Midnight Run (7 page)

“I had to break it,” she said. “You probably shouldn’t stay here long.”

Baffled, he took the piece of wood from her and set it against the wall, suddenly very curious as to why she had come. “You want to clue me in to what the hell’s going on?” Checking the driveway one more time to make sure she hadn’t been followed, Jack closed the door.

Landis walked to the dining room table, then turned to face him. “I need to know what time Aaron dropped you off here last night.”

An alarm went off in his head. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why she would show up now after practically throwing him out of her place the night before. “He brought me here directly from your cabin.” He shrugged. “Maybe around midnight or so. Why?”

“What did you do after he left?”

“Did you have a brainstorm during the night or did you come here simply because you enjoy giving me the third degree?”

“Believe me, enjoyment doesn’t enter into the picture.” She sighed. “Answer the question, Jack. It’s important.”

“I crashed. You know the condition I was in when Aaron and I left your place. I didn’t wake up until about five minutes ago.”

“You’re sure?”

He laughed, but heard the tension in his voice. “How could I not be sure?”

She stared hard at him, her emerald eyes large and turbulent. “How long did Aaron stay?”

“Long enough to show me the woodpile and where the keys to the truck are kept.” Growing uncomfortably chilly without his shirt, Jack started toward the bedroom.

“Did you go anywhere after he left?” Her boots clicked smartly against the floor as she trailed him. “Where are you going?”

“I hate to put a damper on your fun, Counselor, but my patience is a little too thin this morning for a game of Twenty Questions.” Jerking his flannel shirt off the bed, he turned, barely avoiding a collision with her. Not sure if he was relieved or disappointed, he moved past her, praying Aaron had coffee in the kitchen. He was desperate for something hot and black and chock-full of caffeine. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, her questions were beginning to make him nervous.

“While we’re playing Twenty Questions, you want to tell me why you’re here?” He swung open a cabinet door and began to rummage. “The last time we talked, I believe you were under the impression that I was a murderer and belonged in prison with the rest of the scoundrels you spend your days putting away.” Spotting a jar of instant coffee, he breathed out a sigh of relief and reached for it. “Or did you come to your senses and realize I’m an innocent man after all?”

“Jack…”

“Or maybe it was that kiss that brought you back for more.”

“Stop it.”

He turned to her and for the first time since she’d breezed into the cabin and started barking out questions, he noticed the anxiety etched into her features. “What’s going on, Landis?”

Visibly shaken, she walked to the small table and lowered herself into a chair. Her eyes were large and dark when they met his. “Aaron Chandler was murdered last night.”

The words registered like a slap. He recoiled as the repercussions penetrated a brain that didn’t want to believe. In the months Chandler had been his lawyer, they’d spent quite a bit of time together. Jack had come to respect him. He’d come to like him. Had the circumstances been different, he might even have called him a friend. He couldn’t believe he was gone. For several long seconds he could only stare at her, speechless. Aaron Chandler had been his last chance. The appeal had been filed. The framework for his defense had been laid. With Aaron’s murder, all of it had gone up in smoke….

“Are you sure?” he heard himself ask.

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Jack couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe fate would snatch away the last remnants of hope. His last chance for a future.

On an oath, he turned away and strode to the window, stared through the dirty glass at the frozen landscape beyond. All the while desperation clawed at his throat like a bloodthirsty animal. He felt sucker-punched and sick to his soul. He couldn’t believe Chandler was dead, couldn’t believe the timing of it.

“That brings my defense to a grinding halt,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Jack, but…it gets worse.”

He turned from the window and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“The police found your prison clothes in Chandler’s office.”

He felt a jolt, didn’t know if it was physical or emotional, but it was powerful enough to immobilize him. “Chandler was supposed to get rid of the clothes.”

“Evidently, he hadn’t done that yet.”

A terrible new realization dawned. “I’m a suspect.” He laughed, but it was a hoarse, humorless sound. “Jesus.”

