Black at Heart

by Leslie Parrish

  He couldn't. Wyatt had too many friends in high places. Very high. He had a number of powerful supporters, the admiration of media figures who knew him and saw him as one of the few honest men in the FBI. No, Crandall couldn't force Wyatt out.

  He could, however, try to get Wyatt to go on his own. And he'd done everything from criticizing him to reprimanding him to accomplish that goal.

  That the reprimand had been over Lily Fletcher's death was something he would never let her know.

  But how did she know the rest? He had shared details of the tense meetings, the argumentative phone calls, and the sniping e-mails from the DD's office with no one.

  Wyatt alone was responsible for the decisions he made. He had known going into it that exposing internal corruption would be career suicide. Not to mention the end of friendships. So he would never bemoan the fully expected results of his actions to anyone now.

  Others might whisper about it, speculate that while he'd gotten public commendations and made those high-level friends, in private, in the cutthroat world of the upper echelons of the FBI, he'd been vilified. Yet Lily seemed to be talking about more than the rumor and innuendo that had been surrounding him in the two and a half years since he'd crossed the blue line and done something about what he'd discovered.

  And then he got it.

  Wyatt lowered the glass to the counter, no longer trusting himself to hold it upright. The moment it left his grip, his fingers curled together, every muscle in his body growing tense as the truth washed over him. "Lily?

  She opened her mouth to remind him of the name he was supposed to be using, but must have seen the steely flash of anger in his eyes and said nothing.

  "You'd better not ever let me find out you've been hacking into our system."

  She held his gaze, saying nothing, fearless and emotionless. Not denying it. Not justifying it. As if silently telling him she was good enough that he never would find out.

  "Damn it," he snapped.

  Anger rose. The kind of anger that one year ago he hadn't believed he was capable of feeling, so effective had his emotional control been for most of his life. The frustration caused an unfamiliar pounding in his head and every muscle in his body was hard and tense. What in hell was it with this woman that she continued to take these chances, with no regard for her safety or well-being?

  He wasn't used to feeling this way. To ever being thrown off his normal, pace. Yet for the past seven months of dealing with Lily Fletcher, his life had been anything but normal, and sometimes he didn't even recognize himself.

  Though Lily remained where she was, her chin up in silent defiance, he saw a flash of wariness enter her eyes. Wariness of him, which made him incredibly uncomfortable. "I need some fresh air," he said. "Don't hold dinner." Then, not trusting himself to discuss the issue with her calmly, he turned and stalked out of the room.

  Chapter 3

  "Get over here, Boyd. You got a visitor."

  In the middle of a set, Jesse Boyd didn't immediately put down the sixty-pound barbell he was holding against his chest. First, because he needed to stick to the routine, he finished his curls. In here, he had no choice but to keep himself in prime shape, ready to fight off the next con who jumped him in the showers or tried to beat the hell out of him in the yard.

  And second, because the guard, Kildare, was a mean prick with a nasty sense of humor. It wasn't a visiting day, nor the right hour. Jesse wouldn't put it past the screw to lie about a visitor, just to get him to leave the weight room without permission and get his ass banned from the gym for violating rules. He'd like nothing better than for Jesse to stop working out, get weak, be unable to defend himself. That was the kind of hateful crap Kildare was infamous for.

  Besides, nobody ever came to visit him. His ma had come to the county jail for a while, after his arrest, and she'd been there during his trial.

  But she'd also been sitting in the courtroom when the worst of it had come out, when the testimony got pretty bad. She hadn't come back since. Not one visit. Not one letter. Not one word. It was as if she'd never given birth to him.

  "You got shit stuck in your ears?"

  Lowering the barbell, Jesse offered the man an insolent sneer. "I heard ya."

  The guard glowered, his beefy frame straining against the blue fabric of his uniform. "Then get your ass over here."

  It was a risk. Ignore the guard and take a whack from his nightstick, or believe him and land in crap when it proved to be a lie.

