Nothing To Lose

“Not much. I worked a double shift at the hospital, then got hit on by the kid who bagged my groceries.”

Taylor turned her attention from the Irish setter she had inherited from Hunter after his arrest to her roommate and best friend standing in the doorway. “Big surprise.” She grinned. “You get hit on by everyone.”

“Not true. Only sixteen-year-old bag boys and sixty-year-old anatomy professors. Nobody date-able.” Kate’s rueful grimace did nothing to hide her model-beautiful features.

At the wry reference, Taylor had to laugh as she remembered Andrew McLean, the anatomy professor in question who had been notorious for propositioning all of his female medical students. Even Taylor had been on the receiving end of one of Randy Andy’s absymal pickup lines.

It seemed like another lifetime ago when she met Kate Spencer on the first day of McLean’s anatomy class, when they’d been paired up as lab partners. Both of them had been first-year medical students, overwhelmed and a little lost by the new world they’d been thrust into.

Recognizing kindred spirits, they had become immediate friends and study partners. Both of them had the same fierce dedication toward medical school, with little interest in anything but succeeding and becoming physicians.

During their second year of med school, Taylor’s father died of a massive heart attack after walking out of the courtroom where he presided with the same iron fist and cold resolve he had shown to his children.

After his death, she purchased this house near the university with part of her inheritance. Though she could have gotten by financially without a roommate, she discovered after a few months that she didn’t like living alone. Kate had been the logical choice.

They had shared so much together, Taylor thought now as she studied her roommate. Hopes and dreams and late-night cram sessions and a memorable cross-country trip one spring break to visit Kate’s foster parents in Florida.

They would have graduated together the previous year if Hunter’s arrest hadn’t plowed like a freight train through Taylor’s educational plans. While Kate had finished up and was now a second-year resident at University Hospital, Taylor’s life had taken a drastic turn.

She had withdrawn from her last semester of classes to attend the trial. After Hunter’s conviction, she had dropped out of medical school altogether. Now, instead of anatomy and physiology, she was immersed in torts and civil procedure.

She shook off the depression that suddenly settled on her shoulders like a weighted cloak at the reminder of the mounds of homework awaiting her before she could sleep.

“So how was the lecture?” Kate asked. “Did you get a chance to talk to the evil Wyatt McKinnon?”

“I spoke with him,” she said grimly.

“And?”

“He’s not budging.”

“Did you really expect him to drop the whole project just because you asked him to? He was there every day of the trial too.”

She sighed, slipping off her shoes and hanging her blazer in the closet off the entry. “Not really. Still, it was worth a shot. I guess I just wanted to make sure he knows how strongly I object to the idea of him making money off the hell Hunter is going through.”

“I’m not sure the money is all that important to him. He’s had ten books at the top of the bestseller lists. I think if Wyatt McKinnon never wrote another word, he would still be worth millions.”

Rich and successful and gorgeous. The man had everything. Her mouth tightened again. Why did he affect her so strongly? She should despise him for what he was doing to Hunter. She did, she assured herself.

So why had she sat through his reading as captivated by his words as every other brainless coed in that bookstore? Something about Wyatt McKinnon’s lean, rangy build and his tanned features and the intensity in his sage-green eyes seemed to reach right inside her and tug out feelings she had never imagined lurked inside her.

She could never tell Kate that. If her roommate ever figured out she was attracted to the blasted man, Taylor would never hear the end of it.

By unspoken agreement, the two women headed for the kitchen, Belle padding along behind them. Kate returned to the stove and stirred a tomato sauce bubbling there while Taylor set out plates and silverware.

“I read that article about him in Vanity Fair a few months ago,” Kate went on. “It might have been hype, but I got the impression he’s not in it for the money.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t turn it away when his publisher sends him all those big fat royalty checks.”

“Maybe not, but I think there’s more to it than that. Hang on a minute.”

Kate set the spoon down with a clatter and suddenly dashed out of the kitchen toward her bedroom, Belle following on her heels. A moment later she rushed back and thrust a magazine at Taylor.

Gazing back at her out of those vivid green eyes that gleamed behind wire-rimmed glasses was none other than Wyatt McKinnon, wearing cowboy boots and a denim jacket and looking as if he had just climbed off the back of a horse.

“I thought I still had this—”

Though Taylor wasn’t sure how Kate could look at anything but that compelling picture, her roommate scanned the article.

“Here is that quote I was looking for, about why he writes what he does.”

She pulled the magazine away from Taylor and read out loud. “‘I write for the victims and the victims’ loved ones. When a family loses someone through a violent crime or an unsolved disappearance, their lives are changed forever. The world is never again as shiny and bright with possibilities. Though it doesn’t take away any of their pain, victims’ families deserve to know the truth about what happened and, more importantly, to know their lives won’t be forgotten.’”

“He sounds as if he knows. I wonder if he’s lost someone.” Taylor studied the picture, looking for shadows behind that enigmatic smile. She couldn’t tell anything from the glossy photograph.

“The article doesn’t say anything like that about him, but it’s possible.” Kate returned to the stove to drain the pasta. For a few moments the kitchen was silent except for Belle’s snuffly breathing and the sauce burbling on the stove.

“You know,” Kate said suddenly, “maybe you’ve been going about this the wrong way with McKinnon.”

“How?”

“You want to keep him from interviewing Hunter. But maybe you should be thanking your lucky stars he’s interested in the case.”

Taylor stared at her. “You’re crazy. Hunter doesn’t need more negative publicity. He’s had enough to last a lifetime.”

“What if it’s not negative? McKinnon’s books are extensively researched. He has a reputation for writing genuine, accurate stories, even in cases where the cops messed up. If you show him the evidence you’ve gathered since Hunter’s conviction, he can’t help but see that your brother is innocent.”

“You’re the one who read that quote. He writes for the victims and their families. Not for the accused killers.”

“We both know Hunter is no killer. You just have to convince Wyatt McKinnon. Imagine what it would do for Hunter’s appeal if McKinnon wrote a book questioning whether an innocent man is on death row!”

“He sat through the trial and heard the state’s case. As far as he’s concerned, Hunter killed Dru and her mother and her unborn baby. Just like the rest of the world, I’m sure he thinks Hunter deserves what’s coming to him.”

“You just have to prove that he and the rest of the world are wrong.”

Taylor gave a short laugh. “Sure. And while I’m at it, I’ll solve world hunger and in my spare time maybe I’ll find a cure for cancer.”

“Who else will speak up for Hunter? You and I are just about the only people on the planet who believe he’s innocent. But imagine if he had someone as influential and well-known as Wyatt McKinnon in his corner. He would be bound to win an appeal.”

Kate was right. If she could somehow convince Wyatt to help her prove her brother didn’t murder anyone, it would undoubtedly help Hunter’s appeal. But how could she face him again? Just the idea of another encounter made her stomach hurt worse than the first time she had to answer a question aloud in her miserable contracts-law class.

She could do it, though. She would. Hunter’s life depended on it.

Chapter 2

Taylor dreaded Tuesday afternoons like she used to hate the dance lessons her father insisted on during her pre-adolescence.

Monday evening at around nine o’clock her stomach would start to ache like a rotten tooth and her shoulders would stiffen with tension. She could pretend everything was fine, could just go on as normal and try her best to concentrate through her Tuesday morning torts class. But by the time she set off on the thirty-minute drive from the University of Utah campus to the Point of the Mountain state prison, at the south end of the vast Salt Lake Valley, she was usually a mass of tangled nerves.