Nothing To Lose

He stared at her. “When did that happen? During the trial I could swear I heard you were attending the U. medical school, that you were close to graduation. I thought somebody told me you intended to specialize in pediatrics.”

If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he might have missed the quick spasm of misery that crossed her features before they became impassive again.

“Things change.”

“Wow. I’ll say. Law school now? That’s a major career shift.”

She absently fiddled with a sugar packet from the wire rack on the table. “Sometimes you think you have your life all nicely mapped out. Then fate picks you up, shakes you around until your teeth rattle, and plops you down on a completely different path.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t picture her as an attorney, starchy suit and case files and law books. The whole white coat–stethoscope thing seemed a much better fit.

He wasn’t sure why, he only knew that Dr. Taylor Bradshaw sounded much more natural to his ear than Taylor Bradshaw, Esquire.

“Why law?” he asked.

She paused for several seconds, her brow creased as if struggling to formulate an answer. She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, the waitress arrived their order.

“Here you go, doll,” the cheerful waitress said as she set Taylor’s taco salad in front of her with a flourish.

In all the times he had been here, Wyatt had never seen the woman with anything but a smile on her face.

“Let me tell you, that chicken is delish today. It’s always good but today the cook outdid himself. I had it for my own lunch and just about licked the plate clean.”

She handed Wyatt his pie with a wink. “And I don’t have to tell you how good the boysenberry pie is, since you order it just about every time you come in. Enjoy.”

She had just left when a group of three men walked past. One of them paused and did a double take at their booth as Wyatt was enjoying his first sweet taste of berries.

“Taylor? What are you doing here?”

Wyatt chewed and swallowed while he tried to suppress his irritation at recognizing the balding man in the high-dollar suit. At first glance, Martin James looked mild-mannered and unprepossessing. He was about the same height as Taylor, slightly pudgy, with smooth, pleasant features and warm brown eyes.

First impressions could be deceiving, though. In this case, the man was a shark in the courtroom, one of the most sought-after defense attorneys in the state. But even James’s reputation for dogged determination and creative representation hadn’t been enough to acquit at least one of his infamous clients—Hunter Bradshaw.

Taylor apparently didn’t hold a grudge at the man who had been unable to see her brother acquitted. She rose with delight on her features and kissed Martin James on his round cheek. “It’s Tuesday. I always visit on Tuesday, remember? What about you? Have you been to see Hunter?”

“No. I had an appointment with one of my other clients,” the attorney said. “If I had remembered Tuesdays were your day to visit, my dear, we could have driven out together.”

She smiled at the man with a familiarity that surprised Wyatt, until he remembered hearing during the trial that Martin James and Taylor’s late father, William Bradshaw, had been friends outside the courtroom.

“Thanks,” she answered, “but I didn’t feel much like being in a NASCAR time trial today.”

“Are you insinuating I drive too fast?” Martin asked her with mock offense.

“Not at all. I think the fingernail gouges in my thighs have almost healed from the last time I rode somewhere with you.”

Martin laughed and squeezed her hand.

As Wyatt watched, Taylor suddenly seemed to remember his presence.

“I’m sorry. Martin, this is Wyatt McKinnon.”

“We’ve met,” James said, all warmth gone from his voice and his features like a January cold snap. “McKinnon.”

He nodded with the same coolness. Hunter Bradshaw wasn’t the first client of Martin James whose story he had written. Wyatt’s second book, Eye of the Storm, had chronicled the kidnap and murder of Rebecca Jordan. Martin James had represented Rebecca’s husband, convicted of paying two teenagers to kill his wife. The attorney hadn’t been at all thrilled to show up in Eye of the Storm, especially as Wyatt had chronicled some of the backdoor wrangling that had gone on between attorneys involved in the case.

James had threatened to sue him for defamation of character, but the threats never went anywhere, since Wyatt had documentation that every word in his book had been true.

Taylor looked from one to the other as if trying to figure out what had sparked the sudden tension. “Wyatt is writing a book about Hunter’s case,” she told the attorney. who looked not at all surprised—or pleased—by the information.

“I know. Your brother told me he was talking to him.”

“Martin was a good friend of our father’s and represented Hunter at trial,” she explained to Wyatt, then winced. “I guess you would know that about the trial anyway. I forgot you were there. You would have seen him in the courtroom.”

“Right. How are you, Martin?” Wyatt asked.

“Fine. Busy. I’m up to my ears in cases.”

The affection on Taylor’s features hardened a little and she sent the attorney a pointed look. “That must be why you haven’t returned any of my calls or e-mails for the past two weeks.”

A trapped light entered Martin’s eyes and he suddenly looked as if he wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere far away. “I was out of town last week at a conference in Santa Barbara.”

“What about this week?”

Though the cornered look was still there in his eyes, Martin’s sigh was heavy and heartfelt. “I wish I had all the time in the world to devote to Hunter’s appeal, but I don’t. Your brother is not my only client, Taylor. You know that.”

She didn’t look appeased by his excuse. “How many of those other clients are fighting for their lives? Are any of the others on death row?” Her mouth tightened. “Are any of the others the son of one of your closest friends?”

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 of that jury wouldn’t have voted unanimously, first for conviction, then for the death penalty. You face staggering odds against overturning his conviction.”

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.

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