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“Oh, hello. You can call me Bree.” She shook his hand firmly, decisively. This was a woman of confidence and power. She had either money or a prestigious job. Or both. Again he had to wonder why someone like that would associate with a vicious, violent man like Kelly Ralston.
Bree treated him to a steady, measuring gaze but without a hint of recognition. A month ago Eric had achieved minor celebrity status when the governor had pardoned him, and his conviction for murder had been overturned. Eric’s brother, with Project Justice’s help, had found the real killer, who had damn near taken another victim before being subdued. But a few splashy headlines later, it appeared Eric’s fifteen minutes of fame had run its course. Or maybe Brianna didn’t watch the news or read the papers.
“So are you going to handle Kelly’s case?” Bree asked.
Oh, boy. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Why don’t we...” He started to say they should go to his office. But it was still a mess. No diplomas on the walls, boxes sitting around unpacked, and there was only one guest chair. He’d rather go somewhere more comfortable.
“Yes?” She looked at him with bright, inquisitive eyes.
“Why don’t we go to the break room. I need a coffee.” Or a shot of bourbon.
“Okay.”
He led her down a long hallway toward the kitchen, which was always stocked with all kinds of healthy snacks as well as the ubiquitous office vending machines and a huge bowl of candy. Daniel insisted his people eat well and take care of themselves. The foundation had a workout room, too.
“You can’t imagine how excited I was when I got the news that Project Justice was taking up Kelly’s cause. For seven years I’ve been trying to get someone to listen to me, to believe that he couldn’t have committed a violent crime. Finally, someone is willing not only to listen but to do something.”
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Coffee?”
“Okay, sure. Black, please.”
The sitting area adjacent to the kitchen was deserted. It was furnished with a couple of comfy sofas, coffee tables and a selection of recent magazines. Occasionally it was used as a waiting area for guests, since the lobby was intentionally without any chairs.
Bree settled with her coffee in a wingback chair—the highest chair in the room. The power seat. He sat on the sofa opposite her, his stomach feeling as though a nest of vipers had taken up residence.
Without delay she placed her briefcase on the coffee table and opened it.
“Daniel said to bring all of the materials I have relating to Kelly’s arrest, conviction, appeals—”
“Bree, wait.” He couldn’t let this go on any longer. It was awful to have to be the one to crush her hope, but better now than later. He would hate to make her cry. “I know Daniel told you we were taking on your, um, boyfriend’s case, but circumstances have changed and, unfortunately, it’s not going to be possible.”
Bree stared at him, her mouth open for a few brief seconds before she clamped it closed.
“I’m sorry—”
“What circumstances? I only talked to Mr. Logan yesterday.”
“Sometimes priorities can change rapidly, and our first responsibility is always to the cases we’re already working—”
“That’s a load of crap! Something happened. Someone got to you. Was it Needles?”
“Who?”
“Sam Needles, the Becker County prosecutor who tried Kelly’s case. That bastard would stoop to just about anything to prevent this conviction from getting overturned. Frankly, I can’t imagine Daniel Logan bowing to pressure, and I don’t even know how Needles would have found out—”
“It’s nothing like that. No one applied any pressure.”
“Then what happened? Specifically? Mr. Logan said he would assign the case to an investigator this morning. Was that person you? Are you refusing the case for some reason?”
“Actually, I’m an attorney for—”
“Oh, I get it. You’re the cover-your-legal-ass guy. You want to make sure I can’t sue Project Justice for breach of contract or something.”
“That’s not it at all.” This wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d envisioned. And Bree Johnson had lost any resemblance to an angel. But was Eric a sick puppy for feeling even more attracted to her now that she was angry?
Those blue eyes of hers practically shot sparks, and her cheeks were pink with passion.
“Then what is it? You owe me an honest answer.”
Eric had hoped to duck out of taking personal responsibility for causing Daniel to make this unpopular decision, but apparently Bree wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
“We’re not taking on Ralston’s case because he’s guilty.”
“What? Wait a minute. Yesterday Mr. Logan said my evidence was compelling. Why this sudden change of heart? You can’t possibly know he’s guilty, because he isn’t. As I’ve told anyone who would listen for the past seven years, Kelly is not a violent man.”
