Fever

by Joan Swan

  She couldn’t let that happen. Not here, not now, not for her or for Teague or for Kat. She had the determination, the intelligence, the resources to make a difference. And, she had to admit, she often shared her brother’s passion for slaying dragons. Especially the ones out to burn those she cared about.

  Alyssa set the photos aside and picked up the top file on the coffee table. A soft jingle brought her attention to the car keys. She darted a look at Teague, but he was still asleep.

  Settling into the soft cushions, she scanned the documents inside—court transcripts. After skimming four pages of dry court proceedings, Alyssa rolled her eyes and set that file aside, muttering, “No wonder I decided against law.”

  She snuck a glance at Teague before perusing the other piles for something interesting. He remained completely still, his chest rising and falling easily. The pile farthest away, at the edge of the coffee table, caught her eye. She made out the partial word: Autop. Alyssa scooped up the autopsy report and rifled through the other papers in the pile. Radiology reports, toxicology results, crime scene notes.

  Jackpot.

  SIXTEEN

  Teague peered through cracked eyelids toward Alyssa, who was perched on the edge of the couch. He had to clench his fingers to keep from ripping those files out of her hands. Of all the things for her to latch on to, the autopsy report and crime scene details were two of the worst. If she’d picked up the file with the actual autopsy photos, he wouldn’t have been able to hold still. As it was, he had to continue to remind himself that if she was horrified enough by what happened to Desiree and he was able to convince her she was in the same danger, he might actually get her to leave. Which would be best for both of them.

  His stomach churned as she flipped each page. He’d scoured that damned information so many times, he knew exactly what she was reading. And with every word, she seemed to get deeper into the details. Brow furrowed, lips compressed, she flipped pages back and forth, scooted to the edge of the sofa, then laid the reports side by side on the coffee table.

  After another twenty minutes of total focus, she finally sighed, propped her elbow on one thigh and dropped her forehead into her hand. “Jesus Christ.”

  Her tone of disgust tore at Teague. He’d wanted that reaction, but hated witnessing it.

  She planted one finger on a line of type and followed it to the end of the paragraph. A low moan escaped her throat, and it cut through him like a razor blade.

  Teague swung his feet to the floor and sat up. “Seen enough?”

  Alyssa startled but didn’t respond, just stared at him with a complex mix of emotions he couldn’t read.

  “What is wrong with you?” he asked. “Why would you torment yourself with all this stuff?”

  Her beautiful eyes sparked with something hot, something intelligent. She grabbed for the knot of keys on the table and, in one quick, fluid move, chucked it at him.

  Teague barely lifted his hand in time. He caught them an inch from the cheekbone she’d already cracked once days earlier.

  “That’s it.” She pushed to her feet. “I knew something wasn’t right.”

  “What the hell was that for?” Teague dropped the keys on the table and rubbed at the sting in his palm.

  “Confirmation.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you’re right-handed,” she said as if the answer should be self-explanatory. “You held the scissors to my throat with your right hand. You stitched my side with your right hand. You caught those keys with your right hand. I thought you were right-handed, but I was just making sure because whoever killed Desire was left-handed. It’s not evidence of who else killed her, but evidence that you didn’t.”

  His mind stopped turning. He darted a look at the papers she’d been reading. “I’ve read those reports over and over and over. I know for a fact the medical examiner didn’t say whether the killer was right or left-handed.”

  The look in her eyes shifted from distracted consideration to frustration. “M.E.’s don’t draw conclusions like that. Not on paper. They state the facts, offer opinions on those facts relating to the manner of death, not who might have caused that death. Detectives and attorneys take those facts and twist them to fit their respective cases. But I don’t know how anyone could come up with anything other than a left-handed killer given the realities in that report. It’s all in the details—the area of her body damaged by blunt force trauma, the angle of the stab wounds—”

  “This may all be clear to you, Alyssa, but you’re a doctor, for Christ’s sake.”

  She snatched the report up from the sofa and started reading. “ ‘Blunt force trauma ... right skull fracture, broken right humerus, cracked right ribs.’ ”

  “She also had a broken left hand and bruising on her left hip, shoulder, knee—”

  “If someone hit you in the head with a bat or a pipe, wouldn’t you have less severe injuries on the opposite side of your body from falling in that direction?”

  Neurons long dormant fired off in a chain reaction of little explosions. “Oh, my God.”

  “What do you mean ‘oh, my God’? Any halfway decent attorney—” She stopped mid-sentence. “You had a halfway decent attorney ... right?”

  Shame made Teague break eye contact. “I had a public defender. Evidently, he was about ten-percent decent. All he managed to do was save me from the death penalty.”

  “Why did you trust something so crucial to a court-appointed attorney?” she asked in breathless shock. “You had a good job, you could have afforded—”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He forced his voice down. “I spent every last damn dime I had on an attorney for the custody battle against Luke. When this hit me, I had nothing left.”

  They stood there, staring at each other in the midst of thick silence. Teague’s stomach roiled with memories of terror and agony. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead. “What about the stab wounds? Those were everywh—” A rush of nausea took him off guard. “Those were everywhere on her body. A crime of passion, they said. Personal, they said. Someone who knew her.”

