He could, however, try to get Wyatt to go on his own. And he'd done everything from criticizing him to reprimanding him to accomplish that goal.

That the reprimand had been over Lily Fletcher's death was something he would never let her know.

But how did she know the rest? He had shared details of the tense meetings, the argumentative phone calls, and the sniping e-mails from the DD's office with no one.

Wyatt alone was responsible for the decisions he made. He had known going into it that exposing internal corruption would be career suicide. Not to mention the end of friendships. So he would never bemoan the fully expected results of his actions to anyone now.

Others might whisper about it, speculate that while he'd gotten public commendations and made those high-level friends, in private, in the cutthroat world of the upper echelons of the FBI, he'd been vilified. Yet Lily seemed to be talking about more than the rumor and innuendo that had been surrounding him in the two and a half years since he'd crossed the blue line and done something about what he'd discovered.

And then he got it.

Wyatt lowered the glass to the counter, no longer trusting himself to hold it upright. The moment it left his grip, his fingers curled together, every muscle in his body growing tense as the truth washed over him. "Lily?

She opened her mouth to remind him of the name he was supposed to be using, but must have seen the steely flash of anger in his eyes and said nothing.

"You'd better not ever let me find out you've been hacking into our system."

She held his gaze, saying nothing, fearless and emotionless. Not denying it. Not justifying it. As if silently telling him she was good enough that he never would find out.

"Damn it," he snapped.

Anger rose. The kind of anger that one year ago he hadn't believed he was capable of feeling, so effective had his emotional control been for most of his life. The frustration caused an unfamiliar pounding in his head and every muscle in his body was hard and tense. What in hell was it with this woman that she continued to take these chances, with no regard for her safety or well-being?

He wasn't used to feeling this way. To ever being thrown off his normal, pace. Yet for the past seven months of dealing with Lily Fletcher, his life had been anything but normal, and sometimes he didn't even recognize himself.

Though Lily remained where she was, her chin up in silent defiance, he saw a flash of wariness enter her eyes. Wariness of him, which made him incredibly uncomfortable. "I need some fresh air," he said. "Don't hold dinner." Then, not trusting himself to discuss the issue with her calmly, he turned and stalked out of the room.

Chapter 3

"Get over here, Boyd. You got a visitor."

In the middle of a set, Jesse Boyd didn't immediately put down the sixty-pound barbell he was holding against his chest. First, because he needed to stick to the routine, he finished his curls. In here, he had no choice but to keep himself in prime shape, ready to fight off the next con who jumped him in the showers or tried to beat the hell out of him in the yard.

And second, because the guard, Kildare, was a mean prick with a nasty sense of humor. It wasn't a visiting day, nor the right hour. Jesse wouldn't put it past the screw to lie about a visitor, just to get him to leave the weight room without permission and get his ass banned from the gym for violating rules. He'd like nothing better than for Jesse to stop working out, get weak, be unable to defend himself. That was the kind of hateful crap Kildare was infamous for.

Besides, nobody ever came to visit him. His ma had come to the county jail for a while, after his arrest, and she'd been there during his trial.

But she'd also been sitting in the courtroom when the worst of it had come out, when the testimony got pretty bad. She hadn't come back since. Not one visit. Not one letter. Not one word. It was as if she'd never given birth to him.

"You got shit stuck in your ears?"

Lowering the barbell, Jesse offered the man an insolent sneer. "I heard ya."

The guard glowered, his beefy frame straining against the blue fabric of his uniform. "Then get your ass over here."

It was a risk. Ignore the guard and take a whack from his nightstick, or believe him and land in crap when it proved to be a lie.

Life on the inside was made of such decisions. Choices usually ranged from bad to rotten, and whichever way he went, Jesse was the one who invariably got fucked. But lately he'd been working out hard, building his strength. Now he was strong enough to fight back.

Unlike in the beginning.

Right after he'd come here to the Cumberland maximum-security facility to serve his sentence, he'd learned just how true all those stories were about prison life. About what it was like to go inside on any kind of crime involving kids.

Most people, inside and out, seemed to think his was the worst kind of crime. Paying a debt to society by getting locked in a cell for the rest of his life didn't seem to be enough, apparently. He needed to regularly get beaten and jumped by his fellow inmates, and sometimes guards, too.

Probably the only person who'd had it worse than him in this place was the crazy guy they called the Professor. Because, when you got sent up, the only thing worse than being a convicted child molester was being a former prison warden.

"You got till the count of three. Then I bust your head, toss you in your cell, and tell your fancy new lawyer you're not interested."

That got his attention. "What lawyer?"

The guard peered at him, visibly suspicious. "You weren't expecting her?"

Her? Every one of his previous public defenders had been guys. The last of them, a kid who looked as if he should be going to homeroom and banging cheerleaders, had made it clear he wouldn't be back unless the pope himself showed up to give Jesse an alibi. Just