Baby Breakout (18 page)

She tugged him down onto the bed with her.

“Erica, this is a bad idea,” he warned her. “I told you that I’ll have to go back to jail. We have no future.”

“I know,” she assured him. And maybe that was why she wanted to make love with him so badly—because she didn’t know if she would ever be this close to him again. She didn’t have to worry about her heart; she didn’t have to worry if she should trust him.

She only had to worry about holding on to her heart tonight.

“You deserve more,” he said.

“I have more,” she assured him. “I have Isobel.” Their daughter was all she needed in her life.

The little girl was safe; Macy had assured her of that earlier. And she had believed it when she’d talked to Isobel. While the little girl had missed her mommy, she had also been thrilled to be getting to know her fun, new aunt.

If only Isobel would be able to get to know her father, too…

But Jed was right; there hadn’t been any clues left in those ledgers and bank statements. Nothing to clear his name, nothing to point to Brandon’s guilt or his present whereabouts if he really wasn’t six feet under.

Jed expelled a ragged breath. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, “whenever you talk about our daughter, you glow…like an angel…”

She didn’t feel like an angel tonight. She reached for the bottom of her sweater and dragged it up and over her head. She tossed it onto the floor, and then she unclasped her bra.

Jed groaned now. “Damn, woman…”

He followed her lead but shucked off all his clothes and then dragged her jeans down her legs. He kissed her everywhere, taking his time first with her mouth. He pressed hot kisses to her lips and then parted them for his tongue. He kissed her deeply.

She arched against him and moaned, wanting all of him. Pressure built inside her, making her ache for him. But he was pulling back to kiss her shoulders, the inside of her elbow, the curve of her hip. He dipped his tongue inside her navel and then moved it lower. She lifted off the bed. “Jed!”

He made love to her thoroughly until tears streaked from her eyes as the pressure wound tighter, then released in a rush of pleasure. “Jed!”

He parted her legs and thrust inside, joining their bodies as their hearts would never be joined. Except that, as she clutched him close, she felt his heart beating in perfect, frantic rhythm with hers. It was as if they shared one heart, one body.

He kissed her passionately, as he thrust deep inside her. She arched and clutched at him, digging her nails into his back and then lower, into his butt.

He groaned. “I can’t—” His control snapped and he came, filling her.

And she joined him, her scream of ecstasy echoing his shout. She didn’t let go, didn’t let him go, but fell asleep holding him close…until she wouldn’t be able to hold him anymore…

* * *

A
RINGING
NOISE
JERKED
Jed awake. He hadn’t heard a phone ring in three years, but he recognized the sound and fumbled for the phone that lay atop his jeans beside the bed. He glanced at the woman lying beside him. Maybe she slept as soundly as their daughter because she didn’t so much as shift or murmur over the noise or his moving beside her.

He had to pull his arm out from under her. It tingled, asleep even from her slight weight. He slipped out of bed and took the phone with him out to the living room. Studying the high-tech screen on the cellular, he pushed a button but didn’t say anything.

“Jed?”

He grunted as he recognized Rowe’s voice. “Yeah…”

“Sounds like I woke you up,” the DEA agent mused. “I didn’t think you would be able to sleep.”

If not for making love with Erica, he wouldn’t have been able to close his eyes…not without the fear of seeing Brandon’s face.

“I haven’t slept since I broke out,” he admitted. “Actually not since the riot started.”

“Guess you haven’t had a safe place to sleep until tonight,” Rowe remarked.

“I have to wonder how safe any place is,” Jed said. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Rowe said with triumph. “I had an FBI tech rush the DNA report from the old crime-scene evidence. We got what we need to get a new trial, Jed!”

“I don’t want a new trial,” he said. “I want justice. He’s not dead?” Yet.

“It wasn’t Brandon Henderson in the burned-out vehicle,” Rowe confirmed. “The dental records used at the trial were obviously fakes.”

“Why wasn’t DNA used then?” Jed wondered.

“It was ordered but the results weren’t back before the trial,” Rowe said. “And your lawyer agreed with the D.A. that the dental records were confirmation enough of the dead body’s identity.”

Jed cursed Marcus and himself for so blindly trusting him. Hell, he’d trusted Brandon, too—not much but enough to go into business with the man. Brandon Henderson had been smart and ambitious; Jed had had no doubt that theirs would be a successful firm.