  Life on the inside was made of such decisions. Choices usually ranged from bad to rotten, and whichever way he went, Jesse was the one who invariably got fucked. But lately he'd been working out hard, building his strength. Now he was strong enough to fight back.

  Unlike in the beginning.

  Right after he'd come here to the Cumberland maximum-security facility to serve his sentence, he'd learned just how true all those stories were about prison life. About what it was like to go inside on any kind of crime involving kids.

  Most people, inside and out, seemed to think his was the worst kind of crime. Paying a debt to society by getting locked in a cell for the rest of his life didn't seem to be enough, apparently. He needed to regularly get beaten and jumped by his fellow inmates, and sometimes guards, too.

  Probably the only person who'd had it worse than him in this place was the crazy guy they called the Professor. Because, when you got sent up, the only thing worse than being a convicted child molester was being a former prison warden.

  "You got till the count of three. Then I bust your head, toss you in your cell, and tell your fancy new lawyer you're not interested."

  That got his attention. "What lawyer?"

  The guard peered at him, visibly suspicious. "You weren't expecting her?"

  Her? Every one of his previous public defenders had been guys. The last of them, a kid who looked as if he should be going to homeroom and banging cheerleaders, had made it clear he wouldn't be back unless the pope himself showed up to give Jesse an alibi. Just one more in a long line of motherfuckers who'd screwed him over.

  Best defense available under the law? Shee-it. His own lawyers hadn't done jack to get him out of this jam. Oh, sure, they'd gone through the most basic of motions to file an appeal, but had given up almost immediately with a "Sayonara, sucker." Nobody cared if he rotted in here for the rest of his miserable life.

  "Boyd!" the guard snapped.

  Putting on his best poker face, Jesse replied, "I didn't think she was comin' today, thassall. Good news."

  Yeah, fat chance of that. He couldn't help wondering how the guard would react when he found out this was a mistake. Because it had to be. Jesse didn't have no new attorney.

  It's possible. You never know.

  Maybe it was good news. Everybody's luck had to turn around sooner or later, didn't it? Maybe it was his time. Maybe somebody had finally realized he'd gotten no goddamn justice and they were here to fix this mess.

  "Move it, then."

  He crossed the gym, ignoring the glares he got from his fellow inmates. Screw them. Self-righteous bastards. They could slit the throats of old grannies-or pop shopkeepers for three bucks, and still thought they were so much better than him? That he was sick and degenerate? Hell, he wasn't no cold-blooded killer.

  As Kildare escorted him to one of the meeting rooms, which was used only by inmates and their attorneys, he prepared for the guard's wrath. It wasn't Jesse's fault somebody screwed up and thought he had a new lawyer. But Kildare would blame him for inconveniencing his lard ass anyway.

  Reaching the room, he couldn't help peering through the barred glass window to make sure there was a woman inside, and he wasn't about to walk into a guard's birthday party, with him playing the part of the pinata.

  She really was there. All prim and snotty looking, dressed in a fancy suit, her hair up off her face and tight. As soon as he walked in, she looked at him over the top of her small silver glasses, shaped like two pointy upside-down triangles, sizing
him up. "You're Jesse Boyd?"

  Still not quite believing she really was here to see him, he could only nod.

  "Sit down."

  When he hesitated, Kildare gave him a shove in the back. The hoity-toity lawyer pointed one finger at the guard and snapped, "Watch it or I'll see to it you never put your hands on another inmate."

  Okay. He liked this broad, whoever she was.

  Kildare fumed for a second, then spun around and walked away, stepping to a corner to give them a little privacy.

  Jesse sat. "What's this all about?"

  The woman ignored him, pulling a file out of her briefcase and opening it on the table between them. Pen in hand, she jotted something on a yellow legal pad, crossed it out, jotted something else. Without looking up, she snapped, "You're bruised."

  Jesse absently rubbed at his forearm.

  "Guards?

  "Nuh-uh." Not this time, anyway.

  "Try to stay out of fights. You'll want to be a choirboy until we get this done."

  "Get what done?"

  She finally looked up at him. "Your appeal, of course."

