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Dirk made a gesture of frustration. “I’d been arrested for that at the time, but Lyon had refused to press charges despite his father’s insistence. Even though the charges had been dropped, however, the arrest was still on my record. And the prosecution didn’t hesitate to use it against me. But, as I said, I was acquitted at trial. The judge announced I’d been exonerated, and—” his voice turned bitter “—I was leaving the court without a stain on my name.”
He waited, but Mei-li didn’t react at all, just stared at him with that same expression comprised of patience and compassion. “And?” she prompted.
Dirk didn’t know why, but he wanted to shatter her composure. Wanted her to know the very worst about him so she wouldn’t look at him that way. Compassion wasn’t pity—he’d been on the receiving end of enough of both after Bree died to know the difference—but he didn’t want either from Mei-li. And the reasons were as complex as the totally unexpected emotions she’d triggered in him two weeks earlier.
But he wasn’t quite ready to reveal all his secrets. “And Terrell Blackwood tried to kill Bree and me when I walked out of that courtroom a free man. Came damn close to doing it, too,” he said grimly. He slid a hand inside the unbuttoned collar of his polo shirt and tugged until the scar he carried over his heart was visible. “The surgeon said if the bullet had been an inch to the right it would have been game over for me. As it was, I spent three weeks in the hospital recovering, but it was worse for Bree. She was gutshot.”
Nineteen years and the rage was still there—directly, both internally and externally. First Lyon Blackwood attacking Bree twenty years ago, then his father, Terrell, shooting her right after the acquittal. And last but certainly not least, he himself. Every bad thing that had happened to Bree, including what she’d suffered at the hands of the Blackwoods, had been due to him in one fashion or another. “She developed a bacterial infection, despite the best the hospital could do. They were so sure she wasn’t going to make it, they called in a priest to give her last rites.”
But Bree had shocked them all by living. They’d wheeled a seventeen-year-old Dirk into the ICU at his insistence, and with tears running down his cheeks, he’d begged her not to leave him. Bree had always claimed she had no memory of those three days when she’d fought for her life, her temperature spiking to dangerous levels as the hospital staff pumped her full of antibiotics, but Dirk had remembered. They’d been the worst three days of his life...until twenty-one months ago.
Mei-li pulled him out of his introspection. “Last rites...but she lived.”
“Yeah.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I mean, what happened to the man who tried to kill the two of you?”
“Terrell Blackwood went to trial, and despite the best lawyers money could buy, he was convicted of attempted murder. There were more than a dozen witnesses in addition to Bree and me, and forensics had him nailed—the bullets were fired from a gun registered to him, his fingerprints were all over it, he had gunshot residue on his hand—it was an open-and-shut case. But...”
“But?” Mei-li prompted when Dirk didn’t continue.
“He received two sentences of fifteen years to life, to be served concurrently. Not consecutively. The judge took pity on Blackwood because he was a ‘grief-stricken father’ when he gunned us down.” Dirk was silent for a moment. “A few years later I heard they tacked on five years for bribery of prison guards.” He made a sound of disgust. “Concurrent fifteen-year sentences means only seven and a half years for each attempted murder conviction...but bribery got him five years.”
Mei-li’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. “I have heard about the...shall we say, inconsistencies...in the America jurisprudence system. Especially when someone has money. It’s not all that different here, Mr. DeWinter.”
“Dirk,” he corrected. “Please.”
She nodded. “Dirk.” Her dark eyes held his. “But if Terrell Blackwood is behind the kidnapping, he must be out of prison.”
Dirk nodded. “He was paroled in January. I was notified about his parole hearing last fall, but I...I didn’t attend. The reasons are complicated.”
Mei-li glanced at the boarded-up windows around them and cocked her head toward the wind and rain raging outside. “We have nothing but time.”
