prisons in the world and, before his incarceration, a year in Afghanistan, his instincts were finely honed. So honed that he didn’t need to turn around to know that Erica had joined him. He could smell her—that sweet vanilla scent that reminded him of baking cookies and pies. And he could feel her as his skin tingled with the heat of awareness.
“I couldn’t find the business card Marcus Leighton gave me,” she said.
Regret tightened his guts. He didn’t have any time to waste tracking down the Judas who’d betrayed him. Not only had Marcus not put Erica on the stand, but he’d convinced her that Jed was guilty.
Why?
Unlike Brandon, Marcus had always been a true friend to Jed. He hadn’t been competitive with him; he’d actually seemed to be in awe of him—more fan than friend.
“But I looked him up online,” Erica said, “and I found his address.”
For the past few years he’d thought she had sold him out. But like him, she had been a victim, too. Along with the jury of twelve of his peers, she had believed the evidence that had been manufactured to prove his guilt.
Had Marcus manufactured that evidence? But he had no motive to frame Jed … unless he had been hiding his own guilt. Brandon Henderson and Marcus Leighton had not been friends. Brandon had bullied and harassed Marcus, as he had bullied and harassed everyone but Jed.
Jed had thought he only needed to find his alibi and make her come forward to prove his innocence. But Erica had raised valid points about her testimony. With the holes in her memory, she wouldn’t be able to convince an appeals court that he hadn’t left her alone in his bed that night, gone back to the office and committed the double murder.
No, the only way to prove his innocence beyond a shadow of anyone’s doubt—the appeals court, Erica’s and their daughter’s—was to find the real killer. “Where is he?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said.
Finally able to drag his gaze away from Isobel, he turned to Erica. She stood in the light from the hall, still looking like an angel, but from the firm set of her jaw and the hard gleam in her eyes, she intended to be as stubborn as the devil to keep the information he wanted from him.
Over the past few years, he had dealt with people far more stubborn than she could ever be. Like the warden of Blackwoods, who had been the very devil himself. Now Warden James was behind bars for all his criminal activities.
And Jed was out.
A bitter chuckle at the irony slipped through his lips, and he glanced back at Isobel, worried that he had awakened her.
“She sleeps like a rock,” Erica assured him. “She doesn’t hear anything when she’s out.”
“That’s good,” Jed said. “Then she won’t hear me take your computer from you to look up Marcus’s address.”
He was not going back to prison to serve out his two life sentences; he had already served enough time for crimes he hadn’t committed. Realistically, he would probably have to serve time for breaking out of prison, but he could accept the punishment for a crime he had committed.
“You don’t need to look up his address,” she said. “I’ll drive you to his office.”
“His office will be closed now.” He gestured toward the darkness beyond Isobel’s bedroom window. “And you’re not driving me anywhere.”
“He lives above his office,” she explained, “in Grand Rapids. You’ll need a ride there.”
“I got here and buses don’t run to Miller’s Valley,” he reminded her. He didn’t need a ride. And he definitely didn’t want Erica with him when he questioned Marcus.
“So you stole a car, too?”
In addition to what? Murder? Did she still have her doubts? Was she not able to completely trust him? But wouldn’t that make her more anxious to get rid of him than to want to go along with him?
“You can’t leave Isobel here alone.” And he wasn’t about to take his daughter anywhere near a possible killer.
“My neighbor from across the hall is coming over to watch her,” she said. “I told Mrs. Osborn that I have an emergency in Grand Rapids.”
“You don’t have anything in Grand Rapids,” he said. “I do.” Hopefully his vindication. “Stay here with our daughter.”
She shook her head, which swirled her golden hair around her slender shoulders.
He swallowed a groan, fighting his attraction to her. It didn’t matter how damn beautiful she was; he couldn’t trust her. He only really had her word that Marcus had lied to her. His friend deserved to give his side of the story before Jed entirely condemned him. Jed had known Marcus far longer and, he’d thought, better than he’d ever known Erica Towsley.
“I have questions only Marcus can answer,” she said. “I want to hear, from his mouth, why he lied to me. And I want to know why he lied about you.”
And, obviously, she didn’t trust Jed enough to bring those answers back to her. But then she had spent the past few years convinced that he was guilty of murder. He was lucky she hadn’t called the police instead of her neighbor.
A knock rattled the front door, and Jed’s heart rattled his rib cage with a sudden jolt of fear. What if she had called the police? What if she had only been playing him when she’d acted as if she was beginning to believe in his innocence?
“Open Isobel’s window and go out the fire escape,” Erica said, her soft voice pitched low with urgency.
“What—Why?”
“You can’t let Mrs. Osborn see you,” she explained. “She obsessively watches the news. She might recognize you from all the media coverage of the prison breakout.”
The door rattled again.
“Go down the fire escape,” she ordered him. “My car’s the blue minivan parked below it in the alley. It’s unlocked.” Her blue eyes gleamed as she added, “I have the keys, though.”
“I don’t need your van,” he reminded her.
He had one of his own parked in the very same alley. The black panel van had belonged to a guard, like the clothes that Jed had found packed in a suitcase in the back of it. The guard, one of the warden’s henchmen, had obviously planned to flee before charges could be filed against him. But he hadn’t made it out of the riot. Like a few others, he had died behind bars because of the crimes he’d carried out for the warden. He had tortured and killed the prison doctor who’d helped the DEA agent escape.
The death of the doctor, who so many of the inmates had loved, was what had inspired the riot. When he’d ordered Doc’s murder, the warden had gone too far. He’d ordered Jed’s death, too, but the riot had protected and eventually freed Jed. But even without Rowe’s warning, he would have known that he was probably in more danger outside of prison than he’d ever really been in it.
At least he didn’t need to worry about Warden James anymore …
“But
