Turned out Daniel didn’t agree. He shared Raleigh’s concern about a scandal being detrimental to Project Justice, and he didn’t allow anything to get in the way of the foundation’s efforts to free wrongly convicted men and women from prison. But he also cared about Mitch, who had been one of the first people Daniel had hired when he and his father had started the foundation.
After Mitch had stormed down the hall toward the elevator, Beth had returned to her little laboratory, the place where she felt most comfortable. Fingerprints, fibers and blood didn’t argue. They spoke only the truth. They weren’t all that complicated.
Men—Mitch, in particular—were.
But she hadn’t been in the lab ten minutes before Daniel called her.
“You want me to try again to convince Mitch to cooperate?” Beth asked, almost before Daniel had said two words.
“You’re the one who knows him the best, Beth,” Daniel said. “I’m in the middle of a Logan Oil board meeting, or I would track him down myself and talk some sense into him.”
Those were pretty strong words, coming from Daniel, who seldom left his estate unless it was for something really important. His new wife, Jamie, was in the process of pulling him out of his shell, but old habits died hard.
“Apparently I don’t know him as well as I thought,” Beth huffed. “Coot’s Bayou? He’s never said a word to me about his hometown. Or his half brother. Or his arrest record.”
“He had good reasons for wanting to put that part of his life behind him, Beth. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He grew up under pretty harsh conditions and it’s not something he wants to think about.”
“He’s sure trying to run from it now.”
“He can be convinced to do the right thing, I know he can. He’s smart, just bullheaded sometimes. Mitch cares about you and respects you. He’ll listen to you if you try one more time.”
Beth wasn’t so sure. But despite his reclusive ways, her billionaire boss understood human nature better than most anyone Beth knew.
“If you really think it will help, I’ll try.” She would simply have to put her disastrous attempt at dating Mitch out of her mind. He was, first and foremost, her friend. He needed her, even if he didn’t know it.
“Do it now. Because frankly, if you don’t convince him, I’m going to have to tell him to take a leave of absence from work.”
Beth stifled a gasp. “Daniel, he didn’t—”
“I know he didn’t kill anyone,” Daniel said impatiently. “But we have lots of innocent people depending on us. Having one of our key employees accused of murder, no matter how ridiculous the charge, could damage us beyond repair. I will stand behind Mitch a hundred percent. But I won’t have him dragged off in cuffs from our offices, in front of TV cameras. Which is exactly what could happen if Mitch doesn’t cooperate.”
Beth swallowed, her mouth going dry. She’d known things could get bad for Mitch, and for everyone who worked at Project Justice as well as their clients. Why didn’t Mitch see it?
“I’ll go right now, Daniel. I’ll find him. I’ll convince him.”
She tried calling Mitch’s cell, then his home, but got voice mail both times. He was very good at ignoring a ringing phone when he didn’t want to talk. “You can run, but you can’t hide,” Beth murmured as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door, putting her assistant, Cassie, in charge for the rest of the afternoon.
Mitch’s house was less than ten miles from downtown and close to the I-610 loop, but it had kind of a rural feel, with a cow pasture across the street and an oil field next door.
Rush hour hadn’t gotten a good grip on the city at three in the afternoon, so the trip to his home only took a few minutes. She pulled into the driveway and saw that his Harley was there. Good. But she didn’t get out right away. She sat in the car, composing in her mind exactly what she would say to him.
By following him home, she was pushing the bounds of their friendship. But she couldn’t sit back and allow him to be railroaded right into prison. Her job had presented her with too many examples of innocent men and women, accused of crimes, who had made their situations so much worse by going into denial.
Mitch’s house was cute, Beth had to admit, even if the locale wasn’t ideal. The white brick house had red shutters and a trellis shading the front porch, on which grew trumpet vine and morning glories poised to burst into bloom. Mitch kept everything in good repair, but Beth couldn’t help thinking, as she mounted the front steps, that the place could use a woman’s touch.
She rang the bell. When he didn’t answer after a few moments, she rang again and knocked. “Mitch? I know you’re in there. You better just come to the door, because I’m not leaving. We have to talk.”
Still nothing. No sound.
Determined, she walked around the house and let herself into the backyard through the gate in the honeysuckle-choked chain-link fence. The patio and yard were empty, but she found the sliding glass door unlocked.
Nervous sweat broke out on her upper lip as she opened it. “Mitch?”
She was about to go inside when she heard something, a strange noise punctuating the silence.
Smack, smack, smack. And the unmistakable sound of a human male exerting himself. The noise was not coming from inside the house, but behind her. From the yard…no, beyond the yard. Beyond the fence, into the otherwise still oil field.
What the hell?
Curiosity killed the cat, she reminded herself as she abandoned the sliding glass door and went in search of the source of the sound.
The back gate had been left ajar. As a trained crime scene investigator, she should have noticed that before. Mindful of her heels on the uneven ground, she crept through the gate and followed the strange sounds to another fence, a beat-up chain-link enclosure surrounding an old grasshopper pump.
She could see no way in, so she cleared away some of the tall weeds and peered through the gap she’d created.
Her breath caught in her throat. Finally she’d found Mitch, and he appeared to be beating the crap out of a punching bag, pounding it with his fists, bare feet, elbows and knees.
She was at once fascinated and horrified. Here was a male in the prime of his health and vitality, shirtless, muscles rippling and sheened with sweat. He was beautiful…and terrifying.
Her jaw throbbed and she rubbed it, trying hard not to think about the damage Mitch’s fists could do to a human being.
Suddenly he growled like a wild animal and rushed at the punching bag headfirst, hitting it so hard that it disconnected from the chain and crashed to the broken concrete at the base of the pump. The chain that had held it suspended whipped around and struck Mitch in the shoulder, but he seemed to not notice. He was intent on doing more damage to the bag, kicking it savagely with his heel. Then he jumped on top of it and beat it a few more times with his fists.
She must have made some kind of noise, because he slowly stilled his fists, then turned his head and looked right at her.
Embarrassed to have been caught staring at what should have been a private moment for Mitch, she wanted to shrink back behind the weeds and creep away. But it was too late.
“Beth?” He looked both surprised and…yes, apprehensive.
“I c-couldn’t find you and I heard something strange,” she stammered out. “I didn’t mean to spy but, Mitch…” She gained a bit of confidence when he didn’t aim his obvious anger at her. “What the hell is all this?”
Gasping for