She rolled her eyes. "Like she'd talk to you?"
"She might," he said. Then he lowered his voice as if speaking to himself "I suspect she could be very interested in talking to me."
"What do you mean? Why would she?"
He didn't reply, merely mumbling under his breath about how impossible it was that this could all be a coincidence.
The same thought had flashed through her head more than once. "It does seem pretty odd that Boyd lands some new high-powered attorney and gets out right around the same time somebody's trying to set me up for murder. Sounds a lot like a desperate person covering all his bases, finding me by fair means or foul."
No matter who got hurt. No matter what little child Boyd might target next.
Not that Lovesprettyboys would care. The unsub was a sociopath, not a classic pedophile at all. When they'd first discovered him, he'd been part of a violent virtual world, Satan's Playground, and offered to pay a fortune to see such violence performed against a child in real life. So the idea of a convicted child killer going free probably delighted him.
How such people could exist was beyond her. It seemed as though every time they caught one, another two took his place. That didn't mean she'd ever give up on catching them and putting them away. Especially Jesse Tyrone Boyd.
While the courts might think he didn't get a fair trial, she didn't for one minute think anybody really believed he was innocent. Especially not her. She'd seen Zach's little face through the window of the man's panel van. She'd seen his tags. And when she saw him in a lineup, she'd easily picked him out as the man who'd been lurking around the neighborhood in the days preceding Zach's kidnapping. The man Zach said had talked to one of his friends about a lost puppy.
Why did you let him go back to that park, Laura? Why?
She thrust the anguished thought away, focusing on the case. The things she could do something about. Not the past that was gone, out of reach, inalterable, and resolute.
"You know, Boyd's mother came up to me in the courthouse during the trial."
He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a quick, worried glance.
"She was teary-eyed, and she came to tell me how sorry she was for what her son had done. The way he had destroyed my family, cost me everyone I loved." To this day, she couldn't forget the look on the woman's face when she'd admitted what her son had done. What he was.
How did a mother survive that?
She hadn't brought it up to be maudlin, or dwell on it, only to illustrate a point. "She is his only family, and she made it clear that when she listened to his testimony, she knew right away that he was lying. And had no doubt he was guilty. She cut him off then and there, said she would never be back."
"Meaning," Wyatt said, understanding immediately, "it is very doubtful he has family members on the outside paying for a new lawyer."
"Exactly."
"So who did?
"That's a very good question. And I suppose it's the reason you want to talk to this lawyer, Claire Vincent?"
"Yes."
"She won't tell you who she's really working for. She can't, can she?"
"No, I'm certain she won't. But I want to talk to her anyway. Call it my sixth sense. I have the feeling there's something to be learned there."
She didn't doubt Wyatt's sixth sense, having seen evidence of it more than once. Primarily on the night he'd found her on that cold, dark beach. Because the odds had been astronomical. By all rights, he should never have even ended up on the right beach, much less actually tracking her to the dune on which she'd fallen.
Oh, no, she didn't doubt Wyatt's inner voice.
"No harm in trying," she said.
They pulled up to his place, and Lily blinked. Once again, Wyatt's wealth was made clear. The graceful, mellowed-brick old town houses in this neighborhood, some four or five stories tall and a hundred years old, were a far cry from the one bedroom/one bath cubbyhole she'd called home last winter.
He definitely didn't afford it on an FBI agent's salary.
He glanced over, obviously saw her wide-eyed stare. "I grew up here and inherited the house from my grandparents."
Grew up here in his grandparents' house. Well, they were making progress, weren't they? That was about as much personal information as he'd revealed in the past six months. At this rate, she might actually learn his middle name sometime before she died of old age.
This enigmatic thing was sexy, but it was also frustrating as hell. As someone who'd been living a secret life for months, she suddenly found herself damn well sick of mysteries and enigmas.
She reached for the door handle and yanked it open, stepping out into his driveway before he'd come around to open the door, as he always did.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Fine. Just anxious to get this over with."
He said nothing, merely reaching into the backseat and grabbing the small suitcase she'd brought with her. Clothes bought and paid for by this man. Just like everything else she owned.
Maybe it was being back here, in the city where she'd been so independent, overcome all the hardships of her youth to get her degree, then her master's, and land a job with the FBI. She'd never let anyone hold her back; she'd paid her own way.
Until now.
Following Wyatt, she quickly glanced around the inside of the house as they walked through the back door into the kitchen. As she could have predicted, it was immaculate-dark cherry cabinets with glass-front doors, a swirling brown and black marble countertop, state-of-the-art appliances. Perfect. Just like the man who owned it.
Her apartment's Formica cabinets had been chipped, the handle broken off the one under the kitchen sink so she'd had to pry it with her fingertips whenever she'd needed to get trash bags or dish detergent.
His floors were a deep, rich hardwood, highly shined. Hers had been linoleum, with a burned spot in one corner where she'd made the mistake of putting the hot oven rack.
She so didn't belong here. At the beach house, it had been easier to pretend, because she'd been hiding. But she no longer wanted to hide. She also most definitely no longer wanted to be kept. "This needs to be over soon," she muttered.
Wyatt put her bag on the table, then turned to stare at her, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the back of a chair. The immaculate suit didn't even shift out of place with the pose; it just moved with him as if it had been perfectly tailored. Well, it probably had. That was what perfectly tailored meant, right?
She shook her head.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she said. "I'm just tired and ready to get on with things. Two weeks ago, I thought I'd be happy to never leave Maine. Your beach house. Now all I can think about is how desperately I want to get out of here, put all of this behind me, and go out there and actually live somewhere, in my own place, on my own dime, without being a drag on someone else all the time."
He straightened and stepped over, lifting a hand to her chin. Tilting her head up so she was forced to meet his eyes, he silently urged her to listen to him. He appeared understanding, not irritated that she was throwing his generosity right back in his face like some selfish teenager bitching because she got the wrong color iPhone for Christmas.
"Let's get one thing clear. I have more money than I could spend in my lifetime." he admitted. "My father was disgustingly rich, my mother's family pretty well-off also. And the day I turned twenty-five, I got the keys to a large trust fund."
Lily sucked in a breath, not because of the fact that he was a rich man, but because he was telling her so much, revealing more and more of himself
"I hate the beach house," he added, almost gritting out the words. "And I don't particularly care about this one, beyond the good memories of my mother's parents and the fact that it provides a place to sleep at the end of every long, fourteen-hour workday. But I feel no attachment to anything, Lily. I put no value on things or on dollars."