Sense of Deception (17 page)

To say that Candice had effectively disarmed and disabled DeLaria was like saying the atom bomb had had a little kick to it. In the three to four seconds that she'd been in motion, I'd maybe managed to blink and drop my jaw. Am I a good backup sidekick or what?

Not even breathing heavy, she flipped Rico over and pulled his
hands up behind him to then pin them there with her knee. The only sign that she'd done anything strenuous was the little puffing sound she made to blow her bangs out of her eyes as she glanced at me over her shoulder. “Sundance?”

“Yeah?”

“How about calling nine-one-one for me?”

I nodded dully but found that I was shaking almost too much to hold the phone. I mean, it's not often your BFF gets jumped by a knife-wielding criminal, or that she then deals with his punk ass more effectively than Batman. Still, after a few tries I managed to tap the right numbers on the screen and call for backup.

The police arrived as a small crowd gathered. Lucky for us, there were three witnesses who saw the whole thing. They all vouched for Candice's side of the story, but were perhaps not really necessary given the fact that DeLaria wasn't exactly able to articulate anything more than,
“Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

No one on the scene had a single ounce of sympathy for him. When an APD officer asked Candice if she knew DeLaria, she said that she'd been by his apartment earlier in the day to question him about his connection to a missing runaway, but that DeLaria had declined to answer any of her inquiries. She made our earlier encounter with him sound like nothing more than a polite social visit.

I nodded my head and corroborated her statement. After what DeLaria pulled, I'd swear to it on a Bible if I had to. Principles be damned. Had I not been ten paces behind Candice, she'd be dead, and maybe me along with her.

After the police had shoved DeLaria into a cop car, and we were told we could go, a black sedan pulled up to a halt next to us and Candice's husband jumped out of the car. He ran straight to
her and caught her up in a hug, and it was only then that I noticed how distraught he looked.

“Hey, babe,” Candice said, hugging him back. “I'm okay. It's okay.”

Brice held her without speaking for another pronounced moment and then he let her go, but only enough to grip her shoulders and study her critically. “One of my APD contacts told me you'd been involved in a stabbing,” he said. “They didn't have any more details than that. Just that your name popped up in connection to a guy with a knife and the address of the attack.”

“I'm fine,” she said calmly.

“She is,” I assured him.

His gaze shifted to me. “You'd better call Dutch before he hears about it from one of his sources.”

I blanched. Our husbands could be a weensy bit protective of us, even though we'd proved over, and over . . . and maybe over, and over, and over, and over, again that we could take care of ourselves. Hmmm, maybe we'd proved it a few too many times for them to trust our luck?

Before I could whip out my phone again, however, another car came along to pull up next to us. This time Oscar jumped out and rushed around to us. “Are they okay?” he asked Brice.

“We're fine,” I assured him.

Still, Oscar waited for Brice to nod his head before letting go of his tense posture. Turning to me, he said, “You'd better call Rivers, Cooper. He's gonna freak out if he hears what I heard.”

“What'd you hear?” I asked.

“That you and Candice had been stabbed.”

“Uh-oh,” I muttered. I managed to get my cell up to chest level so I could call Dutch, when we heard a siren barreling toward us, followed by a horn making an additional bloody racket, and the
screeching of tires. With a sigh, I pocketed the cell. “He already got the call,” I said as more screeching of tires sounded and the siren reverberated back and forth against the tall buildings all around us.

Dutch's car rounded the corner like Steve McQueen's Mustang, sliding and screeching wide to somewhat right itself before barreling at eleventy miles an hour down the street right for us.

I sighed again. Oooh, boy. Dutch pounced on the brakes and the car made even more of a racket as it screeched to a stop in the middle of the street—light box in the rear window still emitting flashing red neon. My husband got out of the car faster than a speeding bullet and looked ready to tackle Titans. His fists were bound up, his shoulders were hunched, and his expression was downright lethal.

“Hi, sweetie!” I called, adding a wave when he didn't seem to see me.

