More Than a Hero. Marilyn Pappano
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insult brought a grin to the mouth she had inadequately described as “nice.” It was a great mouth—a really sexy mouth, especially with that bold, brash, amused grin. “You didn’t call me a vulture,” he pointed out. “At least not to my face. Were you and Lissa talking about me after I left?”
“No, of course not.” It wasn’t a total lie. Those few minutes of calming Lissa’s worries didn’t count.
“So you were talking to yourself when you called me a vulture. Some people consider that worrisome. Not me, though. I talk to myself a lot when I’m working.” He set the beer on the table and laced long, strong fingers around the stein. “What did you think of the reviews?”
“What reviews?”
He grinned again, and she had to admit that, arrogance aside, there was a certain charm to it. “Aw, come on. Don’t tell me that you or the munchkin didn’t go online as soon as I was gone to find out what you could about me.”
Rather than admit the truth, she frowned. “Don’t call Lissa that.”
“So…what did you think?” Norris prompted.
Kylie summoned a cool smile. “I think you’re smug and conceited, but I didn’t have to go to the Internet to learn that.”
“I’m not conceited. I’m confident. There’s a difference.”
“But you admit to being smug?”
He shrugged. “No one’s perfect.”
She liked his easy manner. Liked his grin. Was even starting to kind of like his smugness…until he went on.
“Including your father.”
Her spine stiffened. “You think the senator mishandled the Baker case.”
Another easy shrug rippled the fabric of his shirt. “I think Charley is innocent.”
“Why? Because he told you so?”
The easiness disappeared in a flash—no doubt chased away by her snide tone. “I’m not naive, Ms. Riordan. I’ve spent a lot of time with more convicted murderers than you can even name. They write me letters, call me, send me e-mails. They tell me things they’ve never told anyone else. Yes, Charley told me he’s innocent. My gut tells me he’s innocent. More importantly, the evidence raises reasonable doubt.”
Kylie leaned back, crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. A body-language expert would say her posture meant she was closed off, not open to hearing what Norris had to say, and he would be right. She knew her father—knew his morals, ethics and beliefs. He didn’t send the wrong man to prison. “Such as?”
“The whole basis for Charley’s arrest and conviction was his affair with Jillian Franklin, and yet there was no evidence that it ever happened. No one ever saw them together. His wife swears his time was pretty much accounted for—if he wasn’t at work, he was with her or their son. Jillian never mentioned him to any of her friends. His fingerprints weren’t found anywhere in the house. Nothing connects them.”
“Illicit affairs are generally conducted in secret.”
“This affair appears to have been fabricated to serve as a motive for Charley to kill Jillian.”
Anger swept through Kylie with a force that made her tremble. “My father never fabricated evidence.”
“I didn’t say he did. It could have been the sheriff’s department.”
“All you have is Charley Baker’s side of the story, and he’s in prison. He obviously can’t be trusted. You know nothing of the facts.”
He remained as calm as she wasn’t. “That’s what I’m here for. The facts—or an approximation thereof.”
“So you can include them in your book—or an approximation thereof,” she said sarcastically.
He merely smiled. “My books are as accurate as they can be under the circumstances. I rely on trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, public record, interviews, letters—whatever sources I can find. The most recent crime I’ve written about took place eleven years ago. Time affects people’s memories. They want to make themselves look better—or, on occasion, worse—than they really were. I present what I find and I let the readers draw their own conclusions.”
“And hope for a new trial to boost the sales of your book.”
His grin was unexpected and all the more powerful for it. “So you did look me up.”
She stared stonily at him. “You won’t get a new trial out of this one. If my father believed Charley Baker was guilty, he was guilty.”
They were sitting there staring at each other when the waitress approached with a platter of ribs, baked beans and coleslaw. “You planning to eat here or go back to your table?”
Norris held Kylie’s gaze a moment longer before turning to the waitress. “I’m going back to my table.” As she walked away, he slid to the edge of the bench, stood up, then grimly said, “No one’s father is infallible. Not mine, and sure as hell not yours. Enjoy your meal, Ms. Riordan. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
She knew it was petty, but as he walked away she muttered, “Not if I see you first.”
Jake’s motel was about a mile from downtown, a small place that had started life as a motor court back in the heyday of getting your kicks on Route 66. Tiny stone buildings, each consisting of a bedroom and a bath, formed a semicircle around the office, disguised as a giant concrete tepee. It was tacky, but his room had a high-speed Internet connection and plenty of space to spread out. That—and running water—was all he needed.
He parked in the narrow space that separated his room from the next and climbed out of his truck as a white car slowed to a stop behind it. The seal of the Riverview Police Department decorated the door.
He took his duffel bag, an attaché and the backpack that held his computer from the passenger side, slung the straps over his shoulders, then stood a moment in the fading light, trading looks with the young officer behind the wheel. Jake didn’t speak, and neither did the cop, though he did make a show of calling in Jake’s tag number to the dispatcher.
Resisting a grin, Jake climbed the steps and let himself in, flipping on lights as he went. The chief criminal investigator for the Davis County Sheriff’s Department twenty-two years ago was Coy Roberts, currently Riverview police chief. If he thought Jake could be intimidated by a cop barely old enough to shave, he was mistaken.
He’d expected a lack of cooperation from the primary subjects in the case. He suspected they’d arrested, prosecuted and condemned the wrong man. If it was merely a mistake, they, like most people in authority, wouldn’t want to admit it. If it was deliberate, naturally they would want to hide it. After all, they had reputations, careers and freedom to protect.
Reputations and careers made off Charley’s case. Coy Roberts had been elected sheriff six weeks after Charley’s conviction. Jim Riordan had been elected to the district attorney’s office soon after. The case had been a boost to Judge Markham’s bid for a seat on the state supreme court, and Charley’s court-appointed lawyer, Tim Jenkins, had parlayed the media attention into a big-bucks criminal defense career.
Everyone had come out of Charley’s case better off than before. Except Charley.
Jake booted up the computer on the square table that served as a desk, then signed online. He checked his e-mail, then Googled Kylie Riordan.
He got a lot of hits, most of them having to do with her father. She worked for him and had since graduating from Oklahoma University and according to an article on old oil families, she still lived in the family mansion. That aside, he found only one entry of any real interest.
Senator’s Daughter to Wed, the headline read. There’d been no mention of a Riordan son-in-law in the search he’d done. She still used her maiden