Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [121]
Mitch scrawled the information he knew—Claire’s name, address, birth date, employer . . . he skipped what he didn’t know.
“There’s a patient here about to go to surgery. It’s her dad. They need to talk before he goes on the table.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything,” she said. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know, wherever they prep someone for surgery.”
“Name.”
“Thomas O’Brien.”
“I’ll check.”
The nurse had put Claire in a gown, and wrapped her in blankets from a warmer. “I’ll be back.”
Mitch sat next to Claire. “Do you remember what happened before you went into the river?”
“River?” she mumbled through the oxygen mask. She squinted, then pulled the mask off.
“You should—”
“I can breathe.” She was still shaking, her skin ghostly. “Everything is too bright.” She kept her eyes squeezed shut.
“You’re in the hospital.”
“I know.” She took a deep breath. “It was strange. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t even panic. It was like I was out of my body. That sounds so stupid.”
“Did anyone have the opportunity to drug your drink?”
“Drink? I wasn’t drinking. I didn’t even have half the beer—” She stared at him and it was as if her memory returned and she remembered who he was and that he’d lied to her. Her entire expression changed, from worried and confused to guarded.
She averted her eyes. “I want to go home.”
“The nurse is getting the doctor. We need to find out who drugged you and why. Why’d you go to Isleton in the first place?”
“You think I’m going to tell you?”
“We’re on the same side.”
“Are we?”
Sitting next to her, Mitch spoke softly. “I told you my father was a prosecutor. I had tried to please him, never did. And then—” Mitch took a deep breath. “When he died, I went home to help my mom clear out his office. I went through his private files. Found information that he knowingly prosecuted three innocent men.” He remembered that weekend. Everything he’d believed about his father, a man of honor and truth and justice, vanished. He’d been trying his entire life to understand why he and his father were constantly at odds, feeling guilty that he didn’t want to follow his dad into law. The arguments they used to have about everything!
“I got two of the men out of prison by turning over the information to the new D.A. But one of the men was already dead. He’d spent ten years in Corcoran for a murder he didn’t commit, because, according to my father, ‘I knew he was guilty of other felonies, but we didn’t have the evidence.’ ” All the lectures about the Constitution and the rights of individuals and government, all destroyed after Mitch read that.
“I think your father is innocent. I don’t know how, but everything doesn’t add up. I think you have more information than we do. Why’d you go to Isleton today?”
“I was trying to find out what got Frank Lowe and Taverton killed. I thought that would lead to their killer. Did you talk to Professor Collier?”
“We have agents working all airports, monitoring his passport and credit cards. We’ll find him.”
“Unless he’s dead. I found out something else about Collier. He worked for the same law firm that represented my father fifteen years ago. Then, while doing pro bono work for the Western Innocence Project, he reviewed the case files and determined that the Project shouldn’t get involved.”
“That sounds like a conflict of interest.”
“Not legally, but ethically, yes. Thing is, Randolph Sizemore didn’t believe me at first. He said Collier would have recused himself.”
Claire rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes. “Oh, God, my head hurts.”
“I’ll get the nurse—”
“I’ll be okay.”
She still looked like death warmed over, her hair damp around her face, but she was no longer shaking.
“I talked to the cop who arrested Lowe back then,” Claire said. “I planned on talking to the judge who arraigned him, because Abrahamson thought he’d be most likely to have been privy to a plea agreement with the D.A.’s office. But the biggest puzzle so far is the missing coroner’s reports.”
“What missing coroner