  “What? You’re the only person who knew her? She’d never had another boyfriend? She’d never had a fight with someone? For Christ’s sake, Teague, she was an assistant district attorney. Half the prison population probably wanted her dead.”

  He didn’t believe her. Couldn’t believe there was evidence that he hadn’t committed the crime staring him in the face while he’d been trying to aid in his own defense. Evidence that his attorney had missed and the prosecution had skimmed over at best, repressed at worst.

  “Humor me,” he said. “How could you possibly tell if all those stab wounds were inflicted by someone left-handed? I read the report. They crisscrossed, overlapped. There were some places that had so many they dug a hole in her tissue—”

  He wiped a hand down his face and rested it over his mouth to quell the urge to puke. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t go back through all these gruesome details.

  Alyssa snapped the papers back into place in front of her, one finger following the text as she read. “ ‘Penetrating stab wound of the skull passing through the skin and into the brain tissue diagonally upper left to lower right.’ And here.” She flipped to a new page. “ ‘Four slanted stab wounds passing through the sternum in a roughly diagonal fashion with a penetration angle of left to right.’ ”

  She lifted her hands and let them fall to her sides in a that-should-tell-you-everything type of gesture.

  Teague shrugged, lifted his right hand and made a cutting motion across Alyssa’s torso using his right hand for demonstration. “Yeah. Upper left to lower right.”

  “No. That’s your left, not the victim’s left. From the wounds we know Desiree was facing her attacker, so this,” she shook the report, “is talking about her left side.” Alyssa took Teague’s left hand by the wrist and lifted it across her body to her left shoulder, then made a cutting motion across her body toward her right hip, saying, “Her upper left to her
lower right. That is not a normal right-handed movement.”

  The physical demonstration instantly registered with Teague. He tried to twist the information to fit a right-handed attacker, but couldn’t. Based on the angle of the wounds, the depth of penetration, there was no way someone could have made them with their right hand.

  “Good God.” Teague pulled out of Alyssa’s grasp and smacked his hands against his head, raking his fingers down the sides of his face. “How could I have missed something so obvious?”

  “Teague,” she said, her voice easing into a compassionate tone. “Even top physicians can operate on the wrong organ or amputate the wrong limb. You were stressed, you were terrified and you expected your attorney to do his damn job.” She paused and got that rock-solid serious look on her face. “Which begs the question ... where did your attorney really come from? The DOD could have slipped anyone into the lineup that day to become your public defender.”

  Teague’s stomach pitched. He covered his face and rubbed his eyes. “I feel sick.”

  He turned to the fire, opened the grate and added several logs to the flames. He stayed crouched there and watched them catch.

  His mind needed a few minutes to rest. If he focused on everything he’d lost, he’d definitely snap. He needed to think about all he still had. He was free. He would find Kat. He would follow through with his plan and live a quiet life with her under the radar. And, Alyssa ... No, he couldn’t think about losing Alyssa. She wasn’t his to lose.

  “Okay.” Her voice finally brought Teague’s gaze around. She paced the room, her focus blurred in the middle distance as her mind twirled in thought. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll call Mitch, explain everything. He can refile your appeal. This is more than enough information to get you a new trial. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitch got all charges dismissed. You and I will go through these files together. We’ll highlight all the discrepancies. Mitch can get copies through the court. He can track down your previous attorney and look into the circumstances of how he was assigned to your case.”

  As Alyssa rambled, Teague grabbed her hand and tugged her to a seat beside him on the sofa. “No.”

  She leaned forward in earnest. “He’s good. I wasn’t lying when I said he’s the best criminal defense attorney in the state. He knows everyone—attorneys, judges, politicians, cops, detectives, private investigators. Once I explain this to him, he’ll jump on it—”

  “Alyssa ...” He waited for her to focus. The hope he saw in her eyes both healed and broke his heart. “What’s done is done. The life I had is gone. No matter what happens, nothing will ever be what it was. It’s over.”

  “Once you’re exonerated, you can rebuild. You’re an amazing man. You’re intelligent, educated, skilled. What you’ve been through has made you a deeper, richer, more compassionate person. You can have an even better life. You can have your career back. You can have Kat back.” She ran her hands up his forearms and held on. “Teague, please, trust me on this.”

  She pleaded with so much sincerity and conviction, he ached. She believed in him. After everything he’d done to her, and with so little evidence, she was ready to fight for him. His firefighting team had been steadfast and loyal throughout the process. They had visited Teague in prison, initially battling for his innocence. But as the weeks turned into months, the months into years, he’d urged them to move on. And eventually, they had. And while each of his team members—other than Luke—had continued to believe in his innocence, in him, this felt different. This felt deeper. So much deeper.

  He wished he could hold on to her confidence, to her faith. To her. Aside from being a father to Kat, there was nothing he’d like better than to imagine Alyssa in his future. Unfortunately, he knew the horror of the legal system firsthand and just how it could be manipulated. And he sure as hell wouldn’t let her ruin her own life. He’d done enough damage already.

