Chapter17
By the end of the week, Will had moved into a new house, complete with a rock climbing wall in the yard and everything else he needed to keep himself in the best shape. He had tripled his followers, and he’d only spent a third of his money. He’d even picked up a few high-profile sponsors big enough to rival Lincoln’s. Life was good, and he was still thinking that when he sat on his deluxe massaging chair and turned on the massive flat screen television mounted to the wall.
The local channel was showing breaking news, and Will sat up a little straighter, watching intently as Mr. Wittman took the stage once again. He turned up the volume, stomach in knots. He’d been avoiding Mount Rainier since he’d found George’s body at the beginning of the week. He didn’t want to get caught up in the investigation and risk giving Mr. Wittman any leverage against him. He knew the man was furious about how Will had ended the business relationship, but he wasn’t about to risk getting stiffed or worse. Had they finally found everything that they needed? Was it finally going to be over?
He had his answer within the first paragraph as Wittman read his prepared statement.
It wasn’t good.
“Thank you all for coming,” Wittman began, his face solemn, his wife standing shell-shocked by his side. “I had hoped to come with good news, but today, the ME was able to confirm that the body found in a ravine in Mount Rainier was our dear son, George. I am reaching out to the public again for help, this time to find two persons of interest in my son’s murder.”
There was a collective gasp, perfectly timed to Wittman’s extended pause as he held up a picture.
“This is Charity Derrick,” he said. “She was George’s ex-girlfriend, and we believe that she lured George up to the plateau under the guise of reconciliation. It was there that Ms. Derrick’s current boyfriend, a man we have identified only by his Instagram screen name as LimitlessLincoln, pushed George off the edge of the cliff to his death.”
A sob tore from Mrs. Wittman just then, and Mr. Wittman stopped for a moment to comfort his wife while the media shouted out questions. When he returned to the microphone a few moments later, he held up his hand to silence them.
“Not only did these two plot my son’s death, but once he was over the edge, they allowed him to suffer without so much as an anonymous tip to get him help. According to reports, my son lived for days after he was pushed over the edge, too weak to drag himself to a more visible location. Had any attempt to get him help been made, he would have lived, and our son would be home, recovering from a broken leg and heart instead of in a casket. I implore you, if you know either of these two, please contact the number on your screen now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Will said, staring at the television in shocked anger. “That snake.”
Will stood up abruptly, pacing the room as he muttered to himself. This was worse than he thought, and he knew that Wittman was lying. George had died on impact, and there was no way he was thrown. Plus, Will knew for a fact that George had thrown the woman over the edge. Was the arm cropped out of the photo by the mystery poster Lincoln’s? Had whoever sent him the picture caught the exact moment when Lincoln had seen the danger and ran towards it?
It suddenly all clicked into place. He opened his phone, checking the selfie Lincoln had posted on Labor Day and checking out the caption. He couldn’t prove it, but he would lay money that he’d auto posted the selfie, just like Mickey had. The trees around him looked similar to the ones near the mountain top, and he could swear that the watch on Lincoln’s left hand looked exactly like the blurry one in the original photo.
Still pacing, he decided to post on his account, using a red background to type out his plea, then posting the request as a photo.
If you have the original with the man’s arm in it, and any other pictures, I need them, please. His life may depend on it.
Will read the message a few times, hoping that the person it was meant for would understand. He had the other photos, and he wasn’t above giving those photos to Lincoln to help prove his innocence. He wondered how a jury would react to seeing George’s twisted and mangled body moments after hearing Wittman lie and say that the man had lived for days. Those and the picture of George Wittman throwing the woman off the cliff would be enough to save Lincoln and Charity from Wittman—hopefully.
He thought back to that day, shocked he didn’t make the connection earlier. Charity had avoided eye contact with him, but he’d seen enough of her to recognize the picture Wittman had shared at the press conference. Had Wittman given him that picture, he might have cracked the case sooner.
And handed Lincoln and Charity to Wittman on a silver platter, he thought angrily. He’d been so foolish. Rival or not, Lincoln had once been his best friend. He didn’t deserve this and neither did the woman who George had almost killed. He had to do something to stop this, or he was just as complicit in whatever happened to the pair of them.
He checked his phone, but there was nothing.
“Please,” he begged out loud, wishing he’d taken a screen shot the first time.
Then he would have what he needed, and Wittman would discover that the truth always finds its way out.
***
Across town, Charity and Lincoln were at the lawyer’s office, ready to take Wittman head-on.
Well, Lincoln was ready. Charity was a terrified mess, and all she wanted to do was run for the Canadian border. It seemed like the more rational idea.
Charity held Lincoln’s hand beneath the large, conference-style table, trying not to panic as the lawyer paused the television and turned to face them.