He just hadn’t realized exactly how smart and ambitious Brandon was.

And how criminal…

“You could have had a new trial at any time,” Rowe said, the triumph replaced with the hard edge of anger, “if anyone had bothered to follow up about the DNA.”

“I don’t want a new trial,” Jed repeated.

“But just because Brandon wasn’t in the car doesn’t make him the killer.”

“Bullshit,” Jed replied, his frustration growing. “If he wasn’t the killer, why hasn’t he come forward before now?”

“He came forward in the woods today,” Rowe said. “There were shells found from a gun that wasn’t police issue.”

“So shouldn’t that help clear me or at least get the shoot-on-sight order rescinded?”

Rowe cursed now. “Those unidentified shells prove to the police that you’re armed and dangerous because they think that gun was yours. I have to bring you in, Jed. Or you’ll get shot for sure. But until we can get that new trial, the DNA evidence will be enough to cast doubt on your convictions. You’ll be safer now.”

“No.” He wouldn’t be safe until Brandon was six feet under for real. The man had gone to a lot of trouble to take away from Jed everything that had mattered to him—his reputation, his freedom.

Erica…

He glanced toward the bedroom and jumped when he noticed her leaning against the doorjamb. She was wearing his shirt with only half the buttons done up, displaying her slender legs and the hollow between her full breasts. His body hardened again, wanting her.

Rowe was still talking. “I’m not giving you a choice, man. I’m going to be back there in a couple of hours, and I’m bringing you in.”

“No,” Jed repeated. Instead of arguing with him, he just clicked off the cell. He wouldn’t be there by the time Rowe arrived.

“No?” Erica asked. “It wasn’t him?”

“It wasn’t him in the car,” Jed confirmed.

She sucked in a sharp breath of air and fear. “So Brandon’s still alive?”

He nodded.
For now.

“Do you know where he is?” she asked.

He forced a shrug. But he knew. Brandon was waiting for him. Just like Jed, he would have realized that it was time for them to end this. Their rivalry had begun in elementary school and had lasted too damn long. Jed had always considered it a healthy, competitive rivalry that had made them both stronger and more successful.

That hadn’t been the case. It hadn’t been healthy for either of them, or for anyone who had come into contact with them. Erica had been hurt. Marcus Leighton and the witnesses were all dead…

“You know where he is,” Erica said, with that insight into him that no one but Macy had ever had. “And you intend to kill him.”

He had to kill Brandon before the man killed him. Or worse yet—her and Isobel.

* * *

D
ESPITE
THE
LATE
HOUR
,
the jail was alive—excitement dancing in the air and in Jefferson’s lawyer’s eyes. Something had happened.

Hopefully something good for him.

“Looks like the DEA agent may have been right about Kleyn,” Breuker remarked. He drummed his fingers against his briefcase. “A source informed me that the agent rushed DNA from the old crime scene.”

“It wasn’t Kleyn’s?”

“It wasn’t the man he was accused of killing—his business partner.”

He choked out a laugh at the irony. “He faked his death…” Like Kleyn had talked an undercover agent into faking his to save his life.

But this wasn’t good news for Jefferson. Having an innocent man testify against him would be so much worse than having a convicted killer…

“This is bad news,” he pointed out, wondering at his lawyer’s excitement. Maybe the man wasn’t as brilliant as his reputation claimed, just as Jed Kleyn hadn’t been as ruthless as his.

“York and Ketchum are having a big powwow right now,” Breuker shared. “Something’s going down…”

“A showdown,” Jefferson mused.

Kleyn might have been an innocent man when he’d been sentenced to Blackwoods, but three years there had stolen away that innocence and his humanity.

“He’s going to want revenge.”

“And his partner’s going to want to protect himself…”

Jefferson laughed again as the lawyer’s excitement tingled in his veins. “Sounds like they might wind up killing each other…”

And that would be very good news for Jefferson James.

Chapter Seventeen

Erica shivered at the coldness on Jed’s handsome face. He hadn’t denied her accusation. He fully intended to kill Brandon Henderson.

She had been right not to give him her heart. He wasn’t the man she had once known and loved. Maybe Afghanistan hadn’t changed him, but Brandon’s betrayal and Blackwoods Penitentiary had.

