"Well, I'll be damned. You'll never know just how much trouble she saved me. Give her a medal. She made up that statement. She hated him. Apparently, the story she told me about Pirro was true." Sandy laughed. "She danced him right off the balcony. She probably pretended he was getting her hot, and then pushed the bastard over the railing straight down to hell. Applause please. I hope his death was a slow one. I'll bet she heard him moaning down there and turned up the TV."

"Sometimes I don't know about you, Sandy. It's a crime and if it were my case, I'd go after her for murder."

"Wait a minute, when did this happen, last night? Geez Louise! Chip, it was in my dream. She did it for me. Elena heard about my accident and knew immediately who ran me off the road. Pirro might even have bragged about it. Twenty-four hours later, he's dead. Chip, she killed him for me."

"That's a stretch. Maybe Pirro killed Towson. To cover it up, Elena was told by the family to get rid of him."

"I doubt that. He was a big danger to her and her mother. The brave little accountant figured out a slick way to write him off. I'm just going to keep thinking she had me and some other women in mind."

"I want to see you again before you leave."

"Chip, I've decided not to go back home...at least, not right away."

"What? Oh, you're not. You're not leaving. Oh, that's good."

"We should meet for coffee."

Sandy was discharged mid-morning. Sergeant Lewis picked her up at the emergency entrance in a blue and white and drove her to the police impound lot. He explained he should go along to be sure she had no trouble getting Ray's car released, and he had something important to tell her.

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"Now that you're okay, I can tell you how close you came. Chip radioed for an ambulance as soon as you told him you were being chased. He didn't wait to decide anything. That ambulance was screaming down that back road before you even hit the ditch. Those few extra minutes saved you. Your vehicle was upside down, the top half submerged in water. Your head was actually under mud. We don't understand how it was possible for him to shift your car enough to get that seatbelt undone while he was sinking in mud like quicksand."

"He told me he had some difficulty getting my seatbelt undone."

"Yes, the difficulty was he had to lift the car. The tow truck driver didn't see how it could be done."