Guilty

by Karen Fenech

  Due to Gaines’s heavy blood loss, Galbraith had said that Gaines was currently in the intensive care unit. Ryan followed the colored arrows painted on the floors and walls. Through the large window in the hall, Ryan saw Gaines hooked up to tubes and monitors. Faith was huddled in a chair by Gaines’s bed.

  Galbraith stood against one wall, arms crossed. Two uniformed officers stood on either side of the door leading into the ICU.

  Ryan went to Galbraith. “Any change?”

  Galbraith shook his head. “Gaines is still under.”

  Even from this distance, Ryan could see that Faith looked wiped. “Has Faith been in with Gaines all this time?”

  “Yeah. Like I said on the phone, I asked Miss Winston to let me drive her home, but she said she didn’t want to leave.”

  “I appreciate you staying with her. Go home, Frank. I’ll see that she gets home.”

  Galbraith nodded. “Anything I can do, you let me know.”

  As Galbraith made his way down the hall, Ryan took Galbraith’s position.

  Two hours later, Faith got to her feet and bent over Gaines. Ryan saw that Gaines was now moving and mumbling. He was coming around. Faith was joined at Gaines’s bedside by a nurse and a doctor. When the medical professionals departed, Faith lingered with Gaines, saying something to him and then she entered the hall.

  She was still wearing Ryan’s suit jacket, her fingers curled around the gray lapels. Up close, he could see the strain in her eyes.

  “Hey,” Ryan said softly.

  Her eyes widened, only just now noticing his presence. Clearly her focus was still with Gaines.

  “Is Timothy Fahey in custody?”

  As Faith asked the question, she straightened and collected herself so the fatigue and strain were no longer visible. Ryan had observed her like this in the courtroom, had watched her question and cross-examine witnesses. Controlled, focused, calm as pond water and one tough customer. She knew when to pull back and when to go for the jugular. Being easy on the eyes was a plus as well. Her style of clothing, hair, and make up was understated. She was a class act and many a male witness had been lulled by the lethal combination she presented and found himself able to recall barely more than his own name when she was through with him. It felt like a punch to Ryan’s gut that Faith was hiding herself from him now.

  “For tonight,” Ryan said. “Fahey’s hearing is set for the morning.”

  “I’ll be there. I’m going to make sure Mr. Fahey does not receive bail.”

  “He isn’t a flight risk and he has no priors. Fahey’s lawyer can make a case for bail,” Ryan said mildly.

  “He can but he isn’t going to be able to make it stick. Flight risk or not, Fahey discharged a firearm into a crowd. He remains a threat to the public and to my client. We need to make sure that the public and James Gaines are safe.”

  “Make sure that Gaines is safe?” Ryan couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice.

  “Yes. He’s a victim.”

  Gaines was the victim. Her words rankled. That was how justice had been served to them today. Fahey was in jail and now Ryan was going to be forced to protect Gaines. “I know exactly what he is.” Ryan gave her a sharp look. “Do you?”

  Faith gave Ryan back the same hard look. “Do you think I’m not disgusted by what happened to Sharon Fahey? I can’t close my eyes without seeing the photos of her battered body. Don’t you think I want the person responsible for that to pay? But that’s just it, Ryan—the person responsible.”

  “And you don’t believe that’s Gaines.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  Faith’s hand bunched into a fist around his jacket as she faced Ryan down. “My job isn’t to judge him. As his attorney, I’m charged with providing him with the best possible legal defense. Under our justice system he’s entitled to that. What I believe doesn’t matter. What the prosecution can legally prove does.”

  Ryan now heard something else beneath her anger. It sounded like grief. He eased his tone and asked the question that had been gnawing at him. “What’s going on with you and Gaines?”

  She swallowed a couple of times before she was able to answer.

  “Going on? What are you talking about?”

  Her composure was cracking. She was reaching the end of her endurance. Ryan felt like a brute for pushing her but this was too important to let it go. “I’ve seen you with other clients. You’re different with Gaines. Why?”