“How can you just kill a man in cold blood?” she asked, horrified.

He laughed. “You think it’ll be in cold blood? I think it’ll be in self-defense.”

Erica shook her head, denying his claim. “No. You know where he is. You don’t have to go there to meet him. Call Rowe back. Tell him where he can find Brandon. He’ll bring him in alive.”

“He won’t know if it’s Brandon or not. The guy’s changed his appearance,” Jed reminded her. “Rowe won’t recognize him from some old photograph.”

He was probably right; Brandon was too smart to waltz back into the country looking like his old,
dead
self. “Then go with Rowe. Point Brandon out, but stay out of it.”

“Brandon took away three years of my life. He broke into your house, probably to abduct our daughter, and then he shot at us,” he said, listing the man’s recent crimes. “I’m not giving him the chance to take anything else away from me.”

She laughed now, just as he had, with irony and bitterness. “If you kill him, he’ll take away your humanity and your honor.”

“He took that away when I got locked up in hell three years ago.”

Yes. Blackwoods had changed him.

“I’m going with you,” she insisted, turning for the bedroom to grab her clothes.

Jed followed her in and grabbed up his clothes, too. He pulled on his jeans and shirt and then lifted the gun from the floor.

God, why had Rowe given him a gun?

“You’re not going with me,” he said. He didn’t point the gun at her, but there was something threatening about just the way he held it, staring down at the trigger as if he could pull it with his gaze since his finger was nowhere near it.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” she said, calling his unspoken bluff.

“Why not?” he asked. “According to you, I’m a cold-blooded killer.” He stared at her now instead of at the gun, but his dark eyes weren’t cold. They were full of emotion—anger and hurt.

“Not yet,” she said. “But if you confront Brandon alone, you’re going to become one.”

“You’re not coming along,” he insisted. “I don’t want you anywhere near Brandon ever again.”

The man had tried to use her before to hurt Jed; he would undoubtedly have no qualms about using her again. “I don’t want to be anywhere near him,” she admitted. “And I don’t want you near him, either. I want you to wait for Rowe.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve waited three years for justice, Erica. I can’t wait any longer.” He shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans at his back as he turned for the door.

She reached for his arm, trying to hold him back. Muscles bulged and rippled beneath her grasp, and he gently shook her off. But he stopped in the doorway and faced her again.

Maybe she’d gotten through to him. Maybe he’d changed his mind about meeting Brandon alone. She breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Then he stole her breath with a kiss. It was deep and full of passion and promise. She closed her eyes and smiled, grateful that he had changed his mind.

For her?

Did he want to be the man she had once fallen for, the man she had once loved?

He lifted his mouth from hers and stepped back because she couldn’t feel the heat of his body anymore.

“Jed…” She opened her eyes. But she didn’t see his face. She only saw wood as the door snapped shut between them. She reached for the knob, grabbing it, but it wouldn’t budge.

He was either holding it, or he must have shoved something beneath it, because moments later an engine revved.

Tears stung her eyes. “Damn you, Jed…”

He might have had to go back to prison because of the escape. But he wouldn’t have had to serve much time—not what he would have to serve for murder.

Isobel would never get to know her father. And Erica would be left with only a few memories of her passionate lover. He would never be anything more to her, never be part of her future—only a bittersweet part of her past.

No. They all deserved more than that; they all deserved a future. He might have jammed the door, but he hadn’t had time to lock the window. She crossed the room to it and lifted the sash. The ground dropped off below, moonlight shimmering on the rocky hillside. If she tried going out that way, Brandon Henderson might not be the only one who died tonight…

* * *

S
OMEONE
WAS
GOING
to die tonight.

Unlike Erica, Jed wasn’t as convinced that he could pull the trigger and take a life. He had the reasons and the rage to want to. It wouldn’t be in cold blood, as Erica had said, that he would kill. It would be in hot blood.

Anger heated his body, so that he didn’t notice the cold wind blowing around as he walked down the ramp leading to the basement of the parking garage. This was where he would find Brandon and where he should kill him—since this was the crime scene where he had already been convicted of killing him.

