Ashes on the Earth (Stones of Fire Book 1) by Sarah Ashwood

Author:Sarah Ashwood [Ashwood, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

It was like an explosion going off, or maybe a volcano erupting. Starting off slow, building up in the tenseness of her body, in the mental processes behind her eyes. Mounting, building as the notion sunk in, and then—bam! The fireworks went off. She tugged her hand away, horror all over her face.

“Married?” she practically screeched, in the same decibel that had hurt his ears last night in his apartment. “What? Are you insane?”

“No, but I’m probably going to be deaf before this is all over,” Carter muttered, rubbing his inner ear.

She overlooked the jibe.

“Why? Why? Why? Why would we get married?” she spluttered. “That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

“Actually, it does. It makes a lot of sense. You ever hear of spousal immunity or marital communications privilege?”

“I—I don’t know. Maybe, sometime. From a cop show or something. What is it, exactly?”

“In Texas, the first one is basically the right of one spouse not to have to testify against the other. Marital communications privilege is essentially the right of either spouse to keep certain communications that were only intended for each other private.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning, if we were married, even if the cops do decide something bad went down last night, and even if they do identify us through the security footage, they can bring us in for questioning but they can’t force either of us to talk about what actually happened last night.”

Her face was paler than normal, and her eyes were huge, but she was listening.

“What about Amy, Blake?” she stammered. “They were there also.”

“True, but there’s nothing tying Blake or Amy to the scene. Only us.”

“What if something does turn up to tie them to the scene?”

“It won’t, but even if it did, that’s another problem for another day. I guess they can get married too.”

She didn’t respond to the joke.

Carter sighed. “This is a temporary fix, Ellie. Did you catch that? Temporary. Getting married now doesn’t mean staying married forever. It’s just a quick fix in case things go south; something to protect us until the lawyers can get us out. Something to maybe keep the lawyers from ever having to get us out. That’s all it is.”

“What’s the point of having expensive lawyers if you have to resort to wild tricks like this to keep from getting in trouble?” she demanded, clearly unconvinced. “I don’t like the idea. I don’t like it one bit.”

“The best lawyers in the world may not be able to keep the cops from taking you down to the station for questioning. You ever been questioned by the cops?”

“No, have you?” she retorted.

“No, and I don’t intend to, either. But, if it happens—if—this covers both our butts for the time being. They get us in there, start turning the screws, asking questions…we claim spousal privilege. We don’t have to say a word about why we were there or what went down because we’re married, it was only for us, and that’s legally protected. It keeps us from spending the night in lockup—or being arraigned, or anything like that—until the lawyers can handle it.

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