Catch and Release

by BA Tortuga

  “You got with a cop? On purpose?” He couldn’t imagine that. Ever.

  “He does it for me.”

  “You’re a strange guy.”

  Sage nodded. “Sure, but he’s damned good to me, and he lets me be good to him.”

  “I’m glad.” He guessed he was anyway. He hadn’t even gotten a piss hard-on in weeks. He was about 95 percent sure it was broke. “I’m gonna have to go. They’re going to find me. Azel’s already been hurt.”

  “Do you think they’re going to show up?”

  “Yeah.” They’d come in and shoot him, and then it’d all be over.

  Sage scowled. “No. No, you did your time. Someone paid for the crime. That’s all they get.”

  “Yeah.” He looked over at Sage and tried to smile, but he couldn’t. “But we both know that’s not how it works. They want blood, and no one will say boo when they get it.”

  And then it would be like he never existed at all.

  “Well, Azel is worried about you, not him.” Sage waved him into the restaurant.

  The smell was pure heaven. God, he could murder some enchiladas.

  “All you can eat,” Sage murmured. “Get you a plate. You want iced tea?”

  “Yeah.” Good thing he worked hard or he’d blow up again.

  “Got it.” Sage went to get them a table, leaving him alone for a moment to breathe.

  His world went gray at the edges, but only for a second, and he shook it off. So, enchiladas and some beans, he thought. That would make him right as rain.

  Sage stood when he came back, trading off. Two iced teas sat sweating on the table, along with chips and salsa.

  So fucking normal. This was the type of thing that real people did, average people. They had lunch. They sat and chatted about shit that wasn’t prison. They didn’t get sideways looks that made a man hunch his shoulders and hide.

  Christ, his head hurt.

  He looked for Sage, for a familiar face. Thankfully, Sage had filled his plate and was swimming back through the group of tech geeks who were swarming the buffet.

  The chips were perfect, and the enchiladas tasted like being a teenager again. God, he could order a pizza. Maybe after he figured out the whole how to get a phone thing.

  “So, is there anything you need? I could run you to the Goodwill if you need me to, maybe this weekend. Or the Walmart.”

  “I don’t know.” The tea had Sonic ice. God, he loved that—crunchy and little and perfect. He stirred once, spooned a bite up. “I don’t know how to be out. Life changed. I feel like….”

  “An alien?”

  “A foreigner, but yeah.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t recognize the world anymore. Still don’t sometimes. That does get easier.”

  “I hope so.” At least he was used to being scared. That wasn’t new.

  “What are you going to do about those folks?” Sage asked before munching a chip.

  “Is there anything I can do? If I blink hard, I’ll go back to jail.”

  “Well, there has to be something. If I learned anything from Adam’s uncles, it’s that you can’t just let them get away with it.”

  He nodded, but he knew better. It was way easier to just agree.

  “You’ll see.” Sage looked so sure. Not everyone had Sage’s Zen.

  He ate silently, tired down to his bones. He had hours left of his day—work, then his parole meeting, then finding his way to Azel’s apartment. Sage was decent about it, leaving him to his thoughts, save for a few questions about refills.

  “You can tell Azel not to stress. I’m going to find a place. A halfway house or something. I just need a couple days.” He wanted Sage to know he wasn’t a bad guy, wasn’t willing to mess with anyone.

  “You could talk to him.” Sage watched him, licking sauce off his fork.

  “I will. I probably won’t see him until tomorrow night, but I’ll tell him.” He thought Sage would be on the phone with Azel as soon as Dakota was out of the truck. “It’s been good to stay there. It’s easy for my boss to pick me up.”

  “Then stay for just a bit longer. Azel is more capable than you think, and he needs the roommate.” Sage made a good case. He just didn’t know.

  “I’ll talk to him. He has to understand.”

  “Shit, man, he hit an SUV with four kids in it. Three of them died. He has to go do community service and face the survivors once a year. He understands.”

  “Damn.” Okay. Okay, maybe he needed to calm the fuck down, breathe. “That takes balls.”

