If wishes were horses, her mother used to say. Wishing got a person nowhere. It couldn’t change the past. It couldn’t change the future.
“You know why I did it,” she said quietly. “I believed he was guilty. It was your case, and you’d just testified for the defense. You told the jury your doubts. You weakened our chances for a guilty verdict, and I...wanted that verdict.” She could have substituted any number of words—needed, coveted, desired—but probably the most honest one was deserved. She had argued a good case. She had deserved that win.
He walked around the table and slid into the chair across from her. His dark gaze locked on her face. “No matter that you were wrong. No matter that you were sending an innocent man to prison.”
“I didn’t believe I was wrong, and I still don’t believe Lloyd Wind was innocent. I think he got away with murder.”
The only change in his expression was a small one, a shifting of his gaze, but clear enough to express his emotions. He thought she was hardheaded, clinging to her presumption of Wind’s guilt out of pride, not conviction. He thought she couldn’t admit, after all she had lost—all they had lost—that she’d been wrong.
She had pride in spades. Hardheadedness, too. She’d needed both to make it through life. But she had no problem with admitting she was wrong when she was wrong. Her gut instinct that Wind had murdered the man in the alley behind his office had never wavered. Not when she’d presented the case, not when she’d heard the verdict, not when he won his appeal, not even when he won his multimillion-dollar settlement.
“What did you think was going to happen with us, Yashi?” Ben’s voice was hard, the words clipped. “You stood in that courtroom and accused me of turning a blind eye to Lloyd because we’re both Creek. You questioned my honesty and my integrity and twisted something I’d said as a damn joke to show me as racist. What did you honestly think was going to happen?”
Her brain gave her body the order to stand up, to pace, to walk away, but if she tried, she would probably collapse in tears. Years ago, she had tried to have this conversation, but he’d wanted nothing to do with her then. She’d had reasons and rationale and logical arguments lined up back then, but when she’d finally accepted that the relationship was over, she’d buried them with all the other hurtful memories.
“I thought—” Her voice quavered, and the quick breath she took sounded more like a sob. After a hard swallow, with her fingers tightly clenched for strength, she forced herself to continue calmly and evenly. It was all pretend.
“I thought we would be all right. I thought you loved me enough to understand and to get over it.”
His anger exploded, brightening, sharpening his eyes, turning his features stark, flushing his dark skin red, and his voice rose half an octave and doubled in volume. If he’d been writing instead of speaking, every sentence would have ended with multiple exclamation points. “Get over it? You told the jury my doubts about Lloyd’s guilt stemmed from the fact that we Creek brothers have to watch each other’s back. You told them I was racist, that the white victim wasn’t as important to me as the Indian suspect. And you thought I would get over it? That at the end of the day, I’d be waiting at home, that we’d have dinner and go to bed and have sex, and in the morning everything would be all right again? I loved you, Yashi, more than anything in the world, but that’s not the kind of thing people get over. You couldn’t possibly think it was.”
She’d been wrong. Ben wasn’t a the-quieter-the-more-dangerous type, as she’d always believed. She’d just never seen him really angry.
His outburst didn’t make her eyes burn with tears. It didn’t make her jump up and flee the room. It turned her entire being, inside and out, hot with shame and naivete and anger of her own. It gave her a big empty pit in her stomach, a fragile feeling as if one good poke would collapse the shell that she’d become in the last few minutes, and she would—poof—disintegrate into nothing.
Had she honestly thought that this afternoon couldn’t be worse than this morning?
And in the next instant, it got even worse.
A rap sounded at the opened door. JJ Logan wore an uncomfortable look, and she seemed indecisive about whether to stay or go. Judging by the fact that her gaze darted from Ben to Yashi and back again but didn’t actually make eye contact with either of them, Yashi would guess she’d heard at least the last couple exchanges. “I—I can come back—”
Ben’s chair made a screech as he shoved it back. “Go ahead and get started. I’ll...” He didn’t offer an excuse. He just maneuvered past her and out of the building.
