“Yes.” Disappointing. A huge understatement. “So what do we do now?”
“We continue to look for other evidence. Eventually, we decide if it’s worth pursuing.”
Gina’s head whipped up. “We would drop the case?” Panic surged through her body. She’d expected a conclusion, but now it felt like she’d been thrown into a tumultuous ocean of doubt.
And she was quickly drowning.
They couldn’t just give up on Cyrus.
They couldn’t give up on Landon.
“We’ve got limited resources,” Suzanne said. “We’ll eventually have to weigh whether or not it makes sense to keep this one going if we’re never going to find any exculpatory evidence. There are too many others out there who need our help.” She stood.
“But we’re his only hope.” Gina wasn’t sure if she was talking about Cyrus or Landon.
“I’m as committed to this case as you are, but there are dozens of prisoners who want our services. People we might be able to help.”
“Unlike Cyrus” was the implication. But Gina would have to worry about this another day, once she’d had a chance to think everything through. “I need to go talk to Landon.”
Any other day, she’d be concerned with what her boss thought about her relationship with him, but today transcended that. This news had so many implications. She needed to be with him.
“Take the rest of the day off.” She motioned toward the door. “Go help him get through this.”
Gina moved to her desk and turned off her computer, but it felt like someone else was in control of her body. She knew what she had to do, but the news was so overwhelming that nothing beyond rote motion was possible for her.
As her computer powered down, she remembered that she had forgotten to turn on her out-of-office message, but what did it really matter? It all seemed futile now. Yes, she felt this way because of the blow she’d just taken, but if justice couldn’t be served—if an innocent man really was in prison—then the back-and-forth e-mails with attorneys and crime labs—the minutia of every day seemed so . . . trivial. So unnecessary. So unimportant.
As she pulled her phone from her pocket to call Landon, it struck her that his was the only number from one of her cases that she stored in her personal cell phone. Yes, she’d met him before she knew he was part of one of her cases, but his involvement in her life transcended the case.
She sat back in her chair as the phone dialed his number. If Morgan’s Ladder ever did drop the case, would he still be a part of her life? She didn’t want to think about that possibility.
Landon’s voice on the phone interrupted her thoughts. “Hey,” he said, sounding rushed and harried.
“You busy?”
He scoffed. “You don’t even know.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Can it wait ’til tonight?”
“I think this is something you’ll want to know.”
He hesitated. “About . . . you know?”
She was pretty sure he hadn’t told anyone at work about the DNA tests, so she understood his not wanting to say the words in an open workspace. “Yes.”
The silence on the other end of the phone told her that, he, too, knew this was important information. A game-changer.
A life-changer.
Finally, he spoke. “Tell me where to meet you.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Landon glanced toward the entrance of the park. Again. He couldn’t stand still. Not with everything at stake. Not with his entire life about to change. He pushed himself off the side of his truck and paced to the other side of the parking lot. He checked the time on his cell phone. Twenty minutes since Gina had called him to say she had the results of the DNA testing.
Where the hell was she?
He should have made her tell him right then and there, over the phone. No, he wouldn’t have wanted to get the news in the office—not with the open workspaces that offered no privacy. Not with all those people around. He wasn’t sure how he’d react, depending on what the news ended up being.
If Cyrus was guilty, he’d feel a huge sense of relief. The right man had been in prison the entire time and Landon’s eyewitness testimony had helped put him there. That would be the best outcome. To know his mom’s murder had been vindicated all those years ago. But if the DNA showed that Cyrus didn’t do it . . .
That was the outcome Landon dreaded. That the wrong man had been in prison all those years.
Or, worse yet—if Landon’s own DNA closely matched the DNA on his mother’s clothes. He closed his eyes as the possibility flooded his mind. The same one that had kept him awake the last several nights—that the DNA could show a close relative of his had committed the murder.
And everything in his life would change.
He opened his eyes and kicked a rock beneath his feet. It ricocheted off the tire of his truck and slammed against the curb. If his dad was guilty, then he’d lose him. Not that he’d ever really had him. But the pain, the hatred, the feelings of not belonging would be immediately surrounded by a hard outer shell that would likely never go away.
You killed my mother, you son of a bitch.
He could see himself looking his old man in the face, his own eyes filled with contempt, telling him once and for all he was finished with him.
But then what would he say to Cyrus? How do you apologize to a man who’d spent fifteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit? A man you helped convict? Could Cyrus file a civil suit against him? And was that what Landon deserved after putting an innocent guy in jail?
The crunching of tires on gravel came up over the ridge as Gina’s SUV turned onto the road and into the park. He stood, waiting for her to pull up beside him and get out. Glad this was one of the days he’d been able to wear a golf shirt to work, since the Tallahassee heat bore down on him. He wiped his hand across his forehead and rubbed the sweat off on the pants fabric at his hip.
“So?” he said the second she got out of the car.
