Nothing To Lose. RaeAnne Thayne
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raw desperation in her voice and wanted to cringe. So much for coming off confident and assured. She sounded like a crazed zealot. Her goal was to convince Wyatt McKinnon she had evidence proving Hunter’s innocence, not treat him to these maudlin displays of drama.
She had a fierce need for a little distance, and excused herself to hurry to the ladies’ room.
Martin was partly to blame, she thought. His behavior today was nothing new. Since the trial he had been evasive and hedgy. Whenever she tried to work with him on the appeal, she was inevitably shuffled to some associate or other. It was like trying to nail down the breeze.
She knew the attorney had taken Hunter’s conviction hard, had seen it as a personal failure. She didn’t—she knew Martin had worked tirelessly to see Hunter acquitted. She just wished she could get the same effort out of him for the appeal.
In the small ladies’ room, she gazed at herself in the round mirror and was horrified to see her coloring was blotchy and her eyes looked on the verge of tears. That was the problem with having auburn hair and pale skin—she could never hide her emotions. She blushed as easily as she could go deathly pale.
Out there in the diner she might have been only on the verge of tears, with not a single drop shed, but she still looked as if she’d been on a three-day crying jag.
Taylor spent several moments repairing her makeup and forcing herself to take slow, steady breaths until she felt once more in control, then returned to their booth.
She slid across from Wyatt. To her chagrin, she felt watery all over again at the look of concern on his lean features.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually such an emotional wreck,” she felt compelled to explain. “Visits to the prison are…difficult for me.”
“I understand. I admire you for coming back week after week.”
“I would say it gets easier but that would be a lie. I hated it as much today as I did the very first time I visited.”
Taylor tried to swallow some of her salad, aware she didn’t have much time before she would have to leave for her study group. “So when you interview family members of convicted murderers, what do you usually talk about?”
“Any insights they want to offer into why the crime happened. Some people blame it on difficult childhoods, others bring up failed relationships. It varies. I usually let the interviewee lead the conversation. If you talk to me, you can bring up anything you’d like that might help me understand your brother.”
She could offer a hundred stories about how her brother had always protected her, how he had invariably stood between her and any threat, whatever the risk to himself. Telling any of them to Wyatt would be difficult, though, would expose dark family secrets she didn’t like to even remember, let alone reveal to anyone else.
If she had to, she would tell him, though. Just not here. Not now.
“There is evidence that never came out in the trial, for various reasons,” she said instead. “Evidence I believe proves his innocence beyond any reasonable doubt.”
He looked intrigued. “What kind of evidence?”
“I have a whole room full of folders and a computer full of files. If I agree to talk to you for your book, give you whatever information you might be seeking about our family life or whatever, withholding nothing, will you at least look at what I have—really look at it—and judge his guilt or innocence for yourself?”
“Of course. Even if you don’t want to be interviewed for the book I would still want to look at anything you have. Arriving at the truth is my ultimate goal as a writer. I wouldn’t be any kind of researcher if I ignored important details that might help me get there.”
Could it really be that easy? She hadn’t even had to bargain with him—the curiosity in his eyes told her he meant what he said, that he would look at her collection of evidence without her having to bare any painful details of their childhood.
Relief swamped her like a warm, comforting tide. This could work. Kate’s idea had been nothing less than inspired. This man, with his clever mind and his insightful prose, could be a powerful ally.
Now all she had to do was hope that Wyatt could look at the evidence with an objective eye, untainted by the damning testimony offered during the trial.
She could always hope. She’d become an expert at that over the last thirty months.
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