  “I’m not different. I’m doing my job. I’m going to make sure that James Gaines has competent legal representation, unlike so many others have received in Wade.”

  Now it was Ryan’s turn to ask what she was talking about. “Where are you coming from with this?”

  Faith met his gaze. Her eyes glittered, though not with tears but anger and more, determination. “I won’t let Irwin send Gaines to death row.”

  Ryan was aware that Irwin always sought the death penalty in the cases he prosecuted. “Is that why you asked to defend Gaines, yourself? You didn’t think anyone else in the public defender’s office could win against Irwin?”

  “No one has.” Her voice came hard as steel. “You’d better hope your cops did their jobs well in this case.”

  She hadn’t made many friends on the Wade County PD. On the witness stand, Ryan had seen her rip the balls off of more than a few of his cops. Again, Ryan thought how strong she was.

  But always needing to be strong took a toll on her. She didn’t have a safe haven anywhere. No place where she could be at ease. Not anymore. For what felt like the blink of an eye, he’d believed he’d given her that. And just as quickly he’d stripped it from her. The memory was too close to the surface and it left Ryan raw. Gently, he asked, “Are you ready to go home?”

  Faith’s shoulders drooped. She looked like she was bowing under the weight she was carrying. “Yes. I’ll call a cab.”

  Again Ryan felt a helplessness he wasn’t used to feeling and hated feeling when it came to Faith. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t take her burden, but he could take her home. “For today, I’d rather drive you myself.”

  “I’m a big girl. I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time.”

  Though he knew she hadn’t meant to strike out at him with that statement, she’d scored a direct hit. He hadn’t been around to care for her in the last year and she’d been fine without him. But he was here now and she’d never been almost shot before. “In all that time you haven’t been defending the most hated man in Wade County.”

  “No, but I’ve been the daughter of the most hated man in Wade.”

  Her tone was level with brutal honesty.

  “Is your father the reason you went after the Gaines case?” Ryan knew what had gone down with Faith’s father. His arrest. His conviction. His execution. Faith’s belief that her father was innocent and that the true killer was still at large.

  She lifted her chin. “My father is the reason I practice law every day. So what happened to him won’t happen to anyone in Wade ever again.”

  She stood looking up at him. Fierce. Beautiful. Angry. Hurting. The pain in her voice was greater than the anger. Ryan wanted to take her in his arms and shoulder that pain for her, show her she wasn’t alone and that he was here for her. He didn’t, knowing she didn’t want that from him. Didn’t want him near her at all.

  Digging inside her briefcase, she retrieved her cell phone then walked away from him. Watching her go started a panic in Ryan that brought back the scene at the courthouse. He caught up to her as she put the phone to her ear. Since she wouldn’t let him drive her home, he did the next best thing. “An officer will take you.”

  Without waiting for her to agree, Ryan signaled to one of the men guarding Gaines. She could still decline and he couldn’t do anything to force her to agree, but since he wasn’t the cop escorting her, she had no reason to turn him down. She must have come to that conclusion herself. She nodded.

  Ryan had a word with her escort, then they left.
He took the position his cop had vacated outside of Gaines’s door to stand watch until the man returned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ryan had instructed the cop who’d escorted Faith home to go into the house and make sure all was well before returning to resume guard duty over Gaines. Next Ryan called a patrol car and gave the order that the cruiser remain parked in front of Faith’s house for the rest of the night.

  Back at his apartment, Ryan popped the top off a bottle of beer. He took his drink outside into the crisp night air and to the balcony where he had the picturesque view of the apartment building Dumpster. But he wasn’t in a mood to grouse about the shitty accommodation. He couldn’t get what Faith had said tonight out of his mind.

  Ryan had asked Faith if she’d gone after the Gaines case because of her father. He had no right to question her about anything and with what had gone down between them, he could hardly expect her to open up to him.

