Baby Breakout (7 page)

Sheriff York wouldn’t accept his money, but there were some other officers who weren’t as honorable as he was.

“You’re not going to get away with all the crimes you committed,” York advised him.

He chuckled at the man’s naïveté. He’d been surprised and disappointed that a man this young had won the election for sheriff of Blackwoods County. But York wouldn’t last in politics, since he had no idea what the real world was like. “You might be surprised…”

James was surprised. His lawyer, Rick Breuker, had called him with the news that the police had been dispatched to Kleyn’s lawyer’s office. And a dead body had been discovered.

Breuker, who had connections in law enforcement, believed the body belonged to the lawyer, Marcus Leighton. And Kleyn was the number-one suspect, proving wrong the DEA agent’s claims of the inmate’s innocence, as well as confirming how dangerous Kleyn was to anyone who crossed his path.

That shoot-on-sight order was certain to be carried out now. Kleyn wouldn’t be apprehended; he would be dead.

Soon.

Jefferson James had offered an
unofficial
reward for Kleyn’s demise to ensure the convict’s fate. And once the number-one witness for the prosecution was dead, the case against Jefferson was certain to fall apart. He wouldn’t be behind these bars much longer before York would be opening the door for James, not to take a phone call but to go home.

To his daughter…

Emily had yet to come visit him, but with the reporters hounding her, maybe she just didn’t dare leave the house. When Jefferson was freed, he would explain to her that it had all been a horrible misunderstanding. That the only thing he was really guilty of was loving her and wanting to provide for her…

The sheriff studied him through narrowed eyes. “You’re up to something…”

Maybe the guy wasn’t as naïve as Jefferson had thought. But it wouldn’t matter. By the time he figured out the plan, it would be too late for the sheriff to step in and play hero.

Nobody would be able to save Jedidiah Kleyn this time.

* * *

T
HE
CONTINGENCY
PLAN
…

He had intended to destroy the files relating to Kleyn’s murder case, just as he had destroyed the lawyer who had ineffectually defended Jedidiah Kleyn so that he had been sentenced to prison for two lifetimes.

Because Marcus Leighton had been so incompetent, he hadn’t thought there would actually be anything of value in that file. He hadn’t thought that the man had had the balls to hold out on
him
. But Marcus had been keeping a secret, maybe out of guilt or maybe out of misplaced loyalty to Jed.

So he was glad that he’d been thorough, that he’d gone through every paper and scribbled note in the folder before torching it. He had found information in those case files that he could use to finally bring Jedidiah Kleyn to his knees.

War hadn’t hurt the man. Neither had prison. But now he knew what would.

Hurting his daughter. Losing her, before he’d ever gotten a chance to spend any time with her, would finally push Jedidiah Kleyn over the edge.

Then, at last, he would prove that the man everyone else had always treated like a superhero was really just a mere mortal.

And mortals died, like Jed would eventually die after he’d finally and sufficiently suffered.

Chapter Six

Betrayal.

It struck him again like a shiv in the chest. And the same woman was betraying him all over again. He closed his hand around hers, snapping her cell phone shut before she could punch in the last
one
of nine-one-one.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. Hadn’t she listened to a single warning he’d given her?

“Calling the cops, which is what I should have done the first moment I had the chance,” she said, her voice hoarse with self-disgust and fear.

“So much for not doubting me…”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe about your guilt or innocence of those murders,” she replied. “You were convicted. You were sentenced. And you escaped. You’re a fugitive.”

“And you’re going to turn me over to authorities,” he said, bitterness welling up inside him. He never should have started to trust her again.

“I have to,” she said, her voice cracking now with emotion and regret. “I can’t risk losing Isobel. Not even for you…”

His pulse leapt at the torment apparent in her pale blue eyes. “Not even for me?”

“I should have come forward,” she explained, “no matter what your lawyer said. I should have talked to the police then and told them about that night.”