“I happen to know he is.”
For a few moments they locked gazes. He’d seldom seen a woman look so furious.
“Look, Bree, it’s often hard for an inmate’s loved one to see the person as they really are. There’s a blind spot. No woman wants to believe she fell in love with a bad person.” Lord knew it had taken Eric a very long time to believe his beloved Tammy had cheated on him. “Criminals often compartmentalize different parts of their lives. You see it all the time. The devoted wife and father turns out to be a child molester. The quiet neighbor is suddenly arrested as a serial killer. I’m sure Kelly has a good side. He may truly love you. But your boyfriend—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh. I thought he was.”
“Did you even read my application?”
“Well, no. I only learned about your case this morning. But Daniel did.”
“Then he didn’t read it closely enough. Kelly and I dated in high school. It didn’t work out....” A fleeting sadness crossed her features, but she quickly masked it. “But we’ve remained friends. We’ve known each other since preschool. I’ve become his champion because there’s no one else and because he deserves to have a voice. He’s not violent.”
Eric was going to have to tell her all of it. Otherwise, she wasn’t going to give up and go away. A woman like her—intelligent, well-spoken—could cause trouble for Project Justice just by telling some reporter that Daniel had gone back on his word. He owed it to the foundation to make sure she didn’t do that.
And he owed it to her. He couldn’t let her go on deluding herself, wasting her time, energy and money on someone who wasn’t worth it.
“I know more of Kelly Ralston than you think. I know him personally, in fact.”
“Wait. What?” She searched his face as if trying to find something familiar about him. “You aren’t on his defense team. I know all of those lawyers.”
“I know him in a different capacity. Actually...I served time with him.”
She looked horrified. “You’re an ex-con?”
“My conviction was overturned. But that’s immaterial. What matters is that I know Kelly Ralston. Rather well. And I can vouch for the fact that he is, indeed, violent.”
“What, because he got into fights in the prison yard? As I understand it, that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t defend yourself, you— Well, I’m sure you know what happens to the guys at the bottom of the food chain.”
She was right about that, and unfortunately, he did know. Prisoners went for the weak ones, like lions picking out the weak impala in a herd. He’d had to toughen up fast.
“Do you know what a shiv is, Bree?”
“Yes, of course. It’s a homemade knife.”
“I witnessed Kelly Ralston attack someone with a shiv.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He hadn’t wanted to go this far, but she’d forced his hand. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was laced with suspicion.
“Just bear with me.” He pulled the tie off, then began unbuttoning his shirt.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Stop it.”
“Don’t worry, Bree, your virtue is safe. But I need to show you something, because clearly the only way you’re going to believe me is if you see the evidence with your own eyes.”
Her whole body tensed as he yanked off his shirt, then pulled his undershirt over his head.
“Oh.” All the wind went out of her sails as she stared at the ugly scar that ran nearly fifteen inches in a diagonal path from his left shoulder to the right side of his abdomen.
“Yeah, oh.” He hadn’t shown the scar to anyone other than the doctor who’d treated him in prison. “Kelly Ralston did that to me. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t in self-defense. I was stupid enough to try to prevent a fight, and this is what happened to me. I got a staph infection from it, too. I almost died. So when I say Ralston almost killed me, I’m not exaggerating.”
CHAPTER TWO
BREE COULDN’T SEEM to do anything but stare at Eric Riggs’s bare chest. The first coherent thought that came into her mind was, Damn, this guy has one hot bod, quickly followed by the realization that her observation was inappropriate.
Then she saw the scar. “You’re saying Kelly Ralston—my Kelly Ralston—did that to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Someone chose that moment to walk into the small lounge, a woman about Bree’s age dressed in an off-the-shoulder sweater, hot-pink jeans and platform shoes. Her blond hair was in one of those chic bobs that moved with her, then fell right back into place.
The woman skidded to a stop, took in Eric’s state of undress and backed out of the room with her eyes closed. “Don’t mind me. I was never here.”
