Taken to the Edge

by Kara Lennox

  “Robyn, it sounds like you’ve got some sound reasons for reopening the case. Have you talked to the original investigators? The District Attorney who tried the case?”

  “Yes on both counts. They’re like brick walls. Maybe you’ve never noticed this, but cops and D.A.’s don’t like to admit they made a mistake. They particularly don’t like to admit they sent an innocent man to death row. No matter what I hit them with, I get the same company line.”

  “‘We’re positive the right man is behind bars’?” He’d uttered that one once or twice himself when he was on the other side of the fence, and at the time he’d meant it.

  “That’s the one.”

  He’d once been that arrogant, believed himself infallible. He was a smart cop, everyone said so. Careful, conscientious. And still, he’d helped send an innocent man to prison—then, two years later, freed a guilty one.

  He refused to make any more mistakes.

  “I suggest you submit Eldon’s case through the normal channels at Project Justice,” Ford said. “I’ll put in a good word for it.”

  “I’ve already done that.”

  Then why was she talking to him? Before he could voice the question, she answered it.

  “The application process can take months. Do you know the date of Eldon’s execution?”

  It wasn’t something Ford kept up with. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “July 18. Exactly two weeks and one day from today. He’s running out of time, and you’re his only hope.”

  “Ah, hell.” If Ford hadn’t been sober before leaving the bar, he was now. He walked back toward his big Crown Victoria—the same type of car he’d driven as a cop, purchased at a police auction. Old habits die hard. “You’re not making this easy, you know.”

  “I didn’t intend to make it easy. An innocent man’s life is at stake.”

  “Robyn, I no longer work for Project Justice.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “What? Since when?”

  “Since this afternoon. I quit. But I could try to get Eldon’s case at the top of the pile—”

  She shook her head. “I want you to handle it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I don’t understand.”

  He wasn’t going to explain it, either. But when he’d seen Katherine Hannigan lying in that hospital bed, literally black-and-blue, nearly murdered by a man Ford had helped to free, something had clicked inside his brain. He wasn’t going to take people’s lives into his hands anymore.

  “I’ll plead your case tomorrow morning, first thing,” he said. “Give me your number. Someone will contact you within forty-eight hours.”

  “I want you to handle it.”

  In her chin-forward, clench-fisted stance, he caught a glimpse of that belligerent girl he’d known in school, the one who had so steadfastly maintained her innocence when she’d been accused of a theft.

  The one he’d wanted to believe.

  “Why me?” he wanted to know. “I thought you hated me.”

  She flashed him the ghost of a smile, then sobered. My personal feelings for you are irrelevant. I know you’re determined. I know when you get a case in your teeth, you don’t let it go. And after years of being lied to by lawyers and scammed by private investigators, after having cops and D.A.s cover their butts rather than get at the truth, I want someone on my team who will work hard, stay the course. You’re the ideal candidate.”

  Ford could hardly believe his ears. Why would Robyn Jasperson put so much faith in him? “How do you know that about me?”

  “I pay attention.”

  They stared at each other, sizing up each other’s resolve in the dimly lit parking lot as rowdy music from the bar’s jukebox drifted out each time the front door opened.

  “I’ve changed,” he said softly, looking away.

  “People don’t change that much. Can you really walk away from a man who’s going to die by lethal injection in little more than two weeks? If there’s even a chance he’s innocent?”

  Damn it. He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure how she knew that about him, but she did.

  “I’ll think about it.” He wouldn’t make a promise he couldn’t keep.

  FORD DIDN’T TRUST MANY people, but Daniel Logan was someone he did.

  Daniel had no training as either a lawyer or a cop. But six years in federal prison maneuvering through the ins and outs of his various appeals had provided him quite an education.With the help of his billionaire father, Daniel eventually had found a way to prove he was innocent of his business partner’s grisly murder.

  Given his freedom and a full pardon, Daniel had wanted nothing more than to help others who didn’t belong in jail. Thus Project Justice was born. His father had financed the foundation and Daniel ran it, though the employees rarely saw him.

  “I never liked the looks of that Jasperson case,” Daniel said after Ford had spent all day reading the trial transcript, then presenting his evidence to Daniel. They were in Daniel’s study at his River Oaks mansion, which looked like NASA’s ground control, given all the computers and research paraphernalia.

  Daniel, tall and lean with a world-weary look that made him seem older than his thirty-six years, sat behind one of those computers rapidly tapping at the keys as he spoke. “The death of a child brings out the best and the worst in people. In this case, the people wanted blood. The cops and the D.A. gave it to them.”

  “The case was badly mishandled from the beginning.” Ford sat in a leather wingback chair, Daniel’s one concession to comfort in his high-tech lair. “A guy like Jasperson could have afforded the best lawyer in the country, and he chose some school buddy who couldn’t tell his ear from a leaf of cabbage.”

  “Jasperson was an arrogant idiot. He wasn’t worried enough to hire the best. He was so sure he would beat the charge—maybe because he was innocent. Maybe because he thought he was clever.”