She motioned to a picnic table under a live oak. “Let’s go over in the shade.”
“Can you just tell me?” But she’d already taken off, striding in front of him toward the tree. He followed, his eagerness to hear her news rising with each step he took. He wanted to grab her shoulder, twirl her around, and demand that she tell him the results of the test.
She reached the picnic table, brushed her hand across the end of it, and sat down, facing him. One sandal-covered foot rested on the seat below her. Somehow he knew he’d remember that toenail polish for the rest of his life. Dark red. Like the blood on the floor of the country store. That color would always haunt him.
“So what’d you find out?” He paced in front of her, unable to rein in his nervous energy.
“It’s . . . not what we expected.”
He stopped midstride and spun to study her face. “What does that mean?”
“The DNA is too deteriorated.” He hated that goddamn look of pity on her face. “They can’t use it.”
“Mine? I’ll give them another sample.”
She shook her head. “Not yours. The DNA on your mom’s clothes. They can’t use it.”
The tremor in his jaw seemed like a harbinger of things to come. “What do you mean, they can’t use it? It’ll never be able to tell us who did it?”
“That’s what the lab said.”
The tremor spread to his shoulders, which now shook so much he was sure Gina could see it. “But the science. You just don’t understand the science.”
She reached for his hand and held it. “Suzanne got the head of the lab on the phone to make sure he agreed. He’d already verified it. He explained everything to her.”
Landon sank onto the bench of the picnic table next to Gina’s foot. His entire body trembled.
“Suzanne’s seen this a couple of t
imes before.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Where the DNA is inconclusive. I wish . . . I wish I had known it was a possibility. I would have at least told you this could happen. So you might . . . be prepared.”
Landon couldn’t respond. He just shook. His world was upended, yet again. The oppressive heat intertwined with Gina’s news, and he knew what purgatory must be like. It was as if he’d done something to deserve this. To be forever condemned to the madness created by this confluence of events.
“I wish I had something different to tell you.” Gina rubbed his back with the palm of her hand. “I didn’t want you to be in the office when you got the news.”
“So what happens to Cyrus Alexander?” His words were barely a whisper, but it was all the energy he could muster. His throat was so dry he could barely swallow.
“He was convicted of the crime. The DNA didn’t exonerate him . . .”
Her voice trailed off. She didn’t have to say it. He knew. Cyrus Alexander would stay in prison. Landon hoped to God the right guy was sitting in that cell.
He sat back against the table, his shoulders resting on Gina’s leg. The connection with her comforted him. She ran a hand through his curls, just like Mama had done when he was little. Did she know what she was doing? How significant the gesture was on today of all days?
“What can I do to help you?” she said as her fingers wove through his hair again.
“Nothing.” He didn’t want her to know how much the gesture shook him.
“Why don’t you come over tonight? I don’t want you to be alone.”
He shook his head.
“Dinner. A couple of beers. We can talk about anything you want to talk about. Or nothing at all.”
He ignored her invitation. He took a deep breath and his chest shuddered involuntarily. “Are you going back to work?” he asked. He wasn’t facing her, but somehow he felt closer to her than he’d felt to anyone in a long time. Maybe in his entire life.
“No.” The word was unsteady.
So the news had jarred her, too. Probably not as much as it had him, but he heard the pain in her voice and knew that she, too, needed some time alone. He turned to face her. “Does it ever get any easier?”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m not sure. It hasn’t yet.”
He rested his arm on the table, running it the length of her thigh. His fingertips brushed the fabric of her pants near her butt. Any other time, it would have seemed too familiar, too intimate. But now, it was comforting.
“That really wasn’t the answer I was looking for,” he said. Maybe someday he’d ask her the details about the guy she’d sent to prison, but not now. Not today. Maybe not ever. All he knew was that he couldn’t talk about any of it today.
“If you do get some answers,” she said, “be sure to let me know.” She brushed a hair from her face. “Because I sure as hell don’t have any, either.”
He wasn’t sure if she was talking about Cyrus Alexander or the guy she sent to prison. Hell, she might have been talking about how she felt about Landon himself. Regardless, he knew how she felt. Because he didn’t have any answers, either.
All he had was confusion. And frustration.
And emptiness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Landon’s lungs screamed for air. His calves burned. It had been three years since he’d done fifteen miles in one run, but tiring his body to the point of exhaustion seemed like the only way to escape now. The only way he’d ever sleep again. If he ever slept again. He still hadn’t completely absorbed the news about the inconclusive DNA, and that had been two days ago.
There would always be questions about Mama’s murder, yet she deserved so much more than that.
He’d never know if his testimony had put the right man in prison.
He’d never know the truth.
He slipped the key from on top of the window frame and unlocked the door. Compared to outside, his air-conditioned condo felt like a walk-in freezer, but he welcomed the chill. No one sweated like a man running in the heat and humidity of a Tallahassee summer, even though the hottest part of the day had been hours ago.