“Yes, you should have,” he agreed. But now, knowing what she would have told them, he doubted it would have helped. He still would have spent the past three years in prison.

She held tight to her phone and tried to tug free of his grasp. “I need to talk to the police now.”

The van swerved slightly as he gripped the wheel with only one hand. But he didn’t let go, even though he glanced to the rearview to make sure no one followed them and had noticed the erratic driving. He didn’t need to get pulled over now, so close to Miller’s Valley and their daughter. “They’re not going to believe your story.”

His stomach lurched, along with the van across the snow-slick road, when he realized that. He regained control of the vehicle, but that was all he could control of this situation. No matter what she said, it was too late for her to salvage another error in her judgment.

As he had warned her, she would get in trouble for helping him now. Erica would go to jail, and their daughter would go into protective custody with strangers.

Unless…

“Give me the phone,” he ordered her in the tone of voice that had always had fellow inmates cowering in fear of him.

Erica didn’t cower; she glared at him instead. But she released the phone, tugging her hand free of his, as if unable to bear his touch. She hadn’t felt that way that night…

But had she been drugged, as she’d claimed? If she hadn’t been drugged, would she have really wanted him at all? She had easily accepted his breaking up with her before he’d left for Afghanistan. She’d never had the feelings for him that he’d had for her—or she never would have doubted his innocence no matter what lies Marcus might have told her.

Because she had no feelings for him but suspicion, he couldn’t trust her. Driving with just the one hand on the wheel yet, he punched numbers into her phone.

“Who are you calling?” she asked, her beautiful blue eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Listening to the phone ring, he murmured, “The only lawman I can trust…”

“Agent Cusack,” Rowe answered.

“It’s me.”

“You stubborn son of a…” His future brother-in-law cursed him—obviously not pleased that Jed had terminated their call earlier. “You need to tell me where you are, so I can bring you in. And if you hang up on me again, I will track you down and shoot you myself.”

Jed chuckled at the threat. “It’s nice to hear your voice, too.”

“Your sister can’t sleep with worrying over you. She’s going crazy.” So the DEA agent was more concerned about Macy than Jed.

That was good. Rowe Cusack was the right man for Jed’s little sister. The DEA agent loved her like Macy had always deserved to be loved—completely, devotedly and unconditionally. Now if only Jed could find a love like that for himself…

He swallowed a snort of laughter at that thought. Given his luck, there was no way he would ever find a love like his sister had. He’d be lucky to stay alive and alone.

“Tell her not to worry,” Jed said. “She’ll see me soon.”

From the passenger’s seat, Erica shot him a glance—obviously wondering about the
she
he talked about and how he expected to see her soon.

Rowe sucked in an audible breath. “You’re coming here?”

Jed maneuvered the van onto the slick off-ramp to Miller’s Valley. Each mile closer to Isobel brought him farther from Rowe and his sister. “Not yet.”

“Damn it, Jed—”

“You will see me soon,” he promised, earning another inquisitive glance from Erica. “But you need to get some information for me first.”

“I’m already picking up the case files from your lawyer’s office tomorrow.”

For years Jed had wanted to get his hands on those files, specifically on the ledgers that had provided the motive for killing his business partner. Embezzlement. But he hadn’t taken his clients’ money. And if he’d been able to go over those ledgers, he might have figured out who had.

“You’re too late,” Jed informed him. “The files are gone.”

Rowe groaned. “Please tell me that you didn’t break into his office and take them…”

“I didn’t have to break in,” Jed replied. “His killer left the door open—”

Rowe cursed now—fervently. “And you walked right into a trap.”

“If it was intended as that, I didn’t get caught.” Or so he hoped; he would find out for certain when they returned to Erica’s apartment. “Whoever killed Leighton must have also taken my file from his office.”

And just what the hell had Marcus detailed in his file? Erica’s address? The fact that she’d been pregnant during the trial?