  “Yeah. No one has managed to kill him yet. Even him.” Sage chuckled, but there was no humor in it. Maybe Azel had more going on than a busy kitchen.

  “Yeah, we’re all still here, huh?” He wanted to sound positive. Hell, he wanted to be positive for real.

  “No shit on that, buddy. Mainly I wanted to come see you so you’d know you could call me. Anytime. You don’t have to go it alone.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this. I hated it in the joint, but….” This was worse.

  “One day at a time.” Sage rolled his eyes when Dakota stared. “I know, right? Fucking platitudes.”

  “Yeah. We all hear them. All the time.” Constantly.

  “When I start spouting them, kick me. Just not in the knees. I finally got them both fixed.”

  Ah, that explained the little hitch in Sage’s getalong. “Yeah, that’s not my deal. I’m not a kicker.”

  “You have to fight back sometimes, though. You know that, right? You have to push back.”

  He wasn’t sure about that. More than that, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear Sage fuss at him for arguing. His head began to really pound, and he pushed away his plate.

  Sage finally took pity on him. “I’ll get a box, huh?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just….”

  “Hush. It’s shitty. If I hadn’t had Momma and Daddy, I don’t think I could have done it. Those first months in California…. Shit, I damn near lost my mind.”

  Yeah. Yeah, his folks wouldn’t even admit he belonged to them. He envied Sage the support, but Dakota decided to be grateful right then and there for Sage’s.

  “I hear you. I…. Will someone be able to help me get a phone, you think? I don’t know how.” He’d never even had a real bank account, a checkbook. Nothing.

  “Check with your PO about restrictions, but we can get you a pay as you go thing at Walmart, if nothing else.”

  “Yeah, I just need a way to call. I ain’t gonna text or nothing.”

  “You’ll surprise yourself.” Sage rose and grabbed a box from the stand at the end of the buffet for the leftovers. “Let’s get you back to work.”

  “Yessir.” He stood up and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with salsa-scented air. He could do this. He had at least one person on his side. That had to count for something.

  It was more than lots of folks had, after all.

  Lots.

  Chapter Five

  JAYDEN HUNG up the phone with his last client of the day, then grabbed the case file off his desk. He’d saved a half hour today to make some calls on the Dakota Landry issue. He had a friend at the courthouse in Williamson County, where the case had been tried.

  He wasn’t wasting a ton of time on this case, but he wanted to help Win out and…. Oh, who was he kidding? He was bored.

  This was the most interesting thing he’d had on his desk since he’d quit criminal law.

  He had some questions about the case. Jayden didn’t recognize the public defender, but this was before his time. He’d still been up at SMU then, rubbing the very well-pressed elbows that Mom’s contacts had delivered him into. Pop’s contacts were no less important, but they were all more penal and vastly more gun toting. Jayden grinned and stretched, his attention sliding back to the file on his desk.

  Nineteen years old at his arrest, Landry had been a pockmarked, overweight kid in his sophomore year at UT. There’d been a party—not anything Greek, Jayden imagined, because surely not eve
n the shitty frats would take this kid—but there was a party at the McCarthy ranch in Weir, and someone had taken Briony McCarthy out in the pasture, tied her to a fence post, raped her at knifepoint, and sliced her up.

  Someone—Hillary Jones—had heard her screaming an hour later, and McCarthy had named Landry as her rapist.

  They arrested Landry in his dorm room five hours later. No alibi and they’d caught the kid lying about even being at the party.

  Should be pretty cut-and-dried, except there was a rape kit that Williamson County hadn’t tested, the kid had no prior (or post, evidently) incidences of violence, and he hadn’t found a single shred of evidence that argued with Landry’s assertion that he was a homosexual.

  Now, rape wasn’t about sex, sure, but there had to have been a dozen boys smaller than Landry to violate.

  Why this girl?

  Jayden tapped his forefinger against his lower lip. Okay, so the prosecutor he did know. He’d start there.

  Jayden continued wading through the notes. A model prisoner, no fights, no struggles—Jayden looked at the exit photo and sat back with a blink.