In an instant that whole testosterone-induced posture relaxed, and the granite, “I'ma kill anyone who messes with my woman!” look on his face vanished. He inhaled deeply and crossed the space between us in a few quick steps. Catching me up just like Brice had done to Candice, he held on to me until it got good and embarrassing, and then he sighed into my hair and said, “You're gonna make me an old man before my time, you know that?”

I kissed his cheek and said, “This time, it totally wasn't my fault. Someone at APD got it all wrong.”

Dutch let go of the embrace but held tight to my hand. “So what happened?” he asked, in a way that said I better not leave anything out.

“Nothing!” I said, knowing full well that if I admitted to the fact that DeLaria had tried to kill Candice because we'd pushed him to answer our questions about Skylar, Dutch would have a
Steve McQueen–sized cow. “Just some random guy tried to mug Candice.”

Dutch's eyes narrowed.

“Okay, so maybe he wasn't so random.”

Pressing his lips together, Dutch turned to Candice and said, “Will you please tell me what happened?”

Her gaze went from Dutch, to Brice, to Oscar—who were all staring at her like she'd really better spill the beans—and then back to me. I shrugged. If we didn't tell them, they'd just get a copy of the police report. “Upstairs,” she said, and led the way toward the front doors to our building.

Once we were seated comfortably in her office suite, Candice patiently and methodically explained almost all that'd led up to the attack from DeLaria. This was actually a good thing because it caught Oscar up to date and allowed Dutch and Brice to see that I wasn't chasing a silly theory—Skylar really was innocent.

“So why did DeLaria jump you?” Brice asked. Candice miiiiiight have left out the part about pointing a gun at the scumball and shooting blanks at him.

“Dunno,” Candice said. “Maybe because he didn't like being told to give up his business and get the hell out of town.”

“Did you threaten him?” Brice pressed.

“Only a little,” she said with a wink and a coy smile.

Brice sighed and looked at Dutch like, “Can you believe her?” He looked back like, “Dude, I got my own set of worries sitting in the chair next to me.”

At least Oscar was focused on the right part of the story. “You're gonna try to track down this guy Slip?”

Candice nodded. “Yes. That's why we were headed back here. I was going to use the new database update and see what it'd toss out.”

“Cool. As a backup, I'll see if I can't trace Wayne through county prison records and see who was in with him.”

“He was in holding, remember?” Candice told him. “It'll be tough to trace Slip that way.”

“Only so many new inmates come in at any given time,” Oscar said. “The pool might not be as big as we think, and I can also narrow it with the B and E, if that's really what landed this Slip inside at that time.”

Brice stood up and said, “Well, it looks like you're okay and you have things well in hand.” Turning to Dutch, he said, “Beer?”

Dutch rose. “Thought you'd never ask.” Kissing me on the head, he added, “You. Be careful.” And then he pointed to Candice and said, “You too.” Last he looked at Oscar and said, “You're in charge of keeping them safe, Rodriguez. And yeah, I know you're off the clock, but I'm still ordering you to watch out for them.”

Oscar gave him a firm nod. “Yes, sir.”

After Dutch and Brice left, and Candice and Oscar got to work trying to find this Slip character, I headed to my office and called Cal. To my surprise, he took my call, which I gave him credit for, as it was four o'clock on a Sunday. “Did you hear?” he asked when he answered the line.

My brow furrowed. “Hear? I was calling to update you.”

“Oh,” he said. “You go first, then.”

My radar pinged. “Well, mine's kind of long, and it feels like you've got news, so why don't you go first?”

“Okay,” he said. “It's official. Skylar fired her attorney and hired me.”

I sat forward. “She did? Really?”

“Yeah. I had my first meeting with her today at county. She seems freakishly calm about firing her attorney of six years nine
days before her final appeal. Her demeanor wasn't anything like I thought it'd be.”

That made me sad. “She doesn't think she'll win the appeal,” I said. “I think she's afraid to hope, but it also shows me that she was willing to trust me, which suggests that she hasn't completely given up yet.”