  He lifted one hand to her face, cupped her jaw and ran his thumb over the skin of her cheek. “At this moment, there is no one I trust more.” He dropped his hand and leaned back. “But I told you before, I’m not going back to prison.”

  “You won’t have to. With the evidence, you could get out on bail—”

  “You aren’t listening. I have no money, no home, no collateral. No family money, no rich friends. I don’t have any means for bail—”

  “I can pull from credit. Mitch can get your bail reduced—”

  He squeezed her hands hard, then dropped them and stood. “No, Alyssa. I’m not going through it again.”

  She stood and faced off with him. “You should want to clear your name, if not for you, then for Kat.”

  “Should? According to who? You? You didn’t sit through a yearlong trial. You didn’t lose custody of your daughter. You didn’t spend three years in San Quentin.”

  “So a rough life is your excuse for taking Kat away from everything and everyone she knows? For putting her life at risk when you have the means to prove your innocence and provide her with a good life here in America?”

  A big part of him knew she was right. An even bigger part did want to prove his innocence. To be a living example for Kat. To show whoever had created this nightmare they hadn’t beaten him. But he knew the hell of a trial, the horror of prison. He knew all about manipulation, cover-ups and stonewalling. And he wouldn’t risk Kat’s safety by living within reach of whoever had killed Desiree.

  “A life with me in another country is better than no life with me at all. You don’t have to like my plan. You don’t have to agree with me. Hell, there’s the door. You don’t even have to stay.”

  “Oh, that’s mature.”

  “Don’t you get it? This isn’t just about the murder charge anymore. I’ve committed new crimes—crimes I’m actually guilty of.” He put out his hand and ticked off fingers. “Escape, kidnapping, assault, grand theft auto. For Christ’s sake, Lys, I killed Taz.”

  “That was self-defense.”

  “Says who? You? The woman who aided and abetted my escape?”

  She got that you-little-shit look on her face, crossed her arms and leaned back.

  He put his hands up in surrender. “Look, I’m done fighting with you. I’m doing what I think is best for Kat and me, and you’re not going to change my mind. Now, I need to try to get a couple hours of sleep so I can think straight.”

  Alyssa watched him walk away. He passed the bedroom she’d been sleeping in earlier and turned into the last door at the end of the hall.

  “Why did God make men so damn stupid? So stubborn? So ... ? Grrrrrrr.”

  She stared at the doorway he’d disappeared into. She wanted to follow him, hammer him with common sense until he got past his fear. But he was so obstinate, and she had to admit, he had solid justification for his beliefs and actions.

  Alyssa let out a frustrated breath and paced. She didn’t presume to know what Kat really needed. But she did believe she had to be the one looking at the big picture, because his vision was limited by love, obligation and fear.

  With fresh dedication to a new mission, Alyssa started her work. She scoured the files, arranged information in piles of priority. The deeper she looked, the more injustice she found and the angrier she grew. When she and Mitch were finished, the attorney Teague had gotten stuck with would be sitting in front of the bar. His negligence warranted prison time, although if this had been orchestrated by a larger entity, Alyssa guessed the guy would either be dead or on permanent vacation before he was ever called to account for his actions.

  She took the most important documents into the office, taped Vasser’s business card on the top page and wrote below: Creek is right-handed. Alyssa knew that was all she needed to say. Mitch would thrive on a case like this, especially because it involved her. And when Mitch sank his teeth into something, he didn’t let go until it was dead.

  With the fax machine piled high, Alyssa dialed her brother’s home office number and pressed “send.”

  While t
he papers rolled through the machine, Alyssa went back into the living room. She looked at the stacks she’d created, heaved a breath and dropped to the sofa. Paper crinkled, and she pulled photos from under her butt. She looked at the pictures, the ones that had been lying on Teague’s chest when she’d first come into the room.

  The images blurred in front of her tired eyes. She fought to bring them into focus and found photos of Teague and Kat as a dark-haired toddler. The girl’s smile illuminated her from the inside out and radiated around her like a golden aura. Teague was smiling, too, his face pressed against her cheek in a big, fat kiss. Kat was laughing, eyes shining, every little tooth showing.

  The next photo hit Alyssa oddly—an image of four adults and Kat around a restaurant table. Kat was in the middle with a couple on each side of her. Teague and a woman on the right, Tara and a man on the left. Alyssa guessed the unknowns had to be Desiree with Teague and Seth with Tara. Alyssa looked closer, trying to identify the source of her discomfort. Something about the women.

  Desiree, a pretty strawberry blonde, had her arm around Kat, squeezing the little girl to her side. Tara wasn’t looking into the camera, and she wasn’t smiling. She was staring at Desiree and Kat with total absorption.

  The look on her face was one Alyssa had learned to recognize over the years—envy. Not the I-wish-I-had-that kind of wistful yearning, but a that-won’t-be-yours-much-longer anger. Alyssa had seen it when she’d made the highest grades in her courses, when she’d graduated top of her class, and every time she outshone Dyne at the hospital.

  The fax machine beeped, signaling successful transmission. Her attention shifted and a weight Alyssa hadn’t realized she was under, lifted.