Deadly Illusions(64)

Mandy frowned. Clint. He’d been hurt in the attempt on her life almost seven months before. Sadly, the attack hadn’t eroded any of the infatuation he seemed to harbor where she was concerned. If anything, it had only given it wings.

“I would feel like that’s taking advantage,” Mandy said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well, I don’t have that problem,” the judge said. “Make sure the security department has access to that video. I’ll make a call down to them right now. If we’re lucky, they can find a face to match it to by lunch.”

Words escaped Mandy – which was a rare experience in her world.

Judge MacIntosh patted her on the shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything, dear. I want to help young Emma, too. She was just another victim in all of this. She may have been the biggest victim of all. You shouldn’t forget that.”

That was the one thing that was impossible for Mandy to forget that.



EMMA, already showered, was sitting on the small back patio at Mandy’s apartment while Finn cleaned up. She had a bag of bread in her hand, and about thirty hungry – and vocal – Canada Geese surrounded her.

Mandy’s apartment complex had buildings set up in large rectangles – with a manmade pond serving as decoration in the center of each grouping. While the geese were loud – and sometimes aggressive – Emma found joy in their waddling and cackling.

The day was warm, especially given the frigid temperatures of the past few months. Forty-five degrees felt like spring. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, but the pond was showing signs of melting – which was making the geese especially chatty today.

Emma was still trying to wrap her mind around the previous day. She’d known Finn Hardy was a good man the day she met him. She’d known he was a wonderful man a week after that. Now she was fighting the urge to call him “perfect,” thus building him up to legendary heights in her own mind.

Despite his words, and the comfort he’d so freely offered her the night before, part of Emma was still hung up on her previous beliefs. Her father had made sure she knew from a young age that no man would ever want her. That he was the only man she could have in her life. She’d believed him. She’d believed him right up until the moment Finn Hardy had walked into her life.

Now, part of her heart was opening – like a blooming flower. Another part of her heart was still closed off, still worried, and still doubtful that she had anything of worth to offer Finn.

She wanted to believe his words so much it hurt.

As a safety mechanism, Emma had always refused to let herself feel anything for a man before now. Finn had wormed his in way in like a stealthy ninja. She didn’t fully realize what he was doing until he’d already accomplished it. That was his strength. Well, one of many.

Finn was stout of heart and mind and, if young Emma could have seen him from afar during the terrors of her childhood, she might have had hope to cling to. For that Emma, the broken Emma, hope was something she’d discarded long ago.

This new Emma – the Emma she was trying so hard to embrace – had hope, and most of that hope revolved around Finn.

She had to be careful, she cautioned herself. Finn hadn’t promised forever. He’d merely promised right now. Although, when she was with him, forever finally seemed like a possibility. She wasn’t ready to give that up.

One of the geese squawked loudly, drawing Emma’s attention to the area to her immediate right. She pulled out another slice of bread and broke off a piece. “You’re awfully demanding,” she said. “I’m not sure you deserve any bread.”

The look on the bird’s face was priceless. Because she was softhearted, Emma gave him two pieces.



WHEN lunchtime arrived, Mandy raced to her computer to see if Clint had found anything on the video footage from the courthouse. He’d sent her two files with two different possibilities.

After watching footage of the first man three times, Mandy dismissed him. He was too tall – and his gait was too wide. The man who had attacked Emma was smaller and he took shorter steps.

Mandy shifted her attention to the second suspect, alarm bells sounding in her brain after only a few seconds of watching the man on the computer screen. He had cropped blond hair, an angular face, and a crooked nose. It was the same nose she’d seen in the footage from the boat show.

Mandy scanned the file again. Clint had given her a time stamp. She punched the date and time into her database and ran it against the witness list from court that day. One name popped up.

“Andrew Wayne,” Mandy said, exhaling sharply.

She clicked on Wayne’s name and scanned his testimony. He’d been twenty when Pritchard was on trial, which made him twenty-five now. Wayne had raped him as a teenager three different times during piano lessons – one time tying him to the bench with piano wire so he couldn’t move as he sodomized him for more than an hour.