He braced his hands on the breakfast bar and extended one leg behind him, stretching one calf, then the other. He took deep, deliberate breaths until his inhalations returned to normal.
His cell phone rang as he was grabbing a towel to get in the shower.
“Mr. Vista?” the male voice on the other end of the line sounded official.
“Yes.” He reached into the shower to turn on the water.
“This is Sergeant Hernandez of the Tallahassee Police Department.”
He froze. Law enforcement officers translated to death and tragedy in his life.
“Son, your father’s been picked up on a drunk-and-disorderly.”
Of course he has. Landon stepped out of the bathroom to get away from the noise of the running water. “What’d he do?”
“Kept hassling another patron at the bar he was in. Refused to leave when the manager asked him to. Urinated on the bouncer’s shoe when he finally kicked him out.”
It was seven thirty at night. Who got shit-faced by seven thirty on a Sunday night? Moot point. He already knew the answer to that question.
“Why are you calling me?” Landon asked. “I thought the guy arrested got to make the phone call.”
“The doc’s stitching his head up now. The bouncer didn’t take too kindly to his shoe being pissed on.”
Landon emptied the contents of his pockets, preparing for the shower. “Let him stay there. It’ll be good for him.”
“Can’t keep him here. He’s already paid bail.”
“My dad doesn’t have enough money for bail.” The sarcasm in his voice sounded biting, even to him.
“Desk lieutenant said he paid it in cash. Your dad wants you to come get him. Keeps bragging about his son being Landon Vista and how we’d better treat him right.”
“I’m not coming to get him.”
“Doc’ll be done with him in a couple of minutes.”
“I’m not coming to get him.” What did the guy not understand about that?
“You want me to tell him that?” the sergeant said.
“I don’t care what you tell him. Tell him anything you want.”
Landon punched the button to end the call, then yanked his tank top over his head. He needed a shower even worse now that his damn father had tainted the evening with yet another embarrassing stunt. He rolled his head from side to side, determined not to let the anger at his father camp out with that burn at the base of his neck, at the same place it always did.
The time Landon had spent with Gina’s parents made him realize how nice it might have been to have a father who held down a job, slept in the same bed every night, provided a house for his kids to live in. To hell with him. Landon wasn’t going to be a part of his dad’s drama anymore, just like his dad hadn’t been a part of Landon’s life growing up.
He was still seething an hour later, after he’d showered and discovered that the strange smell in his kitchen came from the week-old shrimp pasta he’d thrown away last night. He took his trash bag to the dumpster off to the side of his condo complex and heaved it into the rusted, smelly drum, then headed back inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He turned to see his father, his forehead covered by a white bandage, standing under the streetlight. One sleeve of his faded plaid shirt was torn, and the knees of his pants looked as if he’d been crawling around on the floor at the local Jiffy Lube. A taxi pulled away from the curb in the background.
“Not getting you out of jail.” Landon brushed past his father, not sure where the smell of the dumpster ended and his dad’s odor started.
“Obviously.” His dad hustled after him. “And why the hell not?”
Landon turned to face him, his fists clenched by his side. “I am not going to clean up your mess every time you make it.”
“You just wait ’til you’re thrown in jail.” His dad’s smirk bared his yellow teeth. “See if I come help you out.”
“I have been thrown in jail. And you know who I called?” He swept his arm through the air. “It sure as hell wasn’t you.”
His dad grinned, looking absurdly pleased that his son had been in jail, as if it were a proud family tradition. Something to talk about over holiday meals. “What’d you get arrested for?”
Landon walked up the sidewalk again. “It was a while ago.” Calvin had been there for him. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” his dad said behind him.
Landon waved a dismissive hand and walked toward his condo.
“You don’t think I’d have your back?” his dad repeated as he dashed in front of Landon. “Don’t you think I would have picked you up?”
Landon opened his front door and walked into the living room. His dad followed him inside.
A crush of childhood feelings swirled inside him. Landon closed his eyes for a minute. “Why would I think you’d be there for me,” he said, “when you were never there any of the other times?” He might as well get all his feelings out before he confronted his father about the sawmill alibi, which now seemed lame, even for his father.
“Name one time I wasn’t there for you.” His dad plopped down in the leather recliner. Landon wondered if he could hose the thing off in the morning.
“How about when I played Little League and you were never in the stands? Or when I broke my arm in eighth grade? Did you stay up worrying about me when I was seventeen years old and out getting drunk off my ass with my buddies? Where were you during all those times?”
His father’s face paled. “Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Bob were there.”
“They aren’t my parents.”
“They were better parents than I would have been.”
“You only started to care when I started to make the newspapers, the all-conference teams. Then all of a sudden—poof!—you’re back in my life. When it became convenient for you and when you might get something out of it.”
The Truth About Love Page 17