“Great,” Eric muttered as he quickly pulled his undershirt back on and shoved his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. “Wonder how long it’ll take Jillian to spread this all over the office grapevine.”
“Well, don’t blame me,” Bree groused. “You’re the one who chose to perform a striptease.”
“Only because you refused to believe me without proof.”
“Who says I believe you? You could have gotten that scar some other way.”
“Why would I make up something like this?”
“I don’t know.” That was the problem. She didn’t know. If Project Justice didn’t want to take on Kelly’s case, they could have just rejected her application. They could pick and choose which cases they wanted to devote their energies to. Sadly, there was no shortage of innocent people behind bars.
Eric finished dressing, knotting his shimmery blue tie just so. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Okay, fine. For the sake of argument, let’s assume Kelly really did attack you in prison, unprovoked. That doesn’t mean he committed the crime he was convicted for.”
“He did, though.” Eric took a deep breath, almost as if trying to draw strength. “He confessed to his crime, to anyone who would listen, in excruciating detail. And he bragged of the murders he’d committed for which he was never arrested. Multiple women. Brutal attacks.”
That stopped Bree. She couldn’t immediately come up with a handy reason why Kelly would do such a thing. He had always adamantly professed his innocence. “You’re lying.”
Eric shrugged. “Believe what you will.”
Bree quickly returned to safer territory—the argument she had rehearsed. “If you would just review the facts—if you would just talk to Philomene—you would have no choice but to believe Kelly is innocent.”
“Lay it out for me,” he said with obvious reluctance.
“They picked up Kelly because he was walking in Philomene’s neighborhood with no obvious destination in mind right after she called 911. He never admitted guilt—”
“Not to you.”
“He never admitted to knowing Philomene. They put him in a lineup, and Philomene identified him. There was no physical evidence linking Kelly to the case. And, in fact, his DNA does not match the sample collected from one of the other murders thought to be part of the serial killer’s pattern. But when that result came in, the police decided to separate that one case out from the others and claimed it must be unrelated, even though the M.O. was exactly the same.
“They took Kelly to court, and Philomene again identified him as her attacker and even added a couple of details she claimed to have remembered, like his tattoo. It was an easy victory for the prosecution.”
“Sounds like it. A credible witness is very hard to overlook. She had no motive for lying about it, especially since she didn’t even know him.”
“So flash forward to a couple of months ago,” Bree continued. “I’m working in the emergency room at the county hospital when Philomene comes in—”
“Working at the E.R. in what capacity?”
“Physician.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize...”
“Yes, you’ve already demonstrated that you’re remarkably badly briefed on this case. Anyway, this woman comes in having an acute asthma attack. I treated her, and then I recognized her, though it was several years since I’d seen her. She remembered me, too. I was a character witness for Kelly during his sentencing. I couldn’t resist bringing it up, even though I know it’s cruel to remind a woman of the most traumatic time in her life. But she seemed to want to talk about it. She jumped at the chance. She said she needed to get something off her chest. And that was when she told me that she didn’t really recognize Kelly in the lineup. The prosecutor was with her in the room, she was nervous, he was putting all kinds of pressure on her to identify her attacker.
“She said they gave her hints about which man she was supposed to pick out, and she did it. And the more times she said it, the more sure she became in her head that he was the one. But later, after all the pressure was off, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d sent an innocent man to prison. But she was afraid to change her statement. She was afraid she’d get into trouble—her record isn’t exactly sterling and she has reason to be afraid of the police.”
“What makes you think she’s telling the truth now?”
“She wasn’t lying. She had no reason to.”
“Maybe she’s starting to feel guilty about sending a man to prison for life, even if he is guilty. Maybe she’s downplayed the severity of his crime in her mind over the years. Maybe a friend or relative went to prison for sexual assault, and now she sees the crime from a different point of view. Hell, for all you know, Kelly has been writing letters to her from prison, and they’ve fallen in love. Weirder things have happened.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you met her. She was telling the truth. I know it.”
“Bree. Kelly Ralston is where he belongs.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him the way I know him. He’s kind. And gentle.” She rushed ahead before he could bring up his scar again. “If he cut you, he had a reason. But he wasn’t really trying to kill you.”
