“Then he didn’t read it closely enough. Kelly and I dated in high school. It didn’t work out....” A fleeting sadness crossed her features, but she quickly masked it. “But we’ve remained friends. We’ve known each other since preschool. I’ve become his champion because there’s no one else and because he deserves to have a voice. He’s not violent.”
Eric was going to have to tell her all of it. Otherwise, she wasn’t going to give up and go away. A woman like her—intelligent, well-spoken—could cause trouble for Project Justice just by telling some reporter that Daniel had gone back on his word. He owed it to the foundation to make sure she didn’t do that.
And he owed it to her. He couldn’t let her go on deluding herself, wasting her time, energy and money on someone who wasn’t worth it.
“I know more of Kelly Ralston than you think. I know him personally, in fact.”
“Wait. What?” She searched his face as if trying to find something familiar about him. “You aren’t on his defense team. I know all of those lawyers.”
“I know him in a different capacity. Actually...I served time with him.”
She looked horrified. “You’re an ex-con?”
“My conviction was overturned. But that’s immaterial. What matters is that I know Kelly Ralston. Rather well. And I can vouch for the fact that he is, indeed, violent.”
“What, because he got into fights in the prison yard? As I understand it, that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t defend yourself, you— Well, I’m sure you know what happens to the guys at the bottom of the food chain.”
She was right about that, and unfortunately, he did know. Prisoners went for the weak ones, like lions picking out the weak impala in a herd. He’d had to toughen up fast.
“Do you know what a shiv is, Bree?”
“Yes, of course. It’s a homemade knife.”
“I witnessed Kelly Ralston attack someone with a shiv.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He hadn’t wanted to go this far, but she’d forced his hand. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was laced with suspicion.
“Just bear with me.” He pulled the tie off, then began unbuttoning his shirt.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Stop it.”
“Don’t worry, Bree, your virtue is safe. But I need to show you something, because clearly the only way you’re going to believe me is if you see the evidence with your own eyes.”
Her whole body tensed as he yanked off his shirt, then pulled his undershirt over his head.
“Oh.” All the wind went out of her sails as she stared at the ugly scar that ran nearly fifteen inches in a diagonal path from his left shoulder to the right side of his abdomen.
“Yeah, oh.” He hadn’t shown the scar to anyone other than the doctor who’d treated him in prison. “Kelly Ralston did that to me. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t in self-defense. I was stupid enough to try to prevent a fight, and this is what happened to me. I got a staph infection from it, too. I almost died. So when I say Ralston almost killed me, I’m not exaggerating.”
CHAPTER TWO
BREE COULDN’T SEEM to do anything but stare at Eric Riggs’s bare chest. The first coherent thought that came into her mind was, Damn, this guy has one hot bod, quickly followed by the realization that her observation was inappropriate.
Then she saw the scar. “You’re saying Kelly Ralston—my Kelly Ralston—did that to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Someone chose that moment to walk into the small lounge, a woman about Bree’s age dressed in an off-the-shoulder sweater, hot-pink jeans and platform shoes. Her blond hair was in one of those chic bobs that moved with her, then fell right back into place.
The woman skidded to a stop, took in Eric’s state of undress and backed out of the room with her eyes closed. “Don’t mind me. I was never here.”
“Great,” Eric muttered as he quickly pulled his undershirt back on and shoved his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. “Wonder how long it’ll take Jillian to spread this all over the office grapevine.”
“Well, don’t blame me,” Bree groused. “You’re the one who chose to perform a striptease.”
“Only because you refused to believe me without proof.”
“Who says I believe you? You could have gotten that scar some other way.”
“Why would I make up something like this?”
“I don’t know.” That was the problem. She didn’t know. If Project Justice didn’t want to take on Kelly’s case, they could have just rejected her application. They could pick and choose which cases they wanted to devote their energies to. Sadly, there was no shortage of innocent people behind bars.
Eric finished dressing, knotting his shimmery blue tie just so. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Okay, fine. For the sake of argument, let’s assume Kelly really did attack you in prison, unprovoked. That doesn’t mean he committed the crime he was convicted for.”
“He did, though.” Eric took a deep breath, almost as if trying to draw strength. “He confessed to his crime, to anyone who would listen, in excruciating detail. And he bragged of the murders he’d committed for which he was never arrested. Multiple women. Brutal attacks.”
That stopped Bree. She couldn’t immediately come up with a handy reason why Kelly would do such a thing. He had always adamantly professed his innocence. “You’re lying.”
Eric shrugged. “Believe what you will.”
Bree quickly returned to safer territory—the argument she had rehearsed. “If you would just review the facts—if you would just talk to Philomene—you would have no choice but to believe Kelly is innocent.”
“Lay it out for me,” he said with obvious reluctance.
“They picked up Kelly because he was walking in Philomene’s neighborhood with no obvious destination in mind right after she called 911. He never admitted guilt—”
“Not to you.”
“He never admitted to knowing Philomene. They put him in a lineup, and Philomene identified him. There was no physical evidence linking Kelly to the case. And, in fact, his DNA does not match the sample collected from one of the other murders thought to be part of the serial killer’s pattern. But when that result came in, the police decided to separate that one case out from the others and claimed it must be unrelated, even though the M.O. was exactly the same.
“They took Kelly to court, and Philomene again identified him as her attacker and even added a couple of details she claimed to have remembered, like his tattoo. It was an easy victory for the prosecution.”
“Sounds like it. A credible witness is very hard to overlook. She had no motive for lying about it, especially since she didn’t even know him.”
“So flash forward to a couple of months ago,” Bree continued. “I’m working in the emergency room at the county hospital when Philomene comes in—”
“Working at the E.R. in what capacity?”
“Physician.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize...”
“Yes, you’ve already demonstrated that you’re remarkably badly briefed on this case. Anyway, this woman comes in having an acute