  "Whoa, slow down, lady. Who the hell are you?"

  "My name is Claire Vincent. I'm a partner at the Bradley, Miles & Cavanaugh firm out of Virginia, but our firm has offices in the D.C. metro area and I'm licensed to practice here in Maryland. I've been hired to get you out of here."

  Glancing at Kildare and seeing the guard was occupied playing a game of pocket pool while he looked at the pretty lawyer from behind, Jesse leaned over the table a little. "I didn't hire no new lawyer. Did my ma hire you?"

  "No. The person who hired me isn't pertinent to our conversation."

  "Huh?"

  "I mean," she explained, finally putting the pen down, "I was hired by someone who has a strong distaste for injustice. Your benefactor believes you were wronged, and hired me to look into the case, which I've been doing for some time now."

  Not quite believing it, Jesse could only stare.

  "I have come to agree that you weren't treated fairly. You had the worst of representation and were convicted by the world before you ever set foot in the courtroom."

  "No shit. I tell ya, I didn't kill nobody-"

  She put up a hand, stopping him. "We don't need to discuss what you did or did not do."

  He'd heard that line before. His other lawyers didn't seem to care, either. Made 'em uncomfortable, probably, defending all those scumbags who really were guilty of murder.

  Unlike him, who'd just had a run of bad luck.

  "The simple fact that the victim's aunt was an FBI agent, and that some of the evidence was processed in the FBI crime lab, should have been enough to at least argue for the evidence to be excluded."

  Smacking his hand flat on the table, he chortled. "That's exactly what I said! But that pussy public defender wouldn't listen to me. Made one shot at an appeal on some technical garbage, and then gave up."

  Her lips thinned. Man, this bitch was cast-iron hard.

  "Sorry. Not used to being in polite company anymore," he mumbled.

  "It's quite all right." She offered him a small, tight smile. "You won't be for much longer. Perhaps no more than a week."

  Stunned and almost not wanting to hope, he asked, "You mean that?"

  "I do. I've already gotten us a hearing. It's coming up in a few days, so I needed to come here to prepare you for it. I apologize for not giving you more time, but I never expected the judge's docket to clear so unexpectedly and give us a date that soon. I was caught off guard, too. I was supposed to go away for the holiday weekend but will now spend every minute of it preparing for our day in court."

  Jesse sagged back in his chair, unable to believe his life could be changing so much, so fast. An hour ago, he was wondering how to keep himself alive in here for the next forty years, and now someone was telling him he might be out in seven days?

  "Is this really happening?" he whispered.

  "Yes. It is. A number of things have happened with regard to your case. No jury on earth would convict you if it came to trial today."

  "Like?"

  "Like the fact that, aside from the victim's aunt being with the bureau, the evidence was processed within a few weeks of an internal-corruption investigation at the crime lab. A number of other cases were overturned. It falls close enough to the time frame to raise flags."

  He could only gawk in disbelief. "Are you shittin' me?"

  "Furthermore, the agent responsible for uncovering the tampering was, until recently, the direct supervisor of the victim's aunt. It could be argued that his relationship with her led him to delay reporting it."

  "I can't fuckin' believe this."

  He smacked his palm sharply on the table, drawing a quick glance from Kildare. Giving him an apologetic look, Jesse drew back.

  "The physical evidence-DNA and so forth-should be easily excluded based on those two elements." The lawyer glanced at her pad, flipped a couple of pages, and read something in her notes. "There's also apparently a new witness who can corroborate your alibi. I'm still working on that to make sure his testimony will stand up."

  His alibi? That story that he'd been sitting in a crowded bar, drinking, until long after that kid had been snatched?

  Who, he wondered, would support that story, considering it was bullshit?

  "Things are looking very good for you, Mr. Boyd."

  Jesse couldn't help it. He started to cry. Hot, wet tears filled his eyes. "You mean, I'll finally be found innocent? Be able to get back to my real life?"

  Get his mother to look him in the eye once more?

