Her eyes darkened with emotion at his words. “I know all that. But I have to try, Wyatt. I’m all he has.”
Taylor heard the raw desperation in her voice and wanted to cringe. So much for coming off confident and assured. She sounded like a crazed zealot. Her goal was to convince Wyatt McKinnon she had evidence proving Hunter’s innocence, not treat him to these maudlin displays of drama.
She had a fierce need for a little distance, and excused herself to hurry to the ladies’ room.
Martin was partly to blame, she thought. His behavior today was nothing new. Since the trial he had been evasive and hedgy. Whenever she tried to work with him on the appeal, she was inevitably shuffled to some associate or other. It was like trying to nail down the breeze.
She knew the attorney had taken Hunter’s conviction hard, had seen it as a personal failure. She didn’t—she knew Martin had worked tirelessly to see Hunter acquitted. She just wished she could get the same effort out of him for the appeal.
In the small ladies’ room, she gazed at herself in the round mirror and was horrified to see her coloring was blotchy and her eyes looked on the verge of tears. That was the problem with having auburn hair and pale skin—she could never hide her emotions. She blushed as easily as she could go deathly pale.
Out there in the diner she might have been only on the verge of tears, with not a single drop shed, but she still looked as if she’d been on a three-day crying jag.
Taylor spent several moments repairing her makeup and forcing herself to take slow, steady breaths until she felt once more in control, then returned to their booth.
She slid across from Wyatt. To her chagrin, she felt watery all over again at the look of concern on his lean features.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually such an emotional wreck,” she felt compelled to explain. “Visits to the prison are…difficult for me.”
“I understand. I admire you for coming back week after week.”
“I would say it gets easier but that would be a lie. I hated it as much today as I did the very first time I visited.”
Taylor tried to swallow some of her salad, aware she didn’t have much time before she would have to leave for her study group. “So when you interview family members of convicted murderers, what do you usually talk about?”
“Any insights they want to offer into why the crime happened. Some people blame it on difficult childhoods, others bring up failed relationships. It varies. I usually let the interviewee lead the conversation. If you talk to me, you can bring up anything you’d like that might help me understand your brother.”
She could offer a hundred stories about how her brother had always protected her, how he had invariably stood between her and any threat, whatever the risk to himself. Telling any of them to Wyatt would be difficult, though, would expose dark family secrets she didn’t like to even remember, let alone reveal to anyone else.
If she had to, she would tell him, though. Just not here. Not now.
“There is evidence that never came out in the trial, for various reasons,” she said instead. “Evidence I believe proves his innocence beyond any reasonable doubt.”
He looked intrigued. “What kind of evidence?”
“I have a whole room full of folders and a computer full of files. If I agree to talk to you for your book, give you whatever information you might be seeking about our family life or whatever, withholding nothing, will you at least look at what I have—really look at it—and judge his guilt or innocence for yourself?”
“Of course. Even if you don’t want to be interviewed for the book I would still want to look at anything you have. Arriving at the truth is my ultimate goal as a writer. I wouldn’t be any kind of researcher if I ignored important details that might help me get there.”
Could it really be that easy? She hadn’t even had to bargain with him—the curiosity in his eyes told her he meant what he said, that he would look at her collection of evidence without her having to bare any painful details of their childhood.
Relief swamped her like a warm, comforting tide. This could work. Kate’s idea had been nothing less than inspired. This man, with his clever mind and his insightful prose, could be a powerful ally.
Now all she had to do was hope that Wyatt could look at the evidence with an objective eye, untainted by the damning testimony offered during the trial.
She could always hope. She’d become an expert at that over the last thirty months.
Chapter 4
“You can’t desert me, Kate,” Taylor exclaimed. “This whole crazy thing was your idea!”
“Oh, no. Don’t pin this one on me.” Kate laughed. “I only suggested you talk to the man, try to get him on your side. The whole home-cooked dinner, wine and candlelight routine was completely your idea.”
“I didn’t cook anything! It’s only takeout lasagna from La Trattoria. You think it’s too much, don’t you. It’s too much. I knew it was. Okay, he won’t be here for another half hour. I can just clear everything away, throw it all back in the fridge.”
She reached for the place settings she had just spent ten minutes neurotically and meticulously arranging, but Kate grabbed her hands, laughter brimming in her blue eyes.
She squeezed her fingers. “Relax, Tay. I was only teasing you. Dinner is a great idea to soften him up. No man in his right mind can resist La Trat’s lasagna.”
Taylor pulled her hands free and let them fall to her side, mostly to keep from wringing them. “I’m not good at this stuff. You know I’m not.”
“What stuff? I thought you were just meeting with the man to talk about Hunter’s case.”
Kate raised a knowing eyebrow and Taylor felt heat scorch her cheeks at her own transparency.
“We are. It’s just…he’s just…” She blew out a breath.
Kate grinned. “What? Too gorgeous for his own good?”
Her cheeks heated up a notch. “That too.”
Kate’s lighthearted teasing gave way to a worried expression. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Careful of what?”
“I haven’t seen you like this about anyone since Rob. I just don’t want you to be hurt again.”
Taylor rearranged the place settings again, refusing to meet Kate’s all-too-knowing gaze. “The situations aren’t at all the same. Rob was a complete jerk.”
“A jerk you were seriously thinking about marrying.”
“In one of my more idiotic moments. Good thing I found out how shallow and ambitious he was in time, right? At the first sign of trouble he decided the woman he claimed to be passionately in love with wasn’t nearly as important as his future political aspirations.”
Hours after Hunter was arrested, when Taylor was been reeling from shock and disbelief, Rob Llewelyn had dumped her. He had his whole life mapped out, he had informed her with a self-righteousness that still made her burn at her own foolishness. First the state legislature, then a congressional seat, and after that, the sky was the limit.
Someone in his position had to be above reproach. He couldn’t afford this kind of negative guilt by association, he told her. This was already shaping up to be a huge scandal and he couldn’t have even a whiff of it tainting his future.
“Rob didn’t hurt me,” she said automatically, as she always did. “I had a lucky escape.”
Though she believed the second part of her statement, the first part wasn’t strictly true, she had to admit. Kate knew it too. Taylor might not have been