Seeing Red (17 page)

Wayne Carr had been a major thorn in Lorne’s side during the Reinhardt investigation and had remained so throughout the trial. Lorne had been damn lucky that Carr’s articles hadn’t completely tainted the jury pool.

Once behind the closed door of his private office, Buckley took a few minutes to cool off.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and made a phone call. Finally, he keyed the intercom and told his secretary to send the man in.

Being raised in the South, Buckley followed proper etiquette and stood to shake Carr’s hand. The difficult part was not wiping it on his pant leg afterward.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Carr?”

“I’ve been contacted by Hollis Alexander. He’s asked me to assist him in clearing his name.” Carr sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and crossed an ankle over his knee.

“And this concerns me in what way?”

“I just thought you’d be interested to know, in case you need to prepare yourself.”

“For what, exactly?”

“For the case to be reopened,” Carr said, as if it was a done deal. “For evidence to be reexamined. Alexander swears he was wrongly convicted. He’s also contacted the Justice Project.”

“Funny,” Buckley said, “that he waited until he’d served so much time before he pursued such avenues, don’t you think?”

“He told me he was preparing to contact them before his parole was granted. DNA testing has come a long way.”

Buckley leaned back in his chair. “Of course, he has every right to pursue this. But it’ll take a compelling reason for a judge to order evidence to be reexamined. I don’t think Alexander has one. He admitted to being on the scene—
after
the fingerprint placed him there. There was an eyewitness. DNA testing won’t change any of that.”

Carr seemed to consider this for a moment.

Buckley said, “I know how hard it is to admit your initial position was wrong, especially after making such public statements immediately after the crime, but I can’t believe you’d allow yourself to be pulled into this quagmire again.”

“The man says he’s innocent,” Carr said. “Why else would he be spending his time, now that he’s free, to prove it? Why not just move on?”

“Could be lots of reasons. As long as he’s got a felony conviction and has to register as a sex offender, it’s going to be that much harder for him to get back into his old pastimes—peeping, rape. Not to mention parole can be revoked. He could go back for another fifteen. He’s pond scum. I’d distance myself from him if I were you.”

“Justice means more to me than avoiding confrontation and disapproval.” Carr gave a self-righteous tilt of the chin that begged to have an uppercut delivered to it.

“Alexander is blowing smoke up your ass. Although, I can’t say I can figure out the exact plan for his game, but you can bet he has one.”

“His
game
is justice.” Carr leaned forward. “Our legal system is not designed to reveal and repair its mistakes; you know that as well as I do. If dozens of people are proven innocent after the fact, how much harder will it be for you guys to get a jury to convict? Everyone will be too afraid to make the call.”

“You know what side I’m on. That’s not going to change.” Lorne was ready to be done with this. “So again, I ask, what do you want from me?”

“I’m just giving you a heads-up, an opportunity to save face—to come forward with things that will look much worse if they’re dragged out of the dark by a defense lawyer or the Justice Project. If your office reveals mistakes willingly, it’ll play that much better all ’round. I can help you do that.”

Bullshit. You’re fishing, trying to get me to say something you can misquote in your newspaper.

“I stand by my case,” Buckley said. “If a defense attorney can convince a judge to have the evidence reexamined, there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

Carr straightened and his eyes probed. “So, there are things that DNA examination might alter?”

“I really can’t say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”

Carr stood. “If you change your mind, if there’s anything I can do to help present your side, just let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

Carr walked out, closing the door softly behind him.

Buckley opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Tums. As he chewed two of them, he thought about that physical evidence. DNA testing
had
come a very long way in fifteen years. But it still couldn’t create something that was not there.

Alexander was a pervert and a rapist. So what if the Reinhardt case had been thin? A jury had convicted.

There wasn’t any reason for Carr’s visit to unnerve him.

But it did.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

G
reg had only gotten halfway through reporting to his brother-in-law what was going on at Ellis’s place when Bill’s line indicated there was a call waiting. Bill had signed off, saying it was Ellis. Greg’s last words had been to make sure she told him about both Alexander
and
Nate Vance.

That kid. Why had he shown up after all these years? He was sure to bring trouble to Ellis, just as he had to Laura.

Laura had changed in those last months, after Nate Vance had started hanging around. There had been secrets and lies; they were subtle, shadowed and misty. Although Greg had turned away, closed his eyes to the signs, he’d known. He’d known and delayed acting. Why hadn’t he forbidden Laura from seeing the kid?

Because you couldn’t deny her anything.

Jodi had defended Nate, had said Greg was looking for someone besides himself to blame for not keeping their daughter safe. That he wanted someone to point the finger at to ease his own guilt.

But it wasn’t that. It was simple logic. Nate Vance had lived in a place where people actively looked for trouble—drugs and who knew what went on there. One of them might even have been connected to Alexander in some way. Why else would a lowlife from Charleston come all this way?

That same logic said Nate was guilty of
something.
He did disappear the day after the guilty verdict.

Regardless of whether Nate had led Alexander to Laura, the clear fact was that he brought trouble.

Ellis was too blindly trusting when it came to Nate Vance, always had been. No good would come of the man’s return to Belle Island. Greg wasn’t going to stand by and watch Ellis be hurt.

When he stopped for a red light, he dialed the cell phone of the kid who detailed cars at the dealership. Bradley wasn’t supposed to have his cell on while working, but Greg knew better than to assume the kid followed the rules. He was rewarded for his thinking when Bradley picked up on the third ring.