  He had no right to tell her which clients to represent and as much as his instinct was to shield her from anything that could cause her harm, emotional or physical, he would not want to make those choices for her. He did not want to make any choices for her. He did not want to control her. She was her own woman and that was one of the many things Ryan loved about her.

  But Gaines worried Ryan. He’d observed first hand how protective of Gaines she’d been in court and at the hospital. Ryan blew out a harsh breath. Hadn’t Fahey said earlier that Gaines had used Sharon to get what he’d wanted? Over the course of Colson’s investigation, Ryan had learned something of Gaines’s behavior and concluded that the man was a manipulator. Ryan was convinced that was how he’d secured Sharon Fahey’s help and ultimately her trust before he killed her. Ryan ran a hand back through his hair. Life had made Faith a realist and somewhat cynical. When Ryan had fallen in love with her, he’d made it his mission to give her reasons to regain some sense of starry-eyed wonder and to believe in dreams again . . . until he hadn’t. He drew deeply on his beer to wash away the bitter taste of that truth.

  Despite those traits that normally insulated and distanced her, Gaines was finding a way through them. Ryan could see that she was getting in deep with Gaines. She seemed vulnerable to him somehow, and Ryan was afraid of how Gaines would use that vulnerability against her.

  She’d said she would not let Irwin send Gaines to his death. Like Irwin had done to her father?

  Ryan had learned of her father’s execution after the fact. He’d been living in New York, in Blake County, married to Tina and working for Mitch at the Blake County PD until two years earlier when the position of police chief over the three cities that made up Wade County had come up.

  Tina had pushed Ryan to go for the job. Ryan had enjoyed working for Mitch and would have waited until a job to head up his own precinct opened up closer to home, but Tina wouldn’t hear of that. Ryan never would have believed that Tina would want to move out of New York. She was a city girl through and through but she’d claimed their marriage needed a fresh start away from family. Ryan knew she’d meant away from his family, the Turners, since Tina adored her own family.

  Ryan had agreed to the move because he hadn’t wanted his marriage to fail, as his parents’ marriage had. He did not want any part of his life to mirror theirs. Legally, his parents were still married but as far back as Ryan could remember they’d been two people who lived in the same house for economic reasons, barely speaking, and living separate lives that did not leave room for their only son.

  Thanks to the Turners, Ryan knew what true family was and he’d wanted that for himself, a wife of his own whom he loved beyond measure and children born out of that love. Looking back, he didn’t know how he’d ever expected to have any of that with Tina. Though he hadn’t seen it at the start, there hadn’t ever been any common ground between them. As it turned out, moving to Wade had only been putting off the inevitable end to his marriage. And then he’d met Faith.

  Faith had told Ryan of her father, her pain palpable—pain, grief and guilt that she had not prevented her father’s conviction. That she had not saved him from execution. She’d taken the responsibility for it all on herself. Seeing her crushed by the pain of her father’s death, Ryan would have made a deal with the devil himself to take it all away.

  Ryan had read the case files. Jackson Winston had been convicted of the murder of a doctor who’d been driving home at night after working late at Wade County General. The doctor, Lorraine Owens, had been an attractive brunette. At the time of her death she’d been unmarried and with no children. In her obituary, Owens was hailed for having traveled to remote parts of the world as part of a Doctors Without Borders initiative and for being a champion of charitable causes. She’d sat on the board of directors of several local not-for-profit organizations.

  Owens had been raped and stabbed with a butcher knife ninety-seven times. Her lips had been severed and seemingly discarded. They were never found.

  Winston went to Owens on a deserted road on the outskirts of Wade on a warm summer night. Winston had claimed that he’d received a call at home from Owens that her car had broken down and could he come and get her. He reached her car parked on the roadside. She looked to be unconscious in the back seat. He didn’t own a cell phone to call for help and he entered the car. Her clothing was torn, her body bloody. He’d touched her to see if she was alive, but she was dead.

