“I know you don’t trust me.” He stepped toward her. “But I need your help.”
She took a reflexive step back, knowing immediately it was a tactical error. Never show weakness. Never give up ground. Not in the courtroom. Not in any situation. They were the rules of her trade, and she followed them unerringly. Too bad she hadn’t been as successful in assimilating them into her personal life.
But she’d forgotten how tall he was. Thinner than she remembered, but it wasn’t for lack of muscle. He looked hard-as-rock and lean as a marathon runner. A year ago, she might have been taken in by his muscular physique and that reckless glint in his eyes. Tonight, the cold reality of what he’d done blurred the sweet memory of how good things had once been between them.
Forcing back the memories, Landis raised her chin and met his gaze. “You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t be—”
“I shouldn’t be a lot of things.” Bitterness laced his voice. He’d never been a bitter man, but she supposed there were worse fates for a convicted murderer. “I shouldn’t be in prison for starters.”
Her temper stirred. She didn’t like mind games. She didn’t like being frightened. Or lied to. Especially when it came to the man who murdered her brother. “In my business I hear that so often it makes me sick.”
“Still putting them away, are you?”
“I happen to believe people like you belong in prison.”
“That’s my girl. A lawyer first—a human being second. Your daddy did a real number on you, didn’t he?”
Her heart kicked with another jab of anger. She didn’t want to discuss her father or what he’d done. Not with a man whose betrayal had cut her even deeper than her old man’s.
“Have you lost your mind or merely your sense of decency?”
“I lost any decency I might have had the day they put me in a cage.”
“Maybe you should have considered the consequences before you committed murder.”
He raked a shaking hand through his hair. “I’m sure this is going to throw a wrench into your undying faith in the criminal justice system, but I didn’t kill Evan. Someone set me up. The money. The gun. The bogus witnesses. I tried to tell you—”
“I’ve heard this before. I didn’t believe it then—I don’t believe it now. Nothing has changed since your trial.”
“Everything has changed,” he said quietly. “I can prove it now, but I need some time to do it.”
The night of the murder skittered through her mind. She winced with pain, then fury rumbled through her with such force she felt it all the way to her belly. She wasn’t a violent person, but she wanted to hurt him. He’d caused her so much pain. He’d taken so much away from her. First her heart. Then her brother.
“You were his partner, for God’s sake. He trusted you. I trusted you.” The need to strike out nearly overpowered her, but she maintained control if only by a thread. “I’d have to be insane to believe anything you say now.”
“I thought you might want to hear the truth,” he said. “I never had you pegged as a hypocrite, but Lord knows I’ve been wrong about you in the past. You claim to love the law so much. Maybe you believe in your beloved laws when it’s convenient. When they suit your needs. When it’s easy. Or maybe you hide behind justice when you’re not brave enough to face the truth.”
The words sliced her like a blade. It outraged her that he would take the one thing she truly believed in and use it to manipulate her. “It was your revolver that killed Evan. You took money from a known criminal. Two witnesses placed you at the murder scene. What am I supposed to believe with such overwhelming evidence staring me in the face?”
“You of all people should know the truth isn’t always handed over on a platter,” he said. “Reality isn’t that neat.”
“Don’t preach to me about reality. Of the two of us I’d say I’m a hell of a lot more grounded in reality than you. Damn it, Jack, what were you thinking breaking out of prison?”
As if the weight of the world suddenly settled on his shoulders, he sagged against the wall. The unpredictable light went out of his eyes, and Landis felt a new kind of tension tighten in her chest. For an instant he looked incredibly vulnerable, as if the odds stacked against him had finally worn him down and crushed him.
An alarm trilled in her head when she saw fresh blood coming through his shirt. He looked pale and shaken, but far too dangerous to touch. Like a snarling, wounded animal.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“I’ve got worse problems than that.”
For a fleeting instant she wanted to reach out and offer comfort. Just as quickly, she shoved the notion away, telling herself that caring for him would not only be self-destructive, but dangerous. He was no longer a detective with the Salt Lake City Police Department. He was no longer a free man. And he was certainly no longer the man who’d stolen her heart.
Jack LaCroix was a cold-blooded murderer.
“Don’t shut me out, Landis.” He reached out with his uninjured arm and traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. “At least listen to me. Hear me out. That’s all I’m asking.”
Angered by the contact, she slapped his hand away. She knew better than to trust him. He’d lied to her, taken her heart and torn it to shreds, then proceeded to turn her life upside down. She refused to put herself on the line again. Certainly not for a man who wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again.
“You could have left the country, Jack. What could you possibly want from me?” The instant the words were out she regretted them, realized she didn’t want to know.
“You’re the only person I know who gives a damn about the truth,” he said. “At least you used to.”
He stood so close she could smell the sweat and dirt and the lingering redolence of panic. His gaze pierced her so that she couldn’t look away. If she hadn’t known better, Landis might have been taken in. His bedroom eyes and whiskey-smooth voice could be very convincing. But she’d learned the hard way that he was a capable liar and master manipulator. She wasn’t foolish enough to fall into the same trap a second time.
“I can’t help you,” she said. “I won’t.”
Jack flinched, closed his eyes briefly. He looked miserable. Cold. Dirty. She watched, stunned, as a single drop of blood rolled off his fingertips and splattered on the floor. That he didn’t notice told her a lot about his frame of mind.
“You’ve got to turn yourself in,” she said.
Something dark flickered behind his eyes. “I’m a dead man if I go back.”
“By the looks of you, you’re not far from that now. For God’s sake, you were under appeal. How could you be so stupid—”
“Duke put a contract on me.”
The words stopped her cold. Cyrus Duke was Salt Lake City’s most infamous drug kingpin. With roots running from Miami’s seedy underworld to his hierarchy in Los Angeles, he was powerful, ruthless and completely untouchable.
“Why would Duke put a hit on you?” she asked.
“He knows I’m going to take him down.”
“You’re not a cop anymore. You weren’t a threat to him in prison. You’re certainly not a threat now.”
“As long as I’m alive, I’m a threat. He knows I’m close to getting the goods to nail him.”
Landis didn’t buy it. She wouldn’t even consider it. The repercussions were too far-reaching. Jack had