“I thought you should know.”

Outrage and a damnable sense of helplessness surged inside him. He tasted bitterness at the back of his throat and felt the dark pull of a new and frightening suspicion burgeon. Raising his fist, he brought it down on the counter hard enough to send the jar of coffee crashing to the floor.

“Jack, please…calm down.”

Her words barely registered. He couldn’t believe Chandler was dead. A year ago, he would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Today, he knew firsthand how cruel fate could be.

He wanted to lash out. At the system. At whomever had engineered this latest frame-up. He knew better than to take his fear and anger and frustration out on Landis. But she was the only person within reach.

“Are you going to jump on the bandwagon the way you did the last time?” he snarled. “Or maybe you’ve already called the Salt Lake County sheriff’s office. Hell, Landis, if you really want to put a feather in your cap, maybe you should have called the media. I can see the headlines now. ‘Lady Justice Single-handedly Nabs Cold-blooded Cop Killer.’”

She came out of the chair. “It was against my better judgment, but I came here to help you.”

The words hung between them like a rain-laden storm cloud waiting to burst. Willing his temper to cool, Jack turned away from her, strode to the counter and leaned. “How was he murdered? When did it happen?”

“He was shot and killed in his office last night.”

“You said they found my clothes at the scene?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“Ian came to the cabin this morning to tell me.”

A bitter laugh escaped him when he thought of Evan’s younger brother. “I’ll bet he was frothing at the mouth to get at me.”

“Don’t take this out on Ian,” she snapped. “None of this is his fault.”

“He thinks I’m low enough to murder my own partner,” he said with disgust. “He won’t have a problem believing I killed Chandler.” Struggling to regain control of the emotions banging around inside him, Jack turned from the window and gave her a hard look. “Was he able to convince you? Do you think I killed my own lawyer in cold blood?”

“Chandler called me last night,” she said. “
After
he dropped you here.”

Jack wasn’t an emotional man, but the words shook him hard. The surge of relief that followed was so powerful he had to look away, uneasy with the notion of her seeing just how desperately he needed her to believe him. “That puts you in a rather precarious position, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.” Her hands shook as she tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure how I want to handle this yet.”

“You’re the only person—aside from the murderer—who knows I didn’t kill Chandler.”

“Probably.”

“In order for you to exonerate me, you would have to incriminate yourself. I guess the question is how far are you willing to go to vindicate the man accused of murdering your brother?”

Her gaze met his. “I think we both know the only sane thing for you to do is turn yourself in.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Turning myself in is not an option,” he snapped.

“How can you possibly hope to clear your name when every cop from here to the Canadian border is looking for you?”

“If I turn myself in, it’s over, Landis. I’m a dead man. I don’t have a choice but to do this.”

“I can help you. I mean, legally. Jack, damn it, I’m a lawyer.”

Hope jumped through him that she would offer to help him, but he quickly shoved it back. He was tired of hoping and then having that hope wrenched away. “Look, clearing my name will be more difficult without Chandler, but I can do it. If I go back to prison, it won’t happen.”

“You can be protected in prison.”

“That’s crap and you know it.”

“I can prove you didn’t murder Chandler.”

Jack met her gaze steadily. “A good prosecutor will point out that I could have taken Chandler’s truck, driven to his office after he talked to you, murdered him, then drove back here.”

“That’s barely plausible.”

“So is my murdering Evan, but look what happened.”

“Jack, the evidence was compelling….”

“Screw the evidence! You know I didn’t murder Chandler,” he growled. “If there was any doubt in your mind, you wouldn’t be here. You’re just covering your bases because you’re afraid of what might happen between us if you let yourself believe me.”

He didn’t miss the quiver that ran the length of her before she turned away. He stared at her arrow-straight back, the rigid set of her shoulders and wondered what it would take to bow that steadfast resolve—and make her believe him.

“This isn’t about us,” she said. “It can’t be. Damn it, I don’t want it to be.”