  That was where a cop car on routine patrol had found him. Winston had been alone on the road with the dead woman. Entering her vehicle had left his prints and DNA inside. Entering the vehicle to render assistance was a clever cover story for a killer and that’s how District Attorney Irwin had spun it. A jury had believed Irwin. Irwin had sought the death penalty and Jackson Winston had been executed.

  Faith remained inconsolable about her father’s death and stalwart in her belief in his innocence.

  Ryan took his beer to his laptop on the desk he’d backed against one wall. He accessed the databases shared by law enforcement and called up Jackson Winston’s information. DOB put Winston at forty-two years old at the time of his arrest. Ryan clicked on a photo. He could see Faith in the light brown eyes and in the stubborn set to the chin. At another time, recalling her stubbornness would have made Ryan smile. Winston had been interviewed numerous times by police. The more Ryan read of Winston’s life, and by extension Faith’s life, the more Ryan understood how much she’d needed that stubbornness to survive.

  Though Jackson Winston had been born with the proverbial silver spoon, he’d had that swiftly and completely taken away when he’d married one of the Winston’s house maids. Disowning and disinheriting him had been the kindest action they’d taken against him. Winston had an Ivy League business education. Looking through the man’s employment history, despite that education, following his marriage, Ryan saw that Winston never held a job for any length of time. The lead homicide investigator had asked Winston about his spotty employment record and his constant relocation from big city to small city, then from town to town. Winston had responded that his family had blocked all attempts he’d made to secure suitable employment.

  Jackson Winston, his wife, and then infant daughter had finally settled in Wade where Winston took a job as a laborer in the timber industry and the family had rented the house Faith still lived in. Declines in the need for timber had forced him to seek work again, but also a decline in his wife’s health. With his wife diagnosed with terminal cancer, and needing to care for his young daughter, Winston had taken a job washing dishes in a local diner at night where he could keep his child with him.

  At the time of his arrest, Winston had been employed as a janitor at Wade County General. He’d admitted to being acquainted with the doctor he was accused of killing, saying they’d exchanged pleasantries often at work. Investigators had not been able to connect Winston and Owens outside of the job. From what Ryan read, Winston had no connection to anyone outside of the job. No social ties. No social life at all. No one he spent time with away from w
ork, female or male. The one connection in his life had been his daughter. Faith had been away, in her first year of college when Winston was convicted.

  Below Ryan’s apartment somewhere, a car engine started. Through the glass doors of the balcony, he saw the watery gray of early dawn begin to spread across the horizon. He needed to get ready for work. Instead, he remained at his desk and read on.

  He clicked to the police report of the doctor’s vehicle. Police mechanics found a deliberate puncture in her car’s gas tank. The tank had leaked until it emptied on that remote road. The district attorney put forth that Winston had wanted to be more than acquaintances with Owens. When she refused, Winston disabled her vehicle then arrived at the scene, forced Owens to use her cell phone to call his house so her call would be on record, and killed her.

  The jury hadn’t deliberated long. In a matter of hours, the guilty verdict was in. Jackson Winston had maintained his innocence to the last.

  Ryan had never met a convicted criminal who did not proclaim his innocence, but for Faith, he’d never wanted one to actually be innocent before Jackson Winston.

  * * *

  The next morning, Faith entered the hospital. The media had moved on, she was glad to see. It was early on the Tuesday morning for visiting hours but as she’d told Ryan the night before, she planned to be in court to oppose any bail request Fahey’s attorney planned to make and she wanted to see James for herself and reassure herself of his well being.

  A nurse was finishing up with him when Faith arrived. She waited outside the intensive care ward, alongside two of Ryan’s uniformed officers. Different men than when she’d left here a few hours ago. Clearly, the shift had changed. While Faith knew the men were assigned to guard James, and were his jailers, they would also be his protection. After yesterday Faith was afraid another attempt would be made on James’s life.

  The nurse left and Faith entered the room. He had lost a lot of blood. He looked pale and frail, white body against white sheets but he opened his eyes at her entrance. There was an instant of wariness but his expression warmed when he saw his visitor was Faith.