No attendant sat inside the booth. The gates stayed down, so Jed skirted around them. The security lights had been broken out; glass crunched beneath his feet as he strode through the darkness. But moonlight crept over the concrete walls, casting an eerie glow on the cement and shifting the shadows of the few cars parked inside the garage.

“You took your time,” a deep voice remarked. “And you’re already a man on borrowed time.”

His gut tightened with dread. He didn’t need to see Brandon’s half-assed disguised face. His voice was unmistakable—not just the tone and the timbre of it but the arrogance in it. Nobody else was that damn cocky.

It used to amuse Jed; now it infuriated him…because Brandon was entitled to that arrogance. He had fooled everyone.

Even Jed.

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said with a bitter laugh. “You saw to that.”

“Two lifetimes.” Brandon’s perfectly capped teeth flashed brightly in the shadows. “But you’re taking a little break right now. It won’t last, you know, not with all those cops out looking for you.” He laughed. “If they find you, you won’t last long at all.”

Jed yawned as if bored with Brandon. The man had always prided himself on being everything but boring. “That’s old news now. I’m old news. The hot new story is how you faked your own death.”

“Good luck proving that.”

“DNA came back.” Probably years ago. “It proves that yours wasn’t the body in the car.”

Brandon snorted, dismissing the evidence. “That doesn’t prove that I’m alive and well.”

“Oh, you’re not well at all,” Jed agreed. “You’re bat-shit crazy, my old friend.”

Brandon laughed again but with genuine humor this time. “I have missed you, my old friend,” he said, turning Jed’s words back on him. “You always entertained me.”

“I always annoyed the hell out of you,” Jed corrected him, “because you could never be better than me.”

Brandon’s voice rose with patronization as he replied, “I think we both know that’s not the case anymore.”

The son of a bitch was choosing his words carefully, as he always had. He had always managed just enough charm to hide the fact that he was actually a psychopath.

“You ruined my life,” Jed admitted. “But I’m thinking you ruined your own life, too.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re not
you
anymore,” he scoffed. He wasn’t talking about the blond dye or the colored contacts and the unkempt goatee, although those were all things macho Brandon Henderson would have mocked.

“Fishing for my new name?” Brandon laughed at his attempt. “Fish away…”

“Your name meant something to you,” Jed reminded him, striking out at the only place Brandon felt anything—his pride. “You wanted everyone to know it. But no one remembers the first murder victim from my trial. They remember the officer who died too young in the line of duty.”

Brandon snorted. “Line of duty or wrong place at the wrong time?”

“I guess only the young officer himself would know that, and of course, the man who really killed him would know…”

“I guess,” Brandon conceded without really conceding anything at all.

“But the thing people remember most from my trial is
me
. It’s
my
name everyone remembers,” Jed taunted him. “It’s
me
everyone talks about.” And he’d hated that so much. But Brandon wouldn’t understand that; he’d never cared about what people said about him as long as he was all they talked about…

Brandon’s wide shoulders moved in the shadows in a jerky shrug—his nonchalance totally feigned. His pride was stinging as well as that resentment of Jed that he’d never quite been able to hide or control. He struck back at Jed with, “That must drive you crazy—that everyone talks about how the hero became a villain.”

“At least they’re talking about
me
. You’re entirely forgotten, my friend. I think even you have forgotten who you are.” He tsked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, pouring on the pity.

“I know who I am,” Brandon insisted. “You’re the one who’s lost himself. You’ve totally changed.”

“Yes. I have,” Jed conceded. “I wasn’t a killer when you framed me for your murder and that young officer’s murder.”

Brandon snorted again. “But you are a killer now?”

Jed lifted his gun. “I will be.”

“You want a third life sentence?”

“I can’t be convicted of your murder again,” Jed reminded him. “That would be double jeopardy.” He moved his finger to the trigger and prepared to squeeze.

“No!” a female voice screamed. Panting for breath, Erica ran into the parking garage as if she’d run all the way from the lake. “Don’t do it, Jed. Don’t kill him.”

“Damn it! Get out of here!” he yelled at her. His heart hammered against his ribs. Even knowing what a monster Brandon really was, he hadn’t been afraid for himself.

But Erica…

Before she could run back the way she’d run in, Brandon grabbed her. He locked his arm around her torso, trapping her arms against her sides, and then he pressed a gun to her temple.