  Damn.

  Damn, the kid wasn’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t pockmarked and heavy either. He looked as if he’d been honed down to the very essentials, all cheekbones and sharp chin. Dark hair and near-black eyes—Jayden bet the hard-core inmates tore this kid into pieces.

  Which, okay, prison wasn’t a cakewalk, but….

  What if Landry was innocent?

  Christ, that was always the worry, wasn’t it? That you slipped so far into the game of evidence and guilt and winning. Because it felt damn good to be on the winning side—and he’d be lying if it was all about taking the bad guys off the streets. Criminal law was a giant puzzle, and you had to prove your point to twelve jurors better than the public defender that the state hired.

  Jayden’s conviction rate was stellar.

  What if Landry was innocent?

  Shit. He tried not to think about it, but Mom’s voice whispered at him. Statistics. If one percent of your cases was innocent, Son, one percent, and it’s more likely five, then how many men?

  He grabbed the phone, hoping assistant DA Proctor was still in.

  “District attorney’s office, how may I direct your call?”

  “Pam?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “This is Jayden Wilson. Is Emily in?”

  “Mr. Wilson! She is. Give me a moment, would you?”

  “You bet.” Pam had to be close to retirement now, and he could just picture the little beaded string on her glasses and her puffy cotton-candy hair.

  She was a sweet lady and made the best peanut butter cookies in history. Seriously, they were perfect.

  “Mr. Wilson? I’m transferring you. If you get cut off, here’s her number.” She rattled off the phone number he didn’t bother to scribble down at a lightning rate.

  “Thanks, Pam. Tell Dooley hey for me.” Pam’s husband was a great guy, a landscaper who could do anything, from lawns to patios to water features.

  “Yes, sir. Transferring you now.”

  There were a handful of clicks, and then a happy voice sounded. “Jay-Jay! How the hell are you, man?”

  “Good. Great, in fact. How’s the life of the future DA?”

  “Busy, as always. Life’s crazy in my part of the universe. How’s life with the rich bitches?”

  “Boring. Which is why I’m calling you.” Emily hated pulling punches, so he didn’t bother. “You got a few minutes for an old buddy?”

  “I do. Whatcha need?”

  He heard the clink of her nails against the cup of tea that was at her desk, no matter how hell the summer was.

  “I have a case file someone asked me to look into. A rape case from about twelve years ago. The man convicted was a college student named Dakota Landry. You remember that one?”

  “I do. Fat kid, not real bright, raped a rancher’s daughter at a party. Girl identified him, picked him out of a lineup. Kid’s folks let him swing with a first-year PD pitching. There was no chance. Why?”

  “Can you remember why the kit wasn’t tested? I mean, the kid identified as homosexual, and there was no evidence to suggest he was lying.”

  “We didn’t pay for it because we had a slam-dunk case. She was a dream witness on the stand. To be honest, I thought the family would pay to have it tested—if he was innocent, it would have exonerated him, but the family walked away. Big-money people from Houston, if I remember right. Enough cash for a good defense lawyer, and they just let him hang. That destroyed him in the media.”

  “No shit?” He made notes on his legal pad, because he was going to have to call the family and see if they would make a comment. “You think maybe it’s better to have a son in jail than a gay son?”

  “I think it’s better to have a son that disappears off the face of the earth than a dumpy nerd of a gay son with a rape accusation.”

  “Right.” Ouch. He got that, though. His people came from money on one side, and he would bet his grandpa would have tossed him under the proverbial bus. “Anything else you remember?”

  “Uh. The victim said she had not had consensual sex prior to the rape, clear evidence of nonconsensual sex at the hospital. The bastard did a number on her. The only witness Landry had on his side was a friend who said he saw Landry leave early.”

  “Is that in the case files?” That was someone Jayden ought to talk to as well.

  “I’m sure it is. I haven’t seen them in a hundred years.”

  “Thanks, Emily. I appreciate it.”

  “So what are you doing this for?” she asked. “You don’t do pro bono.”

  “Doing a favor for a good friend. He wanted me to give things a look.”