Leighton had told Jed that he’d never tracked her down, but he hadn’t told Jed the truth about anything. Why would he have admitted to knowing her location? He wouldn’t have wanted Jed to send someone else to talk to her and learn what Jed had tonight, that Marcus had actually convinced her not to testify.

Despite the heat blowing out of the vents, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold. Or scared.

“This is really bad, Jed,” Rowe said, his raspy voice pitched low, probably so that Macy wouldn’t overhear him. “You’re going to be the number-one suspect for his murder.”

He sighed. “I know.”

He had been set up. Again.

“Did you…?”

“Hell, no.” But he couldn’t swear that he wouldn’t have killed his lawyer if he had been right about Marcus framing him for murders that his old fraternity brother had actually committed himself.

“I’m sorry, man, that I had to ask and I’m sorry that it happened,” Rowe said. “This is a tough break.”

“Maybe not,” Jed replied. “Although I didn’t get to talk to Marcus before he died and find out who paid him to help frame me—”

“What!” The phone cracked with Rowe’s exclamation. He’d obviously forgotten to be quiet.

Erica startled as if she’d heard his shout, too.

“Leighton helped set me up,” Jed said. His death was proof enough for Jed of his involvement. Marcus’s duplicity also explained how Jed had been convicted on just circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony that should have been easily discredited. “His partner must have killed him tonight.”

Rowe’s mind followed the path Jed’s had taken. “The killer was worried that Leighton would give him up.”

Or
her
.

He glanced at Erica now. Of course she had had no more opportunity to kill Marcus than he had. But another woman could have been involved—Brandon’s girlfriend who’d lied in her testimony. Had she been covering up her own guilt? She had really been the last one to see Brandon alive.

She wouldn’t have had access to his clients’ funds, but Brandon had. He could have embezzled it, and then she killed him to keep the money all to herself. Except for what she’d paid his lawyer.

Then she’d killed him.

Regret tugged at Jed that Marcus was gone now. “He would have told me who’d betrayed me,” Jed insisted. He would have either coerced or guilted a confession out of his old friend.

And the killer must have known that, too.

How well did the killer know Marcus? And Jed? Was this about revenge or had he just been a convenient patsy to take the murder rap?

Rowe sighed. “So this is literally a dead end then, man.”

“Marcus was paid off.”

He never would have been able to afford that historic building if he hadn’t been—not with the limited case load he’d had. There hadn’t been many files in those drawers, and Jed doubted the killer had taken anyone else’s.

“Probably with the money that was embezzled from my old accounting firm. Track down that money, Rowe.”

Jed had wanted to go through those records himself, but Marcus had claimed that he couldn’t get permission to bring them in to Blackwoods. Given how corrupt the warden had been, Jed hadn’t questioned him. But he should have because Marcus had probably lied about that, too. He just hadn’t wanted Jed to track that money down himself because it would have led to Marcus’s own wallet.

“During your trial, court-appointed accountants went through those ledgers and bank statements,” Rowe said, sharing what he’d learned from the transcripts. “No one was able to figure out where the money had gone. They figured you had secret accounts.”

“I didn’t.” He had never seen any of that money. “But the killer must have. Try to track down the payments that were made to Leighton for throwing my trial.”

“What about Erica Towsley?” Rowe asked, seemingly out of the blue. “Who is she?”

Jed chuckled. Rowe had kept interrupting him to keep Jed on the phone long enough to trace the call this time. “Check that angle, too.”

“For the money?”

“Follow the money.” Jed pulled the van into the alley behind Erica’s building.

He doubted it would lead back to her, though. Her vehicle was a piece of junk that looked as if it had more knocks and rattles than a demolition-derby car. And the building where she lived was old, as had been all the furnishings inside her drafty apartment. If she’d been paid off, her payments hadn’t been as generous as Leighton’s.

“What angle?” Erica whispered.

He shook his head. “And if you can’t figure it out, I’ll go over the ledgers and statements when I meet up with you.”