“Let him keep thinking that for another forty-five minutes,” Rachel said.

She grabbed her coat from the brass rack beside her office door and picked up her leather briefcase.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“To the courthouse clerk’s window before the four thirty deadline,” Rachel said, stepping into the carpeted hallway.

I walked out to the parking lot and sat in my car with the heater running against the chill.

I took my purse out from under the driver’s seat and unzipped the inner pocket.