Coming up behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders. “You know I didn’t murder Chandler, Landis. And you know I didn’t murder Evan. Ancient history aside, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

The scent of her hair drifted lazily through his brain, teasing him with memories he was insane to think of now. Memories that would do nothing but hurt him. Her shoulders felt small and delicate beneath his hands. But he knew there was nothing fragile about Landis McAllister. She bore the weight of the world on those shoulders with a tenacity that spoke volumes about the force of her personality and her competence as a lawyer.

“I’m here because you involved me. Because I’m trying to do the right thing. Because I need to know the truth.”

He desperately wanted to believe she’d come to him for other reasons, too. Reasons that had nothing to do with Evan or Chandler or the fact that he’d spent the last year in prison. But Jack knew wishing for impossibilities would only make an already difficult situation infinitely more difficult.

He’d spent too many hellish years in foster homes, living with families that hadn’t really wanted him, to believe wishes could make a difference. He’d spent the better part of his childhood yearning for what could never be, and all that wanting hadn’t done a damn thing except make him hurt.

He was through with hurting.

“If the circumstances were different, I would agree with you about turning myself in, Red. But there’s someone pulling strings from the inside. Maybe from the top. I can’t fight that. I can’t survive it.” With his life on the line and desperation knocking at his door, Jack knew he’d had no choice but to take the situation into his own hands.

She turned to him, her troubled gaze searching his. “At some point I’m going to have to go to the police with what I know.”

“Your going to the police will do nothing but put you in some very hot water.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You aided and abetted a fugitive from the law.”

“You didn’t give me much choice.”

“You lied to the police, Landis. For God’s sake, get real!”

“My going to the police will vindicate you from Chandler’s murder.”

“Maybe. But what about Evan’s murder? I hate to point this out to you, but in my mind that is the bigger issue of the two.”

Moving away from him she walked over to the counter and pressed her fingers against her forehead. A breath shuddered out of her. Jack hated seeing her so shaken. Hated even more that he cared. He tried reminding himself that she’d walked away from him when he’d needed her. But at the moment the knowledge wasn’t enough to make him feel anything less for her.

“Look,” he began, “neither of us needs any more trouble in our lives. If we do this my way, you won’t have to contend with a black mark on your sterling reputation, and I won’t have to go back to prison for a crime I didn’t commit.”

She choked out a humorless laugh. “You’re forgetting that you no longer have a lawyer, and that every law enforcement agency in the state is looking for you.”

“I’m a cop.” He shrugged. “I can elude them for a few days.”

“A few days?” She glared at him. “And then what?”

“I’m going to find the son of a bitch who killed Evan.”

“You’re going to do that when no one else has been able to? When not even your lawyer could do it?”

“Chandler might have been a legal whiz, but he wasn’t a cop. I’m a detective. I know how to work this.”

“
Were
a detective.”

“At this point that title is semantics. I’m talking about finding hard evidence.”

“Okay, Super Cop, define hard evidence.”

He rolled his shoulder, wondering how much he should tell her. Would she react as a tough prosecuting attorney? Or would she react as the woman who’d once bared her soul to him? “I’ve got a few leads.”

“That’s not very specific.”

“I need to talk to a couple of my old snitches. One of Evan’s snitches.”

“That’s
it?
”

He stared hard at her, debating, keenly aware that if she turned on him his one and only chance would die. “I’ll need my file from Chandler’s office.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant.” She put her hands on her hips. “If that weren’t such a bad idea, I’d laugh!”

“Damn it, Landis, he was close to getting some hard evidence on Evan.”

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “Your brilliant plan is to question some lowlife snitches and break into your attorney’s office? Oh, excuse me, your
dead
attorney’s office, which is now a crime scene? That’s genius! Why didn’t I think of it?”

“I can do without the sarcasm.”

“I can do without a dead convict on my hands. Jack, your plan is weak and certifiable. Chandler’s office is going to be crawling with cops!”