“Yo, master-salesman-dude, thought you were supposed to be here working today. Z’up?”

“Something came up,” Greg said. Car sales had been so flat; it didn’t really matter if he went in to work or not. “I need some of your investigative skills.”

“Cool.”

Bradley was a whiz with computers. He had a growing side business, some of which Greg was pretty certain involved illegal hacking.

“I need some information on a guy. This might require some serious law bending.”

Bradley chuckled as if he was rubbing his hands together. “All riiiiight.”

Greg explained the details. Bradley was practically drooling by the time they ended the call.

In his aimless driving as he’d spoken to Bradley, Greg found himself on the road in front of Jodi’s house. He slowed to a crawl.

It was midmorning. She’d most likely be there, working at her sewing machine, doing the alterations that paid her bills.

He nearly pulled into her drive.

Over the years, they’d managed to build a bridge over the mudflat of their divorce. Unfortunately, the last time he was here, he’d blasted the supports right out from under it. And he didn’t have the emotional energy to try and rebuild it right now.

Although he hated the idea of his empty house, he drove home. He had to get some sleep. Tonight, if Hollis Alexander showed up outside Ellis’s condo, he was going to get an unexpected surprise.

Ellis tried to ignore Nate sitting on a nearby picnic table while she taught her class—which proved near impossible because the girls continually looked his way and whispered to one another. She’d heard the word
hot
more than once. Plus the fact that she could actually
feel it
when he looked at her, as if his gaze possessed a physical presence, warm and weighty. No, there was no way to pretend he wasn’t here.

She went through the class more self-consciously than she wanted to admit.

Finally, the hour was up. “Okay, I’ll see you girls tomorrow. And don’t forget what I told you. This isn’t a game. Buddy up. Use your common sense. And remember that face in the photo I showed you.”

There was a chorus of “yes, ma’am” and “okay.”

Once the last girl had gone, Nate left his perch and walked over to her.

“That was pretty impressive,” he said.

“Thanks. I told you I can take care of myself.” She was unable to keep the pride out of her voice.

He gave her a cautionary glance. “It’s one thing to know how to defend yourself, and another entirely to execute it without hesitation when a threat presents itself.”

“I know that.”

“You didn’t pull the trigger last night.”

“And you’re complaining?” She tried to deflect the truth of her vulnerability.

“Like you just told the girls, this is serious, Ellis. You have to do exactly what you asked of them today. No more running around alone in the dark. You cannot let your guard down for a minute, and you can’t hesitate because you’re afraid to hurt someone.” The cold hardness of his words suggested he spoke from experience.

She crossed her arms and stared into his eyes. It was a mistake. Whenever she looked into them, her heart closed to questions she might not want to hear the answer to.

Her gaze shifted to his throat. Not much better. She forced herself to ask, “What is it you do that makes you such an expert?”

He hesitated long enough that she could tell he was selecting his words carefully. “I’m in security.”

“Not good enough. Be more specific.”

She looked toward the woods, at the place Nate had tied his horse the day he’d given her that first self-defense lesson.

Don’t think of that. He’s not that boy. He’s a man living an unknown life.

When he didn’t say anything, she chanced looking into his face again. His eyes were closed, so she wasn’t sucked into their good-sense-eradicating depths, but looking at those lips had nearly the same effect.

Finally, he opened his eyes and said, “I can’t.”

His refusal shot through her like a shard of hot glass. “So you are involved in something illegal.”

His stormy gaze held hers. “No, I’m not.”

She edged closer to him and poked him in the center of his chest. “You
demand
my trust, but
you
don’t trust me. You hide behind half answers and—”

He took her by the shoulders, probably more roughly than he’d intended, and he leaned over, his nose close to hers.

She felt the magnetic pull of that silver gaze, was intensely aware of the trembling of restraint in his grip. All of that barely controlled power set off something alarming inside her—not fear, which logic dictated, but a desire to flush all caution down the toilet and kiss him.

And, she realized with a start, his eyes mirrored that desire.

It should have frightened her. But instead she found herself excited, ready to step off a high cliff.

Her heart sped up. She moistened her lips.

His gaze followed the path of her tongue.

Then he blinked and straightened, putting more distance between their faces. “My answers don’t have anything to do with not trusting you. My work is not something I can talk about . . . to anyone.” His hands lessened their grip and moved up and down her arms, a caress of apology.

He sighed and took his hands off her.

She wished he hadn’t.

“Believe me,” he said, “it’s as frustrating for me as it is you. It would be dangerous for both of us if I said more. But I assure you, what I do isn’t criminal.”

She wanted that to be enough. But it wasn’t. “Not criminal?”

“No.”

“But dangerous?”

He pressed his lips together and huffed through his nose.

She pressed. “FBI? CIA? DEA? Any of the other letter-designated good-guy organizations?”

“Stop it, Ellis,” he said softly. “I can’t tell you. If that’s something that you have trouble dealing with, I’m sorry. It’s the way things have to be.” There was true apology in his voice, and he looked at her with a steady gaze that didn’t appear in the least duplicitous.

She felt her good sense again dissolving. God, what was wrong with her? She was never this imprudent.

She stooped to grab her backpack. “All right, then.” Without looking at him, she started walking toward her car.