Jack had promised himself he wouldn’t let his feelings for her interfere with his mission of clearing his name. She’d deemed him guilty based on circumstantial evidence, paid witnesses and manufactured proof. How could he still want her when he felt so bitter? How could he be attracted to a woman he hadn’t been able to forgive? He couldn’t let it matter. Damn it, he couldn’t let her matter.
Survival had dictated his jailbreak. It had taken months of planning and physical conditioning. Every evening the inmates were herded into either the gymnasium or exercise yard to work off steam. It had been raining the night of his escape. The gymnasium was crowded. While one of the inmates he’d befriended created a diversion for the corrections officers, Jack had shimmied twenty feet up a water pipe mounted to the wall and climbed out the window. Once outside, he’d used the wire cutters he’d gotten from another inmate to traverse the concertina wire. He’d almost made it to the river when the dogs began to bay….
Shaking the memory from his head, he folded his hands in front of him, realizing for the first time how battered they were. The last two days were a blur of pain and cold, and he felt mildly shocked he’d survived at all. The bullet had put a deep graze in his shoulder, sparing the bone and joint, but leaving him weak from blood loss. He’d survived on little more than adrenaline and desperation. When those two things had waned, his memories of Landis sustained him the rest of the way.
She carried a cup of coffee to the table and set it in front of him. “You’ve never been stupid, Jack. You know the police will find you. You’re only making things worse by running.”
“There’s not a whole hell of a lot they can do to me that they haven’t already done. I’m a lifer, Landis.”
“They could kill you, for God’s sake.”
Jack looked down at his coffee, wondering if she realized there were times when he considered death a better alternative than spending his life behind bars.
Shaking her head, she took the chair across from him. “How can you possibly believe you’re going to get away?”
He returned her gaze, pulling back just in time to keep himself from tumbling into its emerald depths. He’d been in the cabin less than an hour and already she was getting to him. He’d thought he was over her. He’d thought the bitterness would keep him from wanting her. It galled him that he was wrong on both counts.
“Maybe getting away isn’t my goal,” he said.
Landis remained silent, looking at him like a cat that had been kicked by a cruel child.
“On the night Evan died,” Jack began, “he left a voice message, asking me to meet him at the warehouse where Duke’s people had been operating. Allegedly, there was a shipment of cocaine coming in from L.A. Sixty kilos of Peruvian flake. Uncut. Evan was supposed to keep his mouth shut. But this stuff was pure. White death for anyone who didn’t know what they were getting into. He was afraid it was going to hit the street and start killing people. So he told me about it.” Jack remembered his partner’s voice as if it were yesterday. The memory still wielded the power to make his hands shake.
“I know the story, Jack. All this information came out during your trial. There was no shipment of cocaine.” Tucking a shock of flame-colored hair behind her ear, Landis sighed wearily. “I’ve gone over it in my head a hundred times. I even reviewed the transcripts.”
“Things have changed since the trial,” Jack said. “You hear things in prison, Landis. Bad things. Things I suspected all along, but couldn’t prove.”
“Like what?”
“Like Evan wasn’t the only cop who knew about the shipment.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“There are cops on the take. Salt Lake City cops. Sheriff’s office. DEA. Customs—”
“Even if you can prove corruption, that doesn’t exonerate you.”
“It will if I can prove someone inside the department set me up to take the fall.”
“Who, Jack? What proof?”
He sighed in frustration. “I don’t have anything solid yet. Just a few pieces of the puzzle. I need some time to work it. I’ve got to talk to some of my old snitches.”
“Nothing you’ve told me disputes the fact that your revolver was the gun that killed Evan or that over fifty thousand dollars somehow found its way into your bank account. It doesn’t dispute the two witnesses who put you at the scene the night Evan was killed.”
His temper flared with the accusation. “Two witnesses I’ve since tied to Duke. That reeks of setup and you know it.”
“You haven’t given me a single fact I wasn’t already aware of,” she shot back. “Your story sounds desperate and pathetic, and I don’t believe a word of it.”
Reining in anger, Jack looked down at his coffee and concentrated on the warmth radiating into his hands. Frustration hammered through him that he didn’t have any solid evidence. All he could offer was his own gut instinct and the word of a dead convict who’d talked too many times to the wrong person. Unfortunately, Landis had never been big on gut instinct.
“Evan was dying when I reached him that night,” he said. “He’d taken two slugs. He was bleeding. Scared. In shock. He kept trying to talk. I tried to quiet him, but he wouldn’t listen. Damn hardheaded cop—”
Shaken, he broke off. The room felt overly warm. Chills wracked his body, but sweat streamed down his back. A curse escaped his lips when he realized he’d reached the end of his physical endurance. His concentration was shot. He wasn’t sure why he was talking, dredging up the past. He could barely speak. But there was so much to say. So many emotions tangled inside him.
So much at stake.
Jack raised his eyes to hers. It tore at his heart to see the shimmer of tears. She still mourned her brother. He wondered if there was any grief left over for him. For the part of him that died that night.
“Evan had seen enough shootings to know he was dying,” he continued. “I guess the cop in me expected him to use those last minutes to name his killer, but he didn’t. Instead he used the last of his strength to make sure I knew about that telephone call he’d made to you.”
Across from him, Landis went perfectly still, as if knowing something terrible was about to be flung her way. “Evan and I were close,” she said. “He called to tell me he loved me. I testified—”
“Did he often call at midnight to tell you he loved you?”
She blinked at him. “Well, no.”
“He knew he was a marked man. He called to tell you something.”
“Why didn’t he? For God’s sake, why didn’t he tell me he was in trouble? Why didn’t he tell you he was in trouble and ask for your help?”
The latter question hit a nerve. It always did. But Jack didn’t let himself react. He would spend the rest of his life wondering if Evan might still be alive if the trust between them had been stronger. “I can’t speak for Evan. Maybe he didn’t trust me enough. Maybe he didn’t want to drag me into it. But, Landis, he knew they were going to kill him. That’s the only scenario that fits.”
“Who?”
“Cyrus Duke.” He clenched his jaw against the pain spreading down his arm like hot lava. He ached to get out of his wet clothes and fall into a warm bed for a few hours to recoup. He needed to eat to regain his strength. But he couldn’t stop now. She was listening. If only he could make her believe.
“Evan tried to play both sides of the coin,” he said. “He wanted the money. But he also wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Evan