Cal sighed. “I gotta tell you, Abby, this is one uphill battle we're facing. After reviewing the case a little more since Friday, I was tempted to call you and tell you that I wasn't going to offer to represent her.”

“What?” I said, shocked and a little angry at the admission. “Why?”

“Because I don't want to put Skylar in an even worse position facing that appellate court than she's already in. Switching attorneys this late in the game is a real gamble. It could easily backfire on us.”

I felt out the ether and shook my head. “No, Cal, this was the right move. You've just got to trust me on this. We are Skylar's only hope, and even though I'll agree with you that the odds are against us, we're all the fighting chance she's got.”

“Yeah, okay,” he relented. “I'll trust you. So what is it you've got for me?”

I spent the next hour laying out everything that we'd discovered in just two days of investigating. When I was done, Cal said, “Damn. Abby, if all of us had been on Skylar's team eight or nine years ago, no way would she have been found guilty. In fact, I doubt this would've gone to trial. Unfortunately, even though you're currently digging up some really compelling evidence to create reasonable doubt, unless you get something closer to a confession, it's not going to be enough.”

“But, Cal,” I complained, “I mean,
come on
! How could even
an appellate court ignore the inconsistencies in the evidence and the fact that we have a witness that'll state that he overheard another guy practically confess to the crime?”

“Easy,” Cal said. “The defense had a chance to drill down on that evidence at the first trial, and even at the first appeal, and they didn't do it. I'm going to argue like crazy that Skylar's representation committed gross negligence for not arguing the points you brought up, but I can tell you with certainty that the appellate court has been there, and heard that, a thousand times or more. It's the standard argument, and they don't tend to fall for it. So I need more, Abby. A lot more. And soon.”

“Okay,” I relented. “We'll keep working it. Maybe we'll get lucky and find this guy Slip.”

“Even if you do find him, you're going to have to get him to confess,” Cal warned. “Skylar would need nothing short of that to sway the appellate court.”

I bit my lip. “And if we don't get a confession but continue to find good evidence that it was someone else? Then what, Cal?”

“Then we'll lose the appeal,” he said bluntly. “But we'll have something to take to the Board of Pardons.”

“Board of what, now?”

“The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. It decides clemency cases.”

“What about the governor?”

“He got taken out of the equation years ago,” Cal said. “It's part of the reason why Texas executes such a high percentage of its death row inmates. There're no politics with the board. No pressure from the public. They just make the decision and go home.”

I gulped. “How often do they grant pardons?”

Cal was silent for a beat. “There's always a first time.”

“Oh, God,” I said, feeling the wind go right out of my sails.

“Hey,” he said. “There
is
always a first time, Abby. And just because they have an abysmal record for granting pardons doesn't mean we shouldn't try.”

I nodded, but there was now a knot the size of a grapefruit in the pit of my stomach. Cal continued to try to reassure me by saying, “This race isn't over. Not by a long shot. You keep working your investigative end, and bring me any new evidence, no matter how minor, okay? I'll keep working on amending the brief that was submitted to the court on behalf of Skylar's former attorney. He left a lot of holes in it that I'm going to need to fill, and the more I pack in there for them to look at, the better. So don't give up. Not yet.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, feeling suddenly weary. “Thanks, Cal.”

“You're welcome. Oh, and one more thing, I registered your name as part of Skylar's legal defense team with the prison, so if you need to talk to Skylar, you should be able to set up a time on the visitors' video system as early as tomorrow.”

“Awesome,” I said. “That'll be a big help. Thanks.”

After hanging up with Cal, I spent the better part of the late afternoon writing out notes about Skylar's case on three-by-five cards. Doing this sometimes helped me draw certain random clues together. Of every clue we'd uncovered so far, the one about Slip felt the most urgent. We needed to find this guy, and fast. And then, if we could prove that he'd been the one to crawl into Noah's window and murder him, we needed to get him to confess to that, and I doubted he'd be swayed by the argument that a woman's life was held in the balance. If he'd truly murdered Noah as revenge for some slight—which I couldn't really wrap my head around—then seeing Skylar take the fall for his crime was the ultimate revenge.