“I’m not going to mince words,” the older man with the perpetually serious face said. “This looks really bad, and with Wittman being the assistant DA, he’s not going to just let it go. They have a lot of circumstantial evidence on you, Lincoln. I’m assuming, Ms. Derrick, that you were also there, though it doesn’t appear that there’s any proof at this time.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him and leveled a stern gaze at them both. “Tell me everything. No matter how damning it looks, I need to know every last detail.”
Lincoln nodded, then turned to Charity.
“You’re going to have to start,” he said. “I’ll jump in when you get to the cliff.”
Charity felt numb as she recounted the story, prefacing with the emotional abuse George put her through and how he isolated her from her friends while they were together, how she spent most of their relationship wallowing in self-loathing. He had her so convinced that she was a horrible person that she almost believed it. When she got to the part where he picked her up to go hiking, Lincoln interrupted.
“I think it’s worth noting that he disabled the GPS system in his car the night before he picked her up,” he said. “He was dead set on killing her, and that is further proof that—”
The lawyer held up his hand.
“Continue, Ms. Derrick.”
Charity did as he asked, omitting that she thought she was pregnant and was only entertaining rebuilding their friendship so they could co-parent down the road. The man could think that she was a total pushover. That was just fine with her.
When she got to the picnic on the mountaintop, Lincoln filled in the blanks while Charity relived fighting for her life. The man listened intently, his face stoic as the story unfolded.
When they finished, the man was silent, the scratching of his ink pen on the yellow notepad the only sound in the cavernous room. Charity was trembling, but Lincoln remained calm, leaning back in the chair, completely at ease.
When the lawyer finally spoke, Charity let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“I believe you both,” he said. “And even if you had shoved him at some point, Lincoln, it was a clear case of self-defense.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in there,” Lincoln said.
“However, there is a certain level of responsibility to report a body, which you didn’t do.”
“We had no way of knowing if he’d died,” Lincoln said.
“Did you look over the edge?”
“No, I was too busy trying to save Charity’s life as she hung from a flimsy root. I didn’t have time to look, and as soon as I got her out of danger, we took off.”
The lawyer nodded.
“They don’t have much to go on that isn’t circumstantial,” the lawyer said. “It’s possible with you telling your side that the DA will decline to prosecute. Wittman would be smart to let it go, since it’s more likely that his family’s dirty laundry is going to get aired, and you’re still going to get off without incident.”
“How sure are you of that?” Lincoln asked.
“Nothing is one hundred percent, but I can easily convince a jury that it’s preposterous to require a victim to make a lifesaving call for their attacker when they are actively running from him. It’s a bit of a gray area, and I’m sure that it won’t stick. A murder charge or even manslaughter is highly unlikely since George Wittman threw a woman off a ledge, then tried to prevent you from saving her.”
“I don’t want to go to court,” Lincoln said.
“We might not have a choice,” the lawyer said. “Your knife was found near the scene, you’ve been seen with the man’s ex-girlfriend, and a selfie you posted on Instagram puts you in the general location on the day that he died. The fact that you married his ex-girlfriend a few weeks after he died is going to look bad to some people.”
“They weren’t dating,” Lincoln said. “And it’s worth the spousal immunity.”
“That it is,” the lawyer said.
“Whatever you have to do to keep this out of court, make it happen.”
“I’m going to need more than what we have to do that,” the lawyer said. “Your story is sound and it makes sense, but Wittman is good at his job.”
“Isn’t it a conflict of interests for him to be involved?” Charity asked, her voice quiet as she tried to figure out how Lincoln could stay so calm.
“It is,” the lawyer said. “But he’ll be working closely with whoever takes the case, and he’ll be running the show. He’s not going to let this go unless we have something convincing. Your word and the fact that George was an abuser aren’t going to be enough to keep this out of court. I’m going to need something more.”
The lawyer went back to his notepad, his already wrinkled brow furrowing as he made furious notes at the margins, crossed them out, then wrote again.
Lincoln’s phone chimed in his pocket, so quiet that Charity almost didn’t hear it. He pulled it out of his pocket, flipping it open and tapping the screen. A slow smile spread across his face.
“Something like this?” Lincoln said, sliding the phone across the table.
The lawyer took the phone, sliding his glasses down to the end of his nose and mumbling as he swiped the screen.
“Oh my,” he said, his smile predatory. “This is good.”
He buzzed his assistant, handing the phone to a young man that was obviously fresh out of high school, instructing him to print off the pictures. When he returned a few minutes later with multiple copies of each, the lawyer handed Charity and Lincoln each their own set, kept one for himself, and instructed the assistant to put the other set in the safe.
“Email those pictures to me, Lincoln,” he said. “And keep your copies somewhere safe.”
He put his photos in a briefcase and got up from the table.
“Where is he going?” Charity asked.
“I’m going to make sure you never step foot in a courtroom,” the man said, patting her affectionately on the shoulder as he walked past.
“Is this really going to work?” Charity asked as Lincoln led her to the parking garage and opened the door of the Porsche.
“We won’t know until he calls us,” Lincoln said. “But if anyone can do it, it’s Virgil.”