JJ came into the room and sat down nearest Yashi. “I’m sorry. I called hello when I came in the back door, and I just assumed you heard. And then I was in the door, and I couldn’t think of any way out.”
Yashi forced a smile. “Don’t blame yourself. As I’m sure you heard, it was all my fault. Everything that ever happened and ever will. I was ambitious and stupid and selfish and...” Now it was her turn to run out of words.
JJ laid her hand on Yashi’s arm. “Don’t be silly. There are people screwing up all over the place. You don’t get to take the blame for everything. At times, we’re all ambitious and stupid and selfish, and we still mean the world to the lucky people in our lives.” She squeezed gently, the diamond in her engagement ring catching a sparkle of light overhead.
“Thank you.” Yashi nodded to the ring. “Congratulations.”
JJ’s smile was satisfied and content. “You knew Quint’s fiancée—I guess I should say first fiancée now, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes. Belinda was a good person. So is Quint. He deserves to be happy.”
“They were together forever. Engaged for years.” She studied the ring. “We only met in March, and we’re getting married in September. You know all the clichés—life is short. Live for today. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone.” She rolled her eyes. “We’re not getting any younger. That’s my mom’s favorite reminder.”
“He needed you. Needs you. You’re good for him.” Now a hint of moisture stung Yashi’s eyes. She tried to live by the clichés, but if that forever kind of love was anywhere in her future, she couldn’t see it. She didn’t want just a partner, a lover; she also wanted a baby, maybe two, and grandbabies. She wanted the mom experience, the watching-a-piece-of-her-heart-grow-up experience. She wanted to be part of a family of her own—with kids, cousins, in-laws, out-laws. Everyone else had that. Why couldn’t she?
Because that’s not the kind of thing people get over.
And no matter how JJ tried to reassure her, that was most certainly her fault.
Chapter 8
Ben never shirked work. Because his father had had no work ethic, his mother had overdeveloped hers, and she’d passed it on to him. He never put off until tomorrow what could be done today, but he had spent the last two hours driving around in his truck, air-conditioning blasting, music loud enough to vibrate the air and his cell tossed in the glove compartment. He figured JJ had covered for him, because he hadn’t gotten a single call over the radio until ten minutes ago, when the dispatcher told him to meet the team at Creek Café for dinner.
He didn’t want to go, but that wouldn’t keep him away. Nothing short of an emergency would. JJ had heard all she needed to hear about them—from them, mostly him—and she would report it to the others because, private or not, it was pertinent to the investigation. He didn’t even care that they knew. He just didn’t want to see ornery, pigheaded, impossibly stupid or naive Yashi again, not when it had taken the last two hours for his blood pressure to drop from boiling to merely simmering.
She’d thought he would get over it. Even now, his hands clenched tighter around the steering wheel at the ridiculousness of her statement. The ends had justified the means. She’d won her case and put another bright, shiny star on her résumé, and he was supposed to have realized it was just business. Nothing to affect their personal relati
onship. She’d embarrassed him in front of a courtroom of people, maligned his character, but hey, that was work. At home, things were supposed to stay the same.
She wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have the patience to fall in love with a stupid woman. Had it been naivete? Or her usual determination to buff up her win record with the added benefit of proving him wrong as well? They’d always been on the same side. He’d done his job; he’d had faith in the cases he’d taken to her. She’d never doubted him, and she’d always argued a good, fair case. Lloyd Wind was the first time they’d disagreed, and even then, he hadn’t been convinced of Lloyd’s innocence. He hadn’t been convinced of his guilt, either.
But Yashi had had no doubts. Find some proof, she’d told him. Show me he’s not guilty. Until then, I’ll stick with the evidence that says he is. And Ben had looked. He’d reviewed everything a dozen times; he’d reinterviewed everyone he could remotely connect with the case, with Lloyd or the victim. He hadn’t found a thing to point to Lloyd’s innocence. Just his undocumented, not-worth-much-in-court gut instinct.
