Martin glared at her. “That’s not fair.”
Taylor drew in a breath, and Wyatt watched her visible attempts at calm.
“You’re right, it’s not,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, Martin. I know you did your very best for Hunter during the trial. I’m just not ready to give up yet.”
“Who said anything about giving up? I’m working up several briefs for his appeal and should be filing them anytime now.”
“Did you get those citations I sent you? People v. Loden and California v. Junger?”
“Yes. I haven’t had a chance to properly determine relevance but I’ll put one of my associates on it right away, I promise.”
“That’s what you said with the last cites I sent you, and so far I haven’t heard anything from you. Martin, I need your help. I can’t do this by myself.”
Martin brushed a hand over her hair in a gesture of both comfort and affection. “I know, shortcake. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to give this my whole attention the past few months. I haven’t forgotten Hunter’s appeal—how could I? Let’s meet next week for a strategy session and we can go over everything you’ve found. Does Monday night work for you?”
“I have a class that night. What about Tuesday?”
“Sounds good. Listen, I’ve got to run. Judy’s got tickets to Ballet West tonight and I’ve got a dozen things to do before I can break away. She’ll skin me alive if I’m late.”
“Give her my love,” Taylor said.
“You need to come for dinner sometime soon. I remember what being a second-year was like—you need to keep your strength up.”
“I know. Thanks.”
Martin kissed her cheek, gave Wyatt a curt nod, then hurried out of the diner, leaving the scent of some kind of smooth, undoubtedly expensive cologne behind him.
Wyatt stared after him, his mind processing the interaction between the lawyer and Taylor Bradshaw. Suddenly all the pieces clicked into place.
“That’s why you switched to law school.”
She paused in the middle of taking a sip of cola to blink at him. “Excuse me?”
“Hunter. You quit medical school so you can devote yourself to helping your brother appeal his conviction.”
She set her glass down quickly as if it contained rat poison. For several long seconds she said nothing, then she faced him, her chin lifted—with determination or defiance, he wasn’t sure.
“All the medical degrees in the world won’t help me save my brother’s life.”
He wasn’t sure why her sacrifice bothered him so much. Whatever she did wasn’t any of his business—he barely knew the woman. She could decide to pitch a tent in the parking lot of the prison and his opinion wouldn’t matter a whit. Still, for some reason it stung like a fresh blister that she had decided to give up her dream on such a hopeless quest.
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish as a second-year law student that Martin James—one of the most successful litigators in the western United States—couldn’t manage to do?”
“I don’t know. But I have to try. I can’t sit by and do nothing.”
“What does Hunter think about this whole thing?”
She shrugged. “He’s not happy about it, but he understands it’s something I have to do. You have no idea what its like to feel completely powerless to help someone you love.”
“Don’t I?” he murmured, clearly seeing the image never far from the surface—of a sweet little curly-blond-haired girl disappearing in a puff of exhaust while her skinny, gawky older brother frantically dug through sunbaked grass for the broken shards of his glasses.
He thought of how both he and Gage had never given up hope of finding their little sister. They had worked relentlessly over the years, following cold leads, looking for patterns, trying to see inside the mind of the sort of person who might commit such a heinous act against an innocent child and her family.
In the twenty-three years since he had last seen Charlotte running through the sprinklers of their Las Vegas front yard, he had never stopped loving her, missing her, searching for her. He had never given up—nor would he—and he knew Gage felt the same.
He couldn’t fault Taylor for her passionate effort to do anything necessary to appeal her brother’s conviction. How could he, when he had spent more than two decades chasing the ghost of his little sister?
“I couldn’t live with myself if I sat by and did nothing.” Taylor continued. “Hunter is innocent. No matter how strong the state’s case was against him, I will never believe otherwise.”
He studied her in the bright fluorescent lights of the diner. “You believe it strongly enough to change the entire course of your life?”
“How could I possibly go out into the world and try to save the lives of strangers, knowing that I did absolutely nothing to save the life of my own brother?”
“Do you miss med school?”
To his chagrin, her smile looked a little wobbly. “Like crazy,” she answered quietly, picking at her salad. “I’ve never wanted to be anything but a doctor, from the time I was a little girl. But I can always go back to med school once he’s free again. Hunter is worth any sacrifice.”
Wyatt couldn’t help comparing her devoted relationship with her brother to his own relationship with Gage. His brother, three years older, was an FBI agent assigned to the Salt Lake field office. Until a few months earlier when their paths had intersected again, they had had a polite relationship but little more than that. In most respects, they were strangers.
Once Gage had been his hero. Wyatt had idolized his older brother and wanted nothing more than to be just like him. Gage had been well-liked, athletic, the epitome of cool to his awkward nerd of a kid brother.
Charlotte’s kidnapping when he was nine and Gage twelve had changed everything. Each of them had retreated into a lonely world of remorse, regret. Guilt.
The strain and grief had been too much for their parents’ marriage and Sam and Lynn McKinnon eventually split up a year after the kidnapping that had ripped apart their world.
In what Wyatt was sure they considered a fair and logical arrangement at the time, Gage had stayed with their father in Las Vegas while Wyatt had been forced to pack up his books and his chemistry set and return with Lynn to her family’s ranch in Utah.
He had always felt that he had effectively lost not only a sister but a brother the day Charlotte was kidnapped.
He saw Gage only a handful of times during the rest of his childhood. His brother seemed to prefer things that way; their few encounters over the years had been marked by awkwardness and unease.
A few months after Gage moved back to Utah earlier in the summer, he was seriously injured during an attempt to arrest a suspect, and had met his fiancée Allie and her girls during his rehabilitation. In the process, Wyatt and his brother had begun to rebuild a relationship eroded over the years by time and distance.
He was rediscovering his brother, the strong, decent man he had admired so much during his early years, and he had to admit he was thoroughly enjoying the process.
He couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Taylor to have her brother’s pending execution hanging over her head.
“You called me quixotic,” she said at his pensive silence. “You think I’m tilting at windmills here, don’t you?”
He wanted to give her hope but he knew there was very little of that where Hunter Bradshaw was concerned. “You said it yourself. The case against your brother was a strong one, or twelve members