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er. Or what to tell Isaiah."

"Why tell Isaiah anything?" Winston asked. "This is between just us, correct?"

"We told Isaiah we'd found the killer," Chloe said, wishing now that they hadn't, if only because it would give them more options.

"Tell him he escaped. Tell him you had the wrong man. Leave Isaiah and his Crew out of this. If you get him involved, everything becomes much more complicated."

"And then there's Eddie..." Paul started to say. "He..."

Chloe tugged on her right ear as if it was itching, a sign she and Paul had developed when they first arrived in Key West. It meant shut up. She didn't want Winston to know that Eddie knew about Jacob. Not until she'd gotten him to suggest a plan of his own for dealing with the situation. Once she knew what Winston wanted to have happen, it would be much easier for her to decide what she was going to actually let happen.

Paul got the signal, like he always did. "He's going to want someone to hang this murder on. And he knows it wasn't him or his crew that did it, no matter how much you try and shift the blame to him."

"So we shift the blame to your old friend Raff," Winston said. "He's as likely a candidate as any."

"And Raff will just go along with that I'm sure," said Paul. "Eddie's not going to believe anything we say about him if they're friends."

"Raff left town. My people saw him get on a plane to Ft. Myers. And with him on the lam, he looks very guilty indeed. Besides, isn't he the one you warned Isaiah about? Isaiah will accept that Raff and his Crew are the culprits. Even if he does not have full faith in your explanation, it will placate him for the moment and, as I'm sure you desire more than anything, get him out of your town and your lives."

"So you think we should just let your friend go and forget everything we know about what really happened," said Paul.

"I never advise anyone to forget anything," said Winston, smiling for the first time since Chloe had called him out for b

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