And yet lawyers working on behalf of their incarcerated client had found that evidence: the weapon, the property stolen from the victim and the killer himself. Lawyers, who were generally better at lawyering than investigating, had needed little time to find the proof that had eluded Cedar Creek Police Department’s best for months.
It had annoyed Sam, Lois and Quint. Even Daniel, who hadn’t worked for CCPD during the investigation, had been ticked off by it. But Ben had thought odds were good Lloyd was innocent and had been more concerned with an innocent man being locked up than the ease with which he’d been set free.
He had also been nursing one hell of a grudge against Yashi, as well as trying to adapt to life without her. He hadn’t been in the best frame of mind. Maybe his judgment hadn’t been the best, either.
He pulled into the employee lot at the diner. He didn’t need to see official vehicles out front to know that Sam, Daniel, JJ and possibly Quint would be waiting inside. So would Yashi. As he’d told her earlier, she couldn’t take off alone now that they knew she was the kidnapper’s real goal. What were Sam’s plans for her tonight? To send her home with Quint and JJ, since they were already watching Brit? Not a good idea to have someone with a target on her back around an innocent kid. That also ruled out Sam and Mila’s house, and Daniel and Natasha’s, even though little kid Harper hadn’t decided to join the world just yet.
Maybe Yashi would volunteer to stay in the holding cell at the police station or downstairs in a regular cell.
Yeah, that was really likely.
He knew what was most likely.
He was mumbling when he went in the diner’s back door, sidestepped the line cooks and passed Toni. “What’s that?” she asked distractedly.
“I wish I’d applied to the Tulsa PD.” A bigger city, a bigger budget and broader opportunities for providing protection to a subject.
“Aw, you wouldn’t like it at all. You wouldn’t know most of the people you arrested.”
“I wouldn’t be related to some of them, either.”
She punched his arm. “You picked me up one time when I was seventeen. I didn’t even spend the night in jail, though at least there I wouldn’t have had to face Mom.”
He managed a smile as he headed toward the private dining room. A deeply disappointed mother had forestalled more than a few criminal careers. Toni’s sole attempt at playing the wild child with her friends had ended in tearful apologies to everyone involved, especially their mother.
The expected people sat around the table in the middle of the room, Sam and Daniel on one side, Quint, JJ and Yashi on the other. The empty chair next to Daniel was directly opposite Yashi. Ben could suck it up, sit across from her and pretend she wasn’t all he could see, all he could think about. That would be the grown-up detective thing to do. Instead, he pulled a chair from another table and put it at the opposite end, where Great-Aunt Weezer sat for family meals.
“Mature,” Sam whispered, then said aloud, “We’ve already ordered. Toni said she’d bring you whatever was handy. To bring you up to speed, Lois and Simpson are at the hospital with Brit and Theo. Theo’s still not talking, not even to Brit. Sweetness Brown couldn’t give a description of the kidnapper other than ‘bogeyman.’ He was driving a dark van, no idea what type. No fingerprints on the phone left on the hood of the car. You saw the photo of Lolly. No identifying details in the picture. The message said, ‘Maybe I’ll give her back, too.’ We assume he’s implying he let Theo go rather than couldn’t manage him.”
In the sense that he hadn’t wasted time looking for the kid, it was basically true. Even if he had looked, though, Ben would bet Sweetness knew every rock, log and hidey-hole in those woods, and she was accustomed to wandering around there at night. The kidnapper would have risked losing Will and Lolly if he’d tried to recover Theo.
Sam went on. “JJ interviewed Yashi and put together a list of defendants she prosecuted who made threats or seemed particularly resentful, and there’s no old boyfriends we need to worry about.”
Four gazes swung to Ben’s face, stirring a desire to shift uneasily in his chair. Because he wasn’t the sort to shift uneasily, he remained motionless, his face blank, his own gaze scanning the length of the table, catching a glimpse of Yashi staring down.
