Excerpt of Included!

JOHN HART“You’re missing the one piece of good in all this.”“Which is?”“You have a sister.”Something fragile spread in the void of my chest. I looked out the window,watched hard blue fill up the morning sky. “Miriam killed Gray Wilson,” I finallysaid.“What?” Robin was stunned.“She was infatuated with him.”I told her about finding Miriam at Gray Wilson’s grave. How she went thereevery month with fresh-cut flowers, how she claimed that they were going to bemarried. The same thing she’d said about Danny. It could not be coincidence.“He was handsome and popular, everything she was not. She probably spentmonths working up the courage to tell him how she felt, fantasizing about hisresponse. Playing it out in her mind. Then the party happened.” I shrugged.“I think she tried to seduce him and failed. He said something belittling.Laughed, maybe. I think she bashed his head in with a rock when he tried towalk away.”“Why do you think that?”“It’s what happened to Danny, more or less.”“I’d like something more.”“Ask me again in three hours.”“Are you serious?”“Right now, it’s just theory.”She looked at the postcard. It was material evidence in what could easily bea capital case. She could be fired, prosecuted. She picked it up. “If this hasprints, it could set Dolf free. Have you considered that?”“He’ll walk, regardless.”“Are you willing to gamble on that?”“I know reasonable doubt when I see it. You do, too. Miriam shot two peoplein a fit of jealousy over Danny. She used the gun taken from his abandonedtruck, gave him thirty thousand dollars, thought he was going to marry her.” Ishook my head. “The case will never go to trial.”“Will you at least tell me what you’re planning?”300