Black at Heart

by Leslie Parrish

  Chapter 10

  The last time Lily had been in Washington, D.C., had been on a brutally cold day in January when everything was dead and lifeless, and every resident burrowed inside except when forced out by necessity. Late summer in the nation's capital was an entirely different experience. People were out and about, jogging, pushing baby strollers, playing softball on the lawn at the National Mall. Tourists laden with cameras and shopping bags lined up to board their buses, SUVs jockeyed for the limited parking spaces, pigeons hovered over every park bench, and everything felt entirely, totally alive.

  Including her.

  She wasn't afraid. Even knowing someone was after her, she felt no fear at being back here on her old turf. D.C. had been home for most of her adult life, and wasn't far from Annapolis, where she had been born and had spent her entire childhood. Despite all the challenges that lay ahead, she felt good here. Connected. Her heart racing, she experienced no sense of foreboding, merely determination. Lily was ready to meet all challenges.

  Starting with getting that son of a bitch who had killed her nephew back behind bars where he belonged.

  They didn't know a lot of details yet, just what they'd read on a news Web site out of D.C. Convicted Child Killer Released-New Evidence and Death of Star Witness Key to Case.

  Lily shook her head, still stunned at the whole crazy sequence of events. Some high-priced lawyer had gotten Boyd an appeals hearing. The article said there was some problem with the original prosecution, and some complete stranger had appeared out of the woodwork with an alibi. Those things, combined with Lily's supposed death, had prompted the court to let the man go and the DA had not commented on whether he intended to refile charges in the case.

  As Wyatt had explained, he probably wouldn't without a witness.

  She had come close to getting sick when Brandon had told them. The very thought of that degenerate being back on the street was enough to make her ill. It also made her wonder if she really could commit some of the violent acts Wyatt had described.

  "You're sure we shouldn't just go straight to the DA's office?" she asked him as he drove across the Key Bridge. They had landed at Reagan and driven into the city to drop Brandon off at his place. Now they were headed to Wyatt's town house in Alexandria. With no home of her own to go back to, they'd all just assumed she'd be with Wyatt.

  Brandon, she noticed, hadn't even suggested otherwise. In the hours since they'd sat in the kitchen of the beach house this afternoon, he seemed to have begun to drop the overprotective, lovesick act and started acting like the high-energy friend he'd always been to her. Because he'd noticed how she looked at Wyatt? Had he seen the depth of feelings in her eyes, heard the shuddery sighs she couldn't contain whenever their arms brushed or he touched her, however slightly?

  She honestly didn't know how he could have missed those things. Nor did she think Wyatt had.

  "No. We need to plan this, Lily. Figure out the right time for you to come forward. And it's not going to be until after I find a way to make sure Anspaugh, Crandall, and the others take your safety seriously. If they think you're a serial killer, that's not going to be the primary interest."

  Being thought of as a serial killer. Who ever considered that happening in their lifetime? "You'll keep me safe," she murmured.

  He didn't even sound worried as he replied, "I'll be on suspension and they won't let me anywhere near you."

  Lily turned to glance out the window, not wanting him to see the sudden misery she felt. She'd cost this man so much. How on earth could he still want to keep taking care of her? Knowing he would not want to have that conversation now any more than he'd wanted to have it any other time she brought it up, she let it go. For now.

  "They'll figure out that I'm innocent, Wyatt." And I'll fight with everything I've got to make sure you don't get the blame.

  "Of course they will. But in the meantime, if you come forward, you're a sitting duck. If they don't arrest you, you'll be exposed and vulnerable. And if they do, well, you can't tell me you think Lovesprettyboys is just going to wait for you to talk about whatever you remember. The man is murderous and desperate. We know he has money and reach. It's not such a stretch to think of his finding a way to get to you, no matter where the bureau decides to lock you up. We have to think this through."

  "Okay, you're seriously depressing me," she said. "I get it. No DA tonight. No anything tonight."