  “Ah, well, just remember that it was Judge Franklin who tried. You know how he, uh, feels about homosexuality.”

  “Yes. I do remember that. Thank goodness I was working in Travis, huh?”

  “Yep. He would have tossed out every case you brought to him, you giant queen.”

  They both laughed out loud, because Jayden didn’t hide his sexuality, but he never flaunted it when he was working.

  It was what it was.

  “Well, you know me.” He put his best drag queen voice on.

  “I do. You were a damned good prosecutor. Watch where you step with this one.”

  “I’m in private practice now, lady. I’m not worried.” Hell, he could use some trouble.

  “We should go to the Salt Lick sometime. Holler at me.” Emily loved her brisket.

  “Just holler. I’ll meet you. Thanks for the information.”

  “Anytime, hon.” She hung up like she always did, just a click. She was one of the old boys, and she had a reputation to uphold, but Jayden adored her.

  He wasn’t sure whether the kid was guilty or not, but he was sure Landry hadn’t had a fair shake. That meant Jayden would continue to look into the case, because while he loved an open and shut sort of trial, he hated it when a public defender let something as important as a rape kit slide. Not only did Landry lose if he went to jail for something he didn’t do, but if a rapist was still on the loose, well, how many women had he hurt?

  Jayden googled the family quickly. Houston high society. Dad was an oil man, Mom a well-educated socialite with political relations. He chewed his lower lip before grabbing his cell instead of his desk phone and calling his mom.

  She answered on the second ring. “Hello, baby. Has your brother called you?”

  “Uh, no. Was he supposed to?”

  “Eventually, yes. They’re pregnant. You’re going to be an uncle again.”

  “Oh, good deal. More babies to spoil.” He loved his niece and his two nephews. “How are you, Momma?”

  “Exceptional. I’m thinking about taking your father to Italy for our anniversary. How’s things in the private sector?”

  “Boring as fuck. Pardon my French.” God, he could remember the first time fuck had sprung from his momma’s l
adylike lips during his lifetime. His sixteenth birthday, when he’d crashed his brand-new truck into a tree. She’d just looked at him and screamed, “Well, fuck a duck.”

  “I warned you, baby boy. The money is fabulous, but the real estate law world is dusty as hell.”

  “Yep. Still, I’m not pinging your conscience by putting innocent folks in jail.”

  “No child is perfect.” Her chuckle was as right as rain, warm and happy and familiar as breathing. “So, what’s up with you, baby boy? Have you found the perfect man to sweep you off your feet?”

  “Nope. I think Micah cured me of that fantasy.” Beautiful, smart, wealthy, sexual—the ER doctor had been everything Jayden wanted right up to the minute the motherfucker admitted he was married and had two kids with a baby on the way.

  “I can still schedule a hit on him, you know.” His practical lady. She did make him smile.

  “Mmm. I’d rather let him live the life he deserves.” Jayden hated that he’d been duped. He prided himself on reading people, but Micah had really done a number on him. “I called about a society thing, actually.”

  “Yeah? Spill.” He heard the sharpness come into her voice, and he knew her eyes were gleaming with blue fire. Mom could be a terrier.

  “What do you know about Lucas and Margeanne Landry from Houston? Oil family.”

  “Hrm. Oil…. Oh, tall folks, blond. They have a pair of twin debutante daughters who both live up here. One of them is in law school, and the other is popping out little blond babies and selling real estate.”

  He could hear her tapping away. Research was Mom’s forte, and she could find out anything—especially with Pop’s help.

  “He’s got a net worth of fifty mil, like you said, oil, real estate. She’s into charity. The story is they lost a son to a terrible car accident, but a man of the same name and age was convicted of aggravated rape, and he’s incarcerated.”

  “Yeah. He just got out on parole, and I’m looking into it for a friend. Guy has maintained all along he didn’t do it. Can you poke some of your friends down there, see why they let him hang? There’s an untested rape kit they could have had independently examined.”

  “Huh. You know I hate that shit. Which public defender should I have killed?”