Finally Sam broke his all-business manner. “A year, man? I know you’re big on the stern face-hidden emotions-deep mysteries sort of thing, but a whole year, and you never let on?”
Heat warmed Ben’s neck. “Don’t blame me because you couldn’t get a clue.” Quickly, he changed the subject. “How many on the list?”
JJ didn’t miss a beat. “Six.” She handed him a sheet of paper with a half dozen names in Yashi’s familiar handwriting. A drug dealer who’d threatened in court to kill her. A woman newly convicted of domestic abuse who’d tried to break a solid wooden chair over Yashi’s head. A killer who claimed he’d stabbed his victim seventy-three times in self-defense, another drug dealer who’d asked his buddies in the courtroom to take care of her, a homeless man who’d defended his territory with a deadly sharp blade and promised to cut her open the same way he had his victim, and Lloyd Wind.
Ben had been involved in three of the arrests and knew the major details of the others. “Two of these people are still in prison, one is in a psychiatric facility and Lloyd Wind was released a year ago.”
“And the other two were released due to prison overcrowding,” JJ said. “One disappeared off the radar the minute he got out, and the other one kind of faded from view. These are the ones who made actual threats. Smart criminals don’t make threats. They take their revenge without drawing attention to themselves. So there could be other ticked-off people who blame her for the consequences of their actions, or it could be a family member who faults her for sending their loved one to prison.”
“Or it could be someone she made the mistake of smiling at at some point in her life,” Daniel pointed out grimly. That had pretty much been the case with the stalker who’d followed Natasha to Cedar Creek. It didn’t take much for a psychopath to develop an intimate relationship with a stranger.
Toni and their aunt Rebecca’s daughter delivered their meals, refilled drinks and greeted Ben before leaving and closing the door behind them. After giving everyone a few moments to make a start on their dinner, Sam spoke again, his gaze shifting from Ben to Yashi and back. “We all know there were hard feelings after the Wind case. We apparently didn’t know the extent of them—” that was said with one brow raised at Ben “—but they’re not going to be a problem now. Everyone did their jobs on that case, and it’s done. The only thing we’re concerned with now is whether Lloyd Wind could be behind the Mueller kidnapping. Let’s focus on the facts, not the emotion.”
Ben never had a problem separating facts from emotion.
Unless Yashi was involved.
The line about his testimony stung Ben. His job in court wasn’t to help either side; it was to present the evidence in a clear, unbiased manner. He wanted to believe that was what he’d done in this case, but Sam, the fairest person he knew, didn’t think so. Ben’s doubts had colored his recitation of the facts, which had put Yashi in an adverse position, grasping for whatever means available to recover.
And he had been the means. His relationship with her. His throwaway comment about Creek brothers sticking together.
It had been a throwaway, hadn’t it? Had he subconsciously been influenced by the fact that he and Lloyd were from the same tribe, that they’d grown up together, that they shared a culture and a history and probably, somewhere along the way, a relative?
He had investigated other Creeks. Had determined their involvement in crimes ranging from petty theft to homicide. Hadn’t been swayed by tribal connections. Why would he look at Lloyd any differently? They’d known each other forever, but they’d never been buddies. There was no reason he would give Lloyd preferential treatment.
And yet, what if he had?
“It always strikes me as convenient,” Quint said, “when a person makes a deathbed confession that gets another person out of prison. I know it happens, but I also know sometimes easing their conscience is the last thing on their minds.”
Something flitted through Ben, leaving him unsettled. Gerry Dillard, the man who’d made that confession, had been in trouble before, but always petty stuff: walking on tickets at restaurants, drunk and disorderly, shoplifting. He’d been a likable guy with a fondness for booze, an aversion to work and a wife who put up with him far too long. They’d never had a spare dime the whole marriage and, thankfully, no kids, either. She’d moved away the day after his funeral without even making arrangements to sell the house where they’d lived the past twenty years. It had eventually been taken for back taxes and razed, and hadn’t even provided a decent pile of rubble.
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