  "Good. Let's just go back to my place, get settled, and work on our game plan. Boyd's not going to disappear in one night, not when he thinks he's totally in the clear."

  Brandon had promised to come down in the morning so they could decide, as a group, how to handle telling the others on the team that she was alive. The last thing Lily wanted was to cause any of them more pain, and she had no idea how they would react.

  There were other decisions to make as well, including how she should report to FBI headquarters. Should she go in with a lawyer? Go straight to Crandall's office? God knew there was no way she was putting herself in Anspaugh's hands.

  Unwilling to sit back and do absolutely nothing while they figured out their next move, she also wanted to know what she could do to help in the investigation while she was stashed away in Wyatt's house. Brandon, he'd told her, had come up with other audio clips for her to listen to. That would occupy her for at least a little while tomorrow.

  As for the rest? It all remained to be seen.

  About the only thing they had decided for sure since Jackie's shocking phone call about Jesse Boyd was that Lily could no longer remain dead. Justice demanded that she do the right thing. No matter what it cost her.

  "I was thinking I might try calling Boyd's defense attorney. I'd really like to know how she ended up with this case."

  She rolled her eyes. "Like she'd talk to you?"

  "She might," he said. Then he lowered his voice as if speaking to himself "I suspect she could be very interested in talking to me."

  "What do you mean? Why would she?"

  He didn't reply, merely mumbling under his breath about how impossible it was that this could all be a coincidence.

  The same thought had flashed through her head more than once. "It does seem pretty odd that Boyd lands some new high-powered attorney and gets out right around the same time somebody's trying to set me up for murder. Sounds a lot like a desperate person covering all his bases, finding me by fair means or foul."

  No matter who got hurt. No matter what little child Boyd might target next.

  Not that Lovesprettyboys would care. The unsub was a sociopath, not a classic pedophile at all. When they'd first discovered him, he'd been part of a violent virtual world, Satan's Playground, and offered to pay a fortune to see such violence performed against a child in real life. So the idea of a convicted child killer going free probably delighted him.

  How such people could exist was beyond her. It seemed as though every time they caught one, another two took his place. That didn't mean she'd ever give up on catching them and putting them away. Especially Jesse Tyrone Boyd.

  While the courts might think he didn't get a fair trial, she didn't for one minute think anybody really believed he was innocent. Especially not her. She'd seen Zach's little face through the window of the man's panel van. She'd seen his tags. And when she saw him in a lineup, she'd easily picked him out as the man who'd been lurking around the neighborhood in the days preceding Zach's kidnapping. The man Zach said had talked to one of his friends about a lost puppy.

  Why did you let him go back to that park, Laura? Why?

  She thrust the anguished thought away, focusing on the case. The things she could do something about. Not the past that was gone, out of reach, inalterable, and resolute.

  "You know, Boyd's mother came up to me in the courthouse during the trial."

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a quick, worried glance.

  "She was teary-eyed, and she came to tell me how sorry she was for what her son had done. The way he
had destroyed my family, cost me everyone I loved." To this day, she couldn't forget the look on the woman's face when she'd admitted what her son had done. What he was.

  How did a mother survive that?

  She hadn't brought it up to be maudlin, or dwell on it, only to illustrate a point. "She is his only family, and she made it clear that when she listened to his testimony, she knew right away that he was lying. And had no doubt he was guilty. She cut him off then and there, said she would never be back."

  "Meaning," Wyatt said, understanding immediately, "it is very doubtful he has family members on the outside paying for a new lawyer."

  "Exactly."

  "So who did?

  "That's a very good question. And I suppose it's the reason you want to talk to this lawyer, Claire Vincent?"

  "Yes."

  "She won't tell you who she's really working for. She can't, can she?"

  "No, I'm certain she won't. But I want to talk to her anyway. Call it my sixth sense. I have the feeling there's something to be learned there."