  The cold, steely expression left the lawyer's face and her voice went a little softer. "No. You won't be found innocent. What we're after is a ruling that there was a flaw in your original prosecution, that the evidence was tainted. The conviction should be overturned, but that's not the same as getting a not-guilty verdict."

  Not ideal, but if it got him out of this hellhole, he could live with it. And if he showed up on her doorstep and told Ma they let him out 'cause he didn't do it, she'd believe him, right? He'd make her believe him.

  "And that'll be the end of it? No double jeopardy?"

  Another shake of her head. Damn, he wanted to smack the woman to get her to talk faster rather than reeling out the information in dribs and drabs. "If the appeals court rules that your first trial was flawed and overturns the conviction, the prosecution will still have the opportunity to refile the case and try you again on the same charges."

  He closed his eyes, not wanting to believe it. "Another trial."

  A cool hand brushed his. The woman had reached across the table to comfort him. "Jesse, it's inconceivable that the prosecutor would refile. He'll know he'd have no chance of winning. If you have a new alibi, and they have no DNA evidence…"

  "What about the eyewitness?" he asked, almost starting to believe but not quite letting himself go there yet.

  "The child's aunt?"

  He nodded once, still picturing that blond-haired bitch who'd put nail after nail in his coffin with every word she'd uttered on the stand.

  "Her original testimony can, of course, be admitted, but with the questions regarding her supervisor's involvement in the crime-lab issue, I could argue against it, since she's not available for cross-examination."

  "Why isn't she?"

  The cool-as-a-cucumber attorney offered him a look of surprise. "Didn't you hear?"

  "Hear what?"

  "Well, Mr. Boyd, Lily Fletcher, the prosecution's star witness against you, died seven months ago."

  She dreamed.

  No sweet, pleasant images. No amusing adventures to enjoy while she slumbered. Wyatt's presence down the hall didn't change what happened every time she allowed her weary body to fall into bed, hoping she was exhausted enough to escape the nightmares. The horror.

  But no. In the long, empty hours, when sleep should have been a welcome escape, she instead found herself at the mercy of relentless memory. Just like
in her conscious times, the images haunted her.

  "No, please," she mumbled, twisting in the bed. Lost in that place between asleep and awake, she knew she was falling into the familiar nightmare and tried to swim out of it, to the light of consciousness. But she couldn't pull herself from it.

  She could never pull herself from it. Not this night. Not any night.

  The dream that was not a dream.

  Not a dream at all. Pure, dark reality filled the places in her brain that had once been reserved for dreamlike fantasy. Each moment, each tense, terrifying second, of that cold January night played like a movie on an endless loop in the dark theater of her mind.

  Help me, Wyatt. I'm here. Please find me.

  She was there again, on that deserted Virginia beach. Alone. Dying.

  Reliving every second…

  Help me. Find me. The words repeated in Lily's brain, lapping over and over like the hard, rolling waves hitting the shore just across the windswept dunes from where she lay dying. Strong at first, each syllable underscored her certainty that he would come for her, would find her before it was too late. That possibility of rescue was a glimmer of weak light in the black void into which she had been thrust.

  But as time went on, as the cold night grew more deep and bitter, and numbness spread from her limbs throughout her entire body, those hopes faded. The pleas quieted. She could barely hear her own mental voice anymore. Her heartbeat weakened, top, her breaths growing shallow, her pulse slow and sluggish.

  Her body was fading along with her hope of rescue.

  Help me.

  She did not have the strength to send the words across her lips in even the faintest of whispers. Not again. Once had to be enough.

  Even if she could find some inner reserve of strength. her only means of communication was gone. She had found her cellular phone tangled in a pile of bloody clothes on the floor of the decrepit, abandoned beach shack where she'd been imprisoned. Miracle enough that she'd located the thing at all. An even greater miracle that the battery had lasted long enough for one call. Just one Hail Mary cry for help to the only person in the world she knew would be there for her. The one who had cautioned her against going down the path of personal vengeance that had eventually left her here, broken and dying, and alone.