
    Her father’s grim gaze made her tense. He stood rigid and his breaths seemed to come faster than normal. The news wasn’t good, Elle realized. Had the woman in the photo threatened to go to the media? Refused to sign a confidentiality agreement? Implied there had been more to their relationship?
    Her dad rubbed his hands together and lowered his head. “Bentley went to Nancy’s apartment.”
    “Okay...”
    He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “The door was open, but no one answered. When Bentley stepped inside, he saw Nancy on the kitchen floor. Dead.