in the oil fields. All of her male relatives and family friends were strong and muscular. But Travis gave new meaning to the term “hard body.”
How humiliating to have to admit that she found her kidnapper handsome. And sexy. And how strange that, in the span of a couple of hours, she’d gone from terrified to... Well, she wasn’t afraid of him. He might be a desperate man, but deep down he was gentle, and he wasn’t going to hurt her.
“Tell me about your brother,” she said. “We’ve got some time to kill. Since I am a pawn in your little power play, I’d like to know why you are so positive that your brother is innocent.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “Because he’s my brother. I practically raised him. As kids, we were together constantly. When the state wanted to split us up into different foster homes, we kicked up such a fuss that they found someone who would take both of us.”
Foster care. It sounded like he didn’t have an ideal childhood, then.
“Don’t go looking at me like I’m some sort of charity case. It wasn’t like that. Our mom was a good mom. But she went through a rough patch when she didn’t have a job. We were in foster care for only about six months.”
“So you were very close to your brother when you were children. But people change, you know.”
“I’m still close to him. I spent a lot of time with him and Tammy. Eric loved her and MacKenzie more than anything in the world. He would have died for either of them without a second thought. There is no way he killed her, under any circumstances. No way.”
Elena’s heart ached for him. Whatever faults he had, Travis did love his brother. That was apparent.
“I believe you,” she said softly. “But Project Justice requires more than belief, because it takes more than that to get a case overturned.” Although Elena didn’t work directly for Project Justice, she’d learned a thing or two about how the foundation operated just from being Daniel’s assistant. “There has to be some kind of evidence that’s been overlooked or ignored—like a witness that was never interviewed or physical clues that weren’t properly analyzed—that sort of thing.
“Do you have anything like that in your brother’s case?”
“Not exactly. But I think there’s evidence that could be developed. There is one element of the case that was never brought to light.”
“And what is that?”
“Tammy was having an affair.”
“And this wasn’t brought up during the trial?”
“It was never investigated at all.”
“You think the man she cheated with might have killed her?”
“It’s an obvious theory that should be ruled out, don’t you think? Because the evidence they had on Eric was all circumstantial. There was no sign of forced entry into the house, Eric didn’t have an alibi, and they’d had an argument earlier in the day. In the absence of any other suspect, Eric looked guilty.”
As he went over some of the facts of the case, Elena started to remember more about it. Although she’d never been much interested in news coverage about violent crime before she’d started working for Daniel, since she’d been in his employ she’d started watching true-crime shows. Tammy Riggs’s murder was the kind of sensational event that attracted attention—well-to-do lawyer stabs his beautiful blond wife to death in the kitchen while their toddler is in the house.
“The daughter—MacKenzie, is that her name?”
Travis smiled fondly. “Yeah.”
“She was home when her mother was killed?”
He nodded. “She was only three. Eric came home and found MacKenzie there with Tammy...her mother’s blood all over her clothes. But she was never able to tell what happened. Now that she’s six years old, she says she doesn’t remember, that she didn’t see what happened. She might have been in another room, asleep.” Travis shrugged.
Elena nodded. “Project Justice has a psychologist on staff. She’s a nationally recognized expert on hypnotic regression and recovering lost memories.”
“You see? I know Project Justice can help. If only they’ll take on the case.”
Elena was very afraid that, no matter what Travis did, the foundation wouldn’t take on the case. There were many deserving cases, and Project Justice had only so many investigators, so many resources. That’s why the application process was important, so that the most urgent cases, the most obvious miscarriages of justice, were given priority.
Daniel would never cave in to Travis’s tactics, because it would send out the wrong message. Other desperate people might resort to violence if the tactic worked for Travis.
The best Travis could hope for was that this stunt would attract media attention.
“If Tammy was having an affair,” Elena said, “why didn’t the police look into it?”
“Because they didn’t know about it. Eric absolutely refused to believe it was true, and he refused to even bring up the possibility. His lawyer told me to keep my theories to myself because even the suggestion of cheating would give Travis a strong motive for murder.”
“And you knew about it...how?”
“I saw the signs. I know what it looks like when a woman is cheating.” He said this with no small amount of bitterness, indicating to Elena that some woman had cheated on Travis in his past. “But Eric was blind to it. Tammy was a saint. She could do no wrong—especially after she was dead—and that was that.”
“So I take it Eric is not in favor of looking for the man his wife was cheating with.”
“He wasn’t. Not for a long time. But now that he’s had time to think about it, and MacKenzie is about to get new parents—he says he won’t oppose me. He still doesn’t believe his wife was unfaithful, though.”
Elena had to admit, it was an intriguing case. Under other circumstances, Daniel—who had final say on which cases the foundation took on—would have at least done some preliminary digging around.
“The fact that MacKenzie’s about to be adopted is bad enough,” he said. “But the foster parents who are adopting her—they don’t take care of her properly. They just ignore her. And I think they take away the clothes and toys I give her.... Hell, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Elena knew: because she was willing to listen. She got the feeling no one had actually listened to his story before...at least nobody with an open mind.
He picked up the tray, apparently intending to take all those potential weapons out of Elena’s reach. As he did, her empty soda can rolled off the tray and onto the floor.
“I’ll get it.” She leaned down at the same time he did. She bumped her head on his shoulder, and everything on the tray spilled to the ground. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was clumsy of me. Here, let me help.”
What followed was an awkward dance as they both tried to pick up the fallen dishes, bumping into each other several times in the process.
“For God’s sake, I’ll get it, okay?” he groused. “Keep your hands off the fork.”
She backed off and sat down on the closed toilet. Once he’d collected everything and put it back on the tray, he left her alone. She heard him wedge something under the doorknob, trapping her again.
She took a deep breath and reached under her thigh to the object she’d hidden there. All of that clumsy bumping together hadn’t been entirely accidental on her part. As a six-year-old on the streets of Havana, she’d been a damn fine pickpocket.
She now had Travis’s phone.
How soon before he missed it? How much time did she have? And what would she do with it, now that she had