up.
“Breuker is working hard to represent me,” Jefferson replied with satisfaction. Of course, with what he was paying the man, Rick Breuker damn well better be working his ass off. But his attorney might not be the only person Jefferson needed to pay.
Sheriff York wouldn’t accept his money, but there were some other officers who weren’t as honorable as he was.
“You’re not going to get away with all the crimes you committed,” York advised him.
He chuckled at the man’s naïveté. He’d been surprised and disappointed that a man this young had won the election for sheriff of Blackwoods County. But York wouldn’t last in politics, since he had no idea what the real world was like. “You might be surprised…”
James was surprised. His lawyer, Rick Breuker, had called him with the news that the police had been dispatched to Kleyn’s lawyer’s office. And a dead body had been discovered.
Breuker, who had connections in law enforcement, believed the body belonged to the lawyer, Marcus Leighton. And Kleyn was the number-one suspect, proving wrong the DEA agent’s claims of the inmate’s innocence, as well as confirming how dangerous Kleyn was to anyone who crossed his path.
That shoot-on-sight order was certain to be carried out now. Kleyn wouldn’t be apprehended; he would be dead.
Soon.
Jefferson James had offered an unofficial reward for Kleyn’s demise to ensure the convict’s fate. And once the number-one witness for the prosecution was dead, the case against Jefferson was certain to fall apart. He wouldn’t be behind these bars much longer before York would be opening the door for James, not to take a phone call but to go home.
To his daughter…
Emily had yet to come visit him, but with the reporters hounding her, maybe she just didn’t dare leave the house. When Jefferson was freed, he would explain to her that it had all been a horrible misunderstanding. That the only thing he was really guilty of was loving her and wanting to provide for her…
The sheriff studied him through narrowed eyes. “You’re up to something…”
Maybe the guy wasn’t as naïve as Jefferson had thought. But it wouldn’t matter. By the time he figured out the plan, it would be too late for the sheriff to step in and play hero.
Nobody would be able to save Jedidiah Kleyn this time.
* * *
T HE CONTINGENCY PLAN …
He had intended to destroy the files relating to Kleyn’s murder case, just as he had destroyed the lawyer who had ineffectually defended Jedidiah Kleyn so that he had been sentenced to prison for two lifetimes.
Because Marcus Leighton had been so incompetent, he hadn’t thought there would actually be anything of value in that file. He hadn’t thought that the man had had the balls to hold out on him . But Marcus had been keeping a secret, maybe out of guilt or maybe out of misplaced loyalty to Jed.
So he was glad that he’d been thorough, that he’d gone through every paper and scribbled note in the folder before torching it. He had found information in those case files that he could use to finally bring Jedidiah Kleyn to his knees.
War hadn’t hurt the man. Neither had prison. But now he knew what would.
Hurting his daughter. Losing her, before he’d ever gotten a chance to spend any time with her, would finally push Jedidiah Kleyn over the edge.
Then, at last, he would prove that the man everyone else had always treated like a superhero was really just a mere mortal.
And mortals died, like Jed would eventually die after he’d finally and sufficiently suffered.
Chapter Six
Betrayal.
It struck him again like a shiv in the chest. And the same woman was betraying him all over again. He closed his hand around hers, snapping her cell phone shut before she could punch in the last one of nine-one-one.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. Hadn’t she listened to a single warning he’d given her?
“Calling the cops, which is what I should have done the first moment I had the
“Breuker is working hard to represent me,” Jefferson replied with satisfaction. Of course, with what he was paying the man, Rick Breuker damn well better be working his ass off. But his attorney might not be the only person Jefferson needed to pay.
Sheriff York wouldn’t accept his money, but there were some other officers who weren’t as honorable as he was.
“You’re not going to get away with all the crimes you committed,” York advised him.
He chuckled at the man’s naïveté. He’d been surprised and disappointed that a man this young had won the election for sheriff of Blackwoods County. But York wouldn’t last in politics, since he had no idea what the real world was like. “You might be surprised…”
James was surprised. His lawyer, Rick Breuker, had called him with the news that the police had been dispatched to Kleyn’s lawyer’s office. And a dead body had been discovered.
Breuker, who had connections in law enforcement, believed the body belonged to the lawyer, Marcus Leighton. And Kleyn was the number-one suspect, proving wrong the DEA agent’s claims of the inmate’s innocence, as well as confirming how dangerous Kleyn was to anyone who crossed his path.
That shoot-on-sight order was certain to be carried out now. Kleyn wouldn’t be apprehended; he would be dead.
Soon.
Jefferson James had offered an unofficial reward for Kleyn’s demise to ensure the convict’s fate. And once the number-one witness for the prosecution was dead, the case against Jefferson was certain to fall apart. He wouldn’t be behind these bars much longer before York would be opening the door for James, not to take a phone call but to go home.
To his daughter…
Emily had yet to come visit him, but with the reporters hounding her, maybe she just didn’t dare leave the house. When Jefferson was freed, he would explain to her that it had all been a horrible misunderstanding. That the only thing he was really guilty of was loving her and wanting to provide for her…
The sheriff studied him through narrowed eyes. “You’re up to something…”
Maybe the guy wasn’t as naïve as Jefferson had thought. But it wouldn’t matter. By the time he figured out the plan, it would be too late for the sheriff to step in and play hero.
Nobody would be able to save Jedidiah Kleyn this time.
* * *
T HE CONTINGENCY PLAN …
He had intended to destroy the files relating to Kleyn’s murder case, just as he had destroyed the lawyer who had ineffectually defended Jedidiah Kleyn so that he had been sentenced to prison for two lifetimes.
Because Marcus Leighton had been so incompetent, he hadn’t thought there would actually be anything of value in that file. He hadn’t thought that the man had had the balls to hold out on him . But Marcus had been keeping a secret, maybe out of guilt or maybe out of misplaced loyalty to Jed.
So he was glad that he’d been thorough, that he’d gone through every paper and scribbled note in the folder before torching it. He had found information in those case files that he could use to finally bring Jedidiah Kleyn to his knees.
War hadn’t hurt the man. Neither had prison. But now he knew what would.
Hurting his daughter. Losing her, before he’d ever gotten a chance to spend any time with her, would finally push Jedidiah Kleyn over the edge.
Then, at last, he would prove that the man everyone else had always treated like a superhero was really just a mere mortal.
And mortals died, like Jed would eventually die after he’d finally and sufficiently suffered.
Chapter Six
Betrayal.
It struck him again like a shiv in the chest. And the same woman was betraying him all over again. He closed his hand around hers, snapping her cell phone shut before she could punch in the last one of nine-one-one.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. Hadn’t she listened to a single warning he’d given her?
“Calling the cops, which is what I should have done the first moment I had the
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