  “I can’t help thinking that if he were clever, he’d have done a better job staging a crime.” Once Ford had started checking things out, he felt his blood thrumming. He loved the challenge of a complex case, ferreting out the tiny points of illogic, the in consistencies everyone else overlooked.

  “You know as well as I that intelligent people do stupid, stupid things, especially in the heat of the moment.”

  “So what’s the bottom line?” Ford asked, intensely aware that the evening was slipping away. He wanted to have an answer for Robynas soon as possible.

  Daniel tapped a finger to his chin. “I think there’s enough to warrant an investigation.”

  Yes! “I’d like Raleigh to take the case. She has experience with—”

  “Raleigh just took on the Simonetti case, the guy who supposedly shot his girlfriend.”

  “Well, Joe Kinkaid, then. He’s been asking for—”

  “I gave him the Blanchard case this morning.”

  Damn. Who did that leave? Project Justice wasn’t a large foundation. They received far more requests each month than they could take on, and regrettably had to turn down cases even when the evidence seemed strong.

  “Who, then?”

  “With your resignation—which I have not accepted, by the way—we’re running at full capacity and then some. While I feel strongly that the Jasperson case should get some attention, I don’t have anyone free. And I won’t have any of my people neglect a case they’ve already committed to. Nothing gets done half-assed around Project Justice.”

  Ford knew that. No one got a job with the founation unless they were willing to work nights and weekends when called for. Daniel was passionate about his vocation, and he demanded that same dedication from his people.

  “The fact of the matter is,” Daniel said, looking up from the screen, “if you don’t work this case, no one will.” He sighed. “I simply don’t have the manpower.”

  If it had been anyone else, Ford would have felt manipulated. However, Daniel Logan didn’t play games, not with Ford anyway. If he said the personnel were stretche
d to the limit, then they were.

  “Would you even want me to take this on?” Ford asked. “After the Copelson case…” He let that hang in the air.

  “The Copelson case was a mistake,” Daniel said.

  “It was worse than a mistake. Using my skills to get that animal out of jail was a crime. They should have put me behind bars.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic, Hyatt. The cops manufactured evidence on that case, and you proved it. He was unfairly convicted.”

  “Unfairly convicted, and guilty as hell,” Ford muttered. He should have seen the guy’s rotten soul oozing out his pores.

  “Better to let a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man—”

  “I know the saying,” Ford said impatiently. It was emblazoned on the gold seal in the front foyer of the Project Justice offices. He wished he could be as calm and businesslike as Daniel, to simply admit a mistake, learn from it and move on. But Daniel hadn’t seen Katherine Hannigan in the hospital, the savageries done to her body. “So if I don’t take the Jasperson case, no one will?”

  “That’s the truth, I’m afraid.”

  Damn it. “Fine,” he gritted out. “I’ll take it.” But at what cost to his soul, he didn’t know.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “MS. JASPERSON!” CAME the panicked summons. “My pot keeps collapsing.”

  Suppressing a smile, Robyn hurried to the aid of one of her summer school ceramics students who was using a pottery wheel for the first time. Yesterday, his “pot” would have meant something else entirely. Today Arnie was lost in the throes of creativity, the feel of the wet clay, the joy of creating something out of nothing.Sure enough, the tall, thin vessel he’d been painstakingly working on had fallen in on itself and was now a formless lump of clay.

  “That’s the fun thing about pottery,” she said. “If you ruin something, you can just add some more water and start over. No need to throw it out. I think for this first pot you might try making something a little shorter and the walls a little thicker.”

  “But I was gonna make a vase,” he objected. “For my mama.”

  “Vases come in all shapes and sizes.” She loved it when the tough-talking kids expressed their love for their mamas. Arnie was still just a baby. He’d been arrested twice for defacing public property, but it wasn’t too late for him to realize that creating something beautiful was a whole lot more fun than destroying something. She’d started this summer pro-gram after only a year of teaching. At first, she had donated her time. Now she received funding from a grant, enough to buy materials and pay herself a small stipend.

  She showed Arnie an example of the kind of vase he might attempt. It was squat with thick walls, but it had a dramatic red glaze with blue streaks. “Can I make mine red like that?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right, then.” Satisfied, he followed Robyn’s instructions for getting the new vase started, then she left him to his own devices and went to check her cell phone again. It was almost two o’clock, and she hadn’t yet heard from Ford. His forty-eight hours would be up soon.

  She didn’t know what had disillusioned Ford. He’d been a serious student and athlete in school, a hard worker. But he’d also had an infectious smile—especially around people who needed cheering up.

  He’d had no smile for her last night.

  She knew she was right about him. He might have been wrong about her back in high school when he’d laid out her punishment for supposedly stealing those art supplies. But she’d recognized even then that he operated under a moral guidance system that saw no room for compromise. He’d seen things in black and white, right and wrong, just and unjust. And that was exactly the sort of person she needed to free Eldon.

  “Okay, kids.” She pulled herself back to the moment. “It’s time to put away our supplies and clean up.”

  “What about my pot?” Arnie never took his eyes off the vessel he formed with clumsy hands.

  Pleased that he hadn’t given up at the first suggestion that freedom was imminent, she said, “You can finish up. I’ll help you put things away.”

  A few minutes later, beaming over his crooked vase, Arnie flashed Robyn a grin. “Thanks, Mrs. J,” he said as he washed his hands, speaking quietly so his friends wouldn’t hear him being polite to a teacher. Then he grabbed his backpack and ran to catch up with the others.

  Robyn’s smile faded. Why didn’t Ford call and tell her something?

  A soft tap sounded on the door, and Robyn’s throat constricted with apprehension. Could it be Ford? Had he come in person to deliver bad news? But Ford wouldn’t be so tentative, she reasoned, and then she saw who it was.

  She wasn’t particularly anxious to see the woman who had replaced her in her ex-husband’s eyes. Trina was everything Robyn was not—petite, curvaceous, exotic. She could also be a royal pain in the rear. But it was her husband in prison, Robyn reminded herself. It had been Trina’s idea to contact Project Justice, and then to approach Ford personally, since he’d grown up in their town.

  Robyn opened the door. “Hello, Trina.”

  Trina’s eyes were shiny with imminent tears. “I couldn’t wait to hear from you. I was going crazy just sit ting at home and doing nothing.”

  Trina hovered at the doorway, peeking past Robyn into the classroom. She wore a short sundress that showed off her spectacular legs and matching sandals, her dark hair stylishly mussed, every eyelash in place. No matter what was going on in her life, she always man aged to present a polished facade in public.

  Robyn felt like a bum in comparison wearing her clay-stained jeans, her shoulder-length hair pulled back into a bandanna.

  “Come on in. The kids are gone and I was just straightening up. I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  Trina fairly vibrated with nervous energy as she click-clacked in on her heels.

  “Why is it taking so long?” Trina said on a moan. She looked around, maybe for a place to sit, but in the end she just stood there. “Maybe we shouldn’t have trusted Ford. Maybe he forgot about us and went golfing or something.”

  “He didn’t forget.” Of that Robyn was sure, though he probably wished he could. He sure hadn’t looked happy two nights ago.

  “Are you done for the day?” Trina fanned herself. The studio was always hot in the summer, both from the kilns and a lack of insulation against the blazing Texas sun. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Robyn didn’t really feel like having a beer at two in the afternoon. But Trina obviously needed companionship. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Somewhere cheap,” Trina said. “I have to watch my spending. The lawyers put a pretty good dent in our bank account, and obviously with Eldon in prison I have very little coming in.”

  Robyn tried to hide her surprise. Eldon had been worth millions. All of those appeals must have been costly, but could he and Trina have gone through that much money? Enough that Trina had to watch her pennies?

  People had said Trina, a hairstylist, had married El don for his money. Eldon’s high-society friends had never embraced her, and his parents had liked her even less than they’d liked Robyn. But Trina certainly hadn’t balked at spending whatever was necessary to free her husband.

  Since Robyn had been similarly judged, she tended to believe Trina really loved Eldon. The two women never would have been friends under normal circumstances, but they’d come to know each other during Eldon’s or deal, and Trina had been kind to Robyn when she’d grieved over the loss of her child.

  Robyn never had been one to turn up her nose at friendship. Friends were in short supply right now. Many had deserted her after the divorce. Others had drifted away after the kidnapping, feeling uncomfortable around Robyn and her grief. The few close friends who remained thought she was insane for trying to free the man who killed her son.

  Public sentiment against Eldon had been incredibly strong and still was.

  As they reached Trina’s white Cadillac, Robyn’s cell phone rang. The ring-tone was an earthy hip
-hop song one of her students had downloaded for her when she’d left her phone unguarded. Trina froze as Robyn fumbled for the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Ford Hyatt. Can I meet with you and Trina?”

  “Now?”

  “As soon as possible. I’m at a bar and grill called Pacifica. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes. We can be there in half an hour.”

  “I’ll be watching for you.” He disconnected. A man of few words.

  “Was it him?” Trina asked eagerly. “Is Project Justice taking on the case?”

  “He wants to meet with us.”

  Trina clamped her eyes shut. “That sounds like bad news. He would just tell you over the phone if it was good news, right?”

  “Let’s not assume the worst,” Robyn said, though she suspected Trina was right. Ford had sounded solemn. He might want to deliver bad news in person, to soften the blow. But then, Ford had turned into a solemn man. Again, she wondered what circumstances had caused that bleak look in his eye, and why she’d had to track him down at a bar where he was drinking—alone.

  PACIFICA WASN’T THE SORT of place where Ford hung out. It was an upscale suburban bar, with a posh, funky decor that appealed to Houston’s young professionals and where the martinis cost ten dollars and came in pretty colors.

  Raleigh had chosen it. Raleigh Shinn was the senior attorney at Project Justice. She would consult on the Jasperson case, file the necessary papers and make court appearances. Ford liked working with Raleigh because she was thorough, knowledgeable and a hard worker. On the other hand, she was utterly humorless. He’d never seen her wear anything but a severe suit, her reddish hair slicked back into a tight bun. She had a pretty face and a stunning figure, but she downplayed her looks to a ridiculous degree.As they sat at a corner table waiting for Robyn and Trina, Raleigh nursed a club soda.