“It wasn’t that difficult. Everyone was drunk. I collected some glasses and pretended to help clean up—like I said, no one ever notices me.” She was calmer this time when she said it, clearly having gotten her emotions under control. “I planned to offer you a ride home when I saw you in the parking lot, but Martin refused to let me take you.”

“And that made you really mad, didn’t it?”

Corinne shrugged. “I asked him nicely, but he wouldn’t let you go. I had to follow him and make sure he didn’t hurt you.”

“You watched from the woods.”

Corinne looked startled.

“He left me asleep on the couch. You let yourself in when he went to bed. Why did you pour the two glasses of whisky?”

Corinne tried the handle of the ice fishing hut, but it was locked. She swore. “I figured it would look better if it appeared you had both been drinking after you left the party.”

“Look better when you framed me for murder, you mean?” Darby said between chattering teeth.

Corinne said nothing.

“Am I your prisoner now?”

“What? No!”

“Then let me go, Corinne. Let me go,” she pleaded.

“I-I can’t.” Something changed. Then the woman sneered and all the progress Darby had made vanished.

“You don’t know how to protect yourself from men.” A hint of insanity entered Corinne’s tone that sent a shudder through Darby’s bones. “You keep making the same mistakes over and over—that’s why Martin and Adele are dead. Not because of me but because of you. I’m trying to help you, but you won’t listen to me. But I’ll make you listen.”

Corinne seemed to be channeling someone else now. Maybe her mother or abusive stepfather. As much as Darby pitied her, Corinne was simply another asshole who wanted to control Darby for whatever fucked-up reason she’d decided upon. Darby was done playing that game.

She didn’t need to protect herself from men. She needed to protect herself from individuals who wanted to cause her harm.

The good news was she could tell Corinne was getting weaker. Hopefully, she’d collapse before too long. She needed to calm her temper. Project empathy. What else had Eban told her? Put herself in the other person’s shoes. But they needed to find shelter out of the killer wind, otherwise neither of them would survive much longer.

“You’re injured, Corinne. Let’s get in the truck and escape from here before the cops arrive. Quickly, in case the man in the hut called the police.”

Chapter Forty-One

Eban had caught sight of something moving toward the ice-fishing huts on the lake. Then the sound of a gunshot had almost sent him out of his mind. He’d sprinted, catching up and getting close enough to see a woman—Corinne Brown who he’d last seen going in for freaking surgery earlier—dragging Darby across the ice by her jacket. No blood was visible on the ground so that was good news.