"Black at Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parrish Leslie)

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 amp; 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.

Should have listened to you, Wyatt. Shouldn't have gotten involved. In over my head. Sorry. So sorry.

At least she had heard him one more time, strong and reassuring. There was some justice in the world that the voice of the vicious monster who'd attacked her would not be the last one she would ever hear. Wyatt Black-stone's would.

I'm coming. Hold on.

Did he say that? Had the call really gone through? Or had it merely been a fantasy, a final desperate wish disguised as a lifeline? Was she fooling herself before giving in to the pain and the blood loss? Maybe the physical torment and emotional torture she had endured since that awful night when the FBI sting had gone so horribly wrong, and she'd been taken by a monster wearing a human face, had finally broken her, cracked her mind into a thousand splintered pieces.

You heard him. He heard you.

She had to believe that. Yet the hours that must have passed since her desperate attempt to save her own life made her doubt.

Breathing deeply, she struggled to remain conscious, trying not to give in to the dazed, confused helplessness that had clouded her head for the past week.

A week? More? Less? How long since she'd been shot, captured by a sociopathic monster who killed another agent right before her eyes? Time had meant nothing from the moment she'd awakened to the ruthless ministrations of a man who wanted to keep her alive only so he could hurt her some more.

The murderous pedophile blamed her for his losses and he wanted retribution. Badly.

The night lengthened. Cold. So damn cold. She had weakly pulled clothes on over her naked body before making her escape, risking the few precious extra seconds to do it. She'd had no way of knowing how long he would be gone. He had believed her unconscious, incapable of movement, but that didn't mean he would take his time on whatever fiendish errand he was running. Still, escaping naked from the hellhole would have given her probably thirty minutes tops before she lost consciousness to hypothermia. So while her clothes were tattered and bloodstained, she was thankful for them.

They wouldn't keep her alive for much longer, though. Even if she had not reopened one of her roughly stitched wounds with her desperate, lurching crawl, foot by foot up the beach, she'd eventually freeze to death.

Laura. Zach.

The faces of her sister and nephew filled her mind. Her death wouldn't be as anguished as theirs had been. She'd just go to sleep. Close her eyes on this frigid, windswept dune. Never wake up. It wasn't so bad, really. Just sleep, perhaps even with no nightmares to torment her the way they had since everyone she cared about had been so brutally taken from her.

"Lily!"

Coming, Laura.

"Can you hear me?

Yes. She heard. It wasn't the first time she'd heard Laura. Somehow the echoes of her voice had rung in Lily's ears back at the shack earlier this evening before she'd escaped.

"Missed you," she whispered. She forced her eyes to open, certain she'd see the faces of her beloved twin sister and the little boy they had both loved more than life. But they weren't there. Above her she saw nothing but dark sky, filled with a glowing white moon shimmering against a backdrop of black, endless nothingness. Eternity.

"Lily, we're here!"

Laura? No. A male voice.

Wyatt.

Then he was there, lifting her, holding her close, offering warmth and protection. He whispered soft, comforting things against her hair and her cheek, telling her she was safe. His handsome face was bathed in emotion, tenderness evident in every gentle stroke of his hand on her skin.

Impossible. Wyatt Blackstone was never emotional. Never tender. Her boss never showed weakness.

"I've got you. It's okay. Brandon's right up the beach, too. We're getting you out of here."

She swallowed, trying to process everything. His warmth, his smell, the throaty voice.

"Wyatt?" she whispered, starting to believe. "You heard me?"

His footsteps crunched on the sand and he kept his grip tight around her. "I heard you. I can't believe it- you were like a voice from a grave. Jesus, Lily, we held a memorial service for you one day ago!"

True. Here. That voice at the other end of the telephone call had been real, not a figment of her imagination. Tears filled her eyes and erupted from them, freezing onto her cheeks before they could travel down her face. "You found me."

"We found you. You're safe. We'll catch him and he will never hurt you again."

Her blood, already cold, turned to ice. They hadn't caught him. Hadn't captured the man who'd done this to her. She began to shake, and to whimper, thinking of the fists and the wicked needles used to stitch her wounds, with no anesthetic, nothing to prevent her from feeling every rough, agonizing thrust.

"Not safe." Not as long as the psychopath who'd held her was out there. She couldn't even help them find him- she'd been blindfolded until the minute she escaped. She'd never laid eyes on the man; she knew only his voice. And his hateful, brutal touch that had taught her lessons about pain no person should ever have to learn.

Pure terror sent shudders throughout her entire form.

"Shh, yes, you are. I'm taking you out of here. We'll get you to a hospital and you'll be home before you know it."

Home? To her small, sad apartment and her small, sad life? To the four walls that echoed with the voices of those she had lost, and would cage her as she tried to remain out of sight of the madman who would never rest until he had killed her?

No. Home was not safe. No place would ever be safe. There couldn't be enough security or enough guards. She could never return to a normal life, never let herself be visible or live in the light. Not while that monster lived.

She needed to remain in the darkness. Lily, but not Lily.

Off the grid.

"Wyatt," she whispered, "please…"

"What is it?"

"Please let me stay dead."

Please let me stay dead.

The nightmare began again.

Though once a drunk, Will Miller had always considered himself an honest man. He'd never stolen, never injured anybody. He'd only ever lied to avoid hurting his ex-wife and kids about his little problem with the bottle. He'd managed to keep working in a good job, been respected and liked, right up until the day he'd hit rock bottom.

It was the one thing he'd had any pride in-that he was a good man. A weak one, but a good one. He wanted to be that way again. He might have lived in a fog for several years, but now he'd been totally clean for seven months. Clean, sober, and on the path to a new life.

That new life could be made even better with some money to start it.

He stared at the computer screen, having sneaked into his daughter's family room, where she kept her ancient computer, long after she and her baby had gone to bed. She might be a waitress, living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, barely making it on her own. Yet his youngest child had given him a place to stay. She was the only family he had left, and he owed her a lot. More than he could ever repay.

"Or maybe not," he whispered, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the woman and child sleeping in the next room. "Maybe I could do more for you both than you ever dreamed," he added.

The computer screen wasn't big, but the number in the Balance column was enormous.

All he had to do to get the access code to all that money was tell one teeny, tiny little white lie. Just one. Then all his troubles-and his daughter's-would be over. He'd be able to take care of her, of the kid. Maybe he'd even be able to get his ex and his two sons to start talking to him again. Really get back to his life.

Hell, maybe it wasn't a lie at all. He'd been drunk for a solid four years before getting himself a spot in a rehab center. He could very well have sat next to this Boyd guy in his favorite Annapolis bar one cold February night, two and a half years back. He'd been there practically every night. So maybe they really had shared a bottle and some stories. Just because he couldn't remember didn't mean it hadn't happened. Boyd remembered, right? If the guy had been railroaded by some lying cops, he deserved a helping hand. Just as Will deserved one. And his daughter deserved one.

The number was hypnotic, shining in the darkened room like a beacon toward a new world. A second chance for all of them.

With just one little lie-which maybe wouldn't be a lie-it would be his.

From the next room, he heard his baby grandson coughing. The kid had been hacking and snotting all week, poor little champ. No insurance, no free clinic within bus range. His daughter was trying to make do with that over-the-counter crap that killed little kids if you gave 'em too much.

You can make this all go away.

Decision made. His stomach didn't even churn as he reached for the phone, ignoring the late hour since he'd been told to call at any time of the day or night.

Will dialed the number he'd been given. When a muffled voice answered, he said. "Okay. I'm in. Tell me what I gotta do."