  She didn't doubt Wyatt's sixth sense, having seen evidence of it more than once. Primarily on the night he'd found her on that cold, dark beach. Because the odds had been astronomical. By all rights, he should never have even ended up on the right beach, much less actually tracking her to the dune on which she'd fallen.

  Oh, no, she didn't doubt Wyatt's inner voice.

  "No harm in trying," she said.

  They pulled up to his place, and Lily blinked. Once again, Wyatt's wealth was made clear. The graceful, mellowed-brick old town houses in this neighborhood, some four or five stories tall and a hundred years old, were a far cry from the one bedroom/one bath cubbyhole she'd called home last winter.

  He definitely didn't afford it on an FBI agent's salary.

  He glanced over, obviously saw her wide-eyed stare. "I grew up here and inherited the house from my grandparents."

  Grew up here in his grandparents' house. Well, they were making progress, weren't they? That was about as much personal information as he'd revealed in the past six months. At this rate, she might actually learn his middle name sometime before she died of old age.

  This enigmatic thing was sexy, but it was also frustrating as hell. As someone who'd been living a secret life for months, she suddenly found herself damn well sick of mysteries and enigmas.

  She reached for the door handle and yanked it open, stepping out into his driveway before he'd come around to open the door, as he always did.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Fine. Just anxious to get this over with."

  He said nothing, merely reaching into the backseat and grabbing the small suitcase she'd brought with her. Clothes bought and paid for by this man. Just like everything else she owned.

  Maybe it was being back here, in the city where she'd been so independent, overcome all the hardships of her youth to get her degree, then her master's, and land a job with the FBI. She'd never let anyone hold her back; she'd paid her own way.

  Until now.

  Following Wyatt, she quickly glanced around the inside of the house as they walked through the back door into the kitchen. As she could have predicted, it was immaculate-dark cherry cabinets with glass-front doors, a swirling brown and black marble countertop, state-of-the-art appliances. Perfect. Just like the man who owned it.

  Her apartment's Formica cabinets had been chipped, the handle broken off the one under the kitchen sink so she'd had to pry it with her fingertips whenever she'd needed to get trash bags or dish detergent.

  His floors were a deep, rich hardwood, highly shined. Hers had been linoleum, with a burned spot in one corner where she'd made the mistake of putting the hot oven rack.

  She so didn't belong here. At the beach house, it had been easier to pretend, because she'd been hiding. But she no longer wanted to hide. She also most definitely no longer wanted to be kept. "This needs to be over soon," she muttered.

  Wyatt put her bag on the table, then turned to stare at her, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the back of a chair. The immaculate suit didn't even shift out of place with the pose; it just moved with him as if it had been perfectly tailored. Well, it probably had. That was what perfectly tailored meant, right?

  She shook her head.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing," she said. "I'm just tired and ready to get on with things. Two weeks ago, I thought I'd be happy to never leave Maine. Your beach house. Now all I can think about is how desperately I want to get out of here, put all of this behind me, and go out there and actually live somewhere, in my own place, on my own dime, without being a drag on someone else all the time."

  He straightened and stepped over, lifting a hand to her chin. Tilting her head up so she was forced to meet his eyes, he silently urged her to listen to him. He appeared understanding, not irritated that she was throwing his generosity right back in his face like some selfish teenager bitching because she got the wrong color iPhone for Christmas.

  "Let's get one thing clear. I have more money than I could spend in my lifetime." he admitted. "My father was disgustingly rich, my mother's family pretty well-off also. And the day I turned twenty-five, I got the keys to a large trust fund."

  Lily sucked in a breath, not because of the fact that he was a rich man, but because he was telling her so much, revealing more and more of himself

  "I hate the beach house," he added, almost gritting out the words. "And I don't particularly care about this one, beyond the good memories of my mother's parents and the fact that it provides a place to sleep at the end of every long, fourteen-hour workday. But I feel no attachment to anything, Lily. I put no value on things or on dollars."

  Spoken like someone who had never lived without them.

  "If you can't handle having someone else cover your bills for a few months, then when this is over, you can go back to work and start giving me twenty dollars a week to pay me back. Now, could we please get past the money issue? Because you're going to be sleeping in my…" He looked away, frowning as his words tangled in his mouth. "Under my root and I don't want to have this discussion again."

  All the rest of his words fell away as she focused in on just one part of that speech.

  Sleeping in my… what? House would have been the easy word, the natural one. But he hadn't said it. He'd stumbled on his own sentence and come up with a clumsy alternative. Which meant whatever that first instinctive thought had been, he hadn't been happy about it.

  She knew. Of course she knew.

  "Am I going to be sleeping in your bed, Wyatt?" she asked, needing to stop dancing around this thing that was between them. Needing to know if he felt it, too, and what they were going to do about it.

  He hesitated for a split second. Then, with a groan that said he just couldn't help it, tilted her head back farther and bent to cover her mouth with his in a deep, hard kiss.

  Lily parted her lips for him, hungry and excited. She licked at his tongue, tasted him, begged him silently for more, then demanded more. He met every thrust, sliding his hands up into her hair to cup her head. She tilted one way, he another, so their mouths could meld more perfectly.

  He tasted as she'd thought he would-spicy and hot. Intoxicating. And he felt better than absolutely anything she'd ever experienced.

  Then he ended it, slowly, disengaging a little at a time until their lips were barely brushing, then weren't touching at all. He stepped back, stared down at her, studying her face with something like shock in his eyes. She saw worry there, too.

  "Don't you dare," she warned him, her voice shaking with intensity. "Don't you tell me you're sorry. Don't ask me if I'm all right. Don't you even think about it. And if you apologize to me, I'm going to show you firsthand how much I've learned from Sarge."

  He closed his eyes, dropped his hand, and sighed heavily. "I'm not going to apologize for doing something I've wanted to do for a very long time," he finally admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm exactly happy with myself for
having done it."

  He didn't even give her a chance to argue about it. Instead, he simply turned and walked out the door through which they'd entered, leaving her standing alone in the middle of his completely unfamiliar house.

  Smiling.

  * * *

  Jesse Boyd was a free man, out of jail, with his whole life to live. His wildest dreams had come true-he'd beaten the odds. When the lawyer had shown up at the prison to tell him he'd won his appeal hearing, he'd almost fallen over. He'd walked like a zombie through the prison discharge procedures, barely hearing the words or seeing the faces, scrawling his name over and over to a dozen different forms.

  Then, donning the old clothes he'd been wearing at his original trial and clutching his few possessions, he'd walked out of that place for good. He hadn't spared a glance at anyone, not a single good-bye, silently wishing them all nothing but misery for what they'd done to him.

  He was free to do anything, to go anywhere.

  Only, he had nowhere to go. They had given him some money, barely enough to survive for a week or two. He'd used some of it to pay for a cheap hotel room the previous night, needing a little time to adjust to the strange sensation of freedom. But he couldn't stay longer, not when he didn't know how long he had to make his money last.

  He'd asked his lawyer why he couldn't sue for wrongful imprisonment, win a million bucks like some other cons he'd heard about. She'd said he'd have had to actually be exonerated, not just had his conviction overturned. Greedy bastards. They got to fuck him over and he got 580 bucks and a pair of sneakers.

  Jesse had been sure he could go back to his ma's house, which was where he'd headed Friday, after taking a bus down to Baltimore. Throughout the trip, he pictured their reunion. When she saw him at the door to her duplex in the old Dundalk neighborhood and learned he'd been freed, she'd know he was innocent for sure. She would welcome Jesse home by drawing him into her big arms and pulling him into the kitchen for a bowl of her famous crab soup. Her pudgy face would grow wet with tears of happiness. Then she'd lead him to his old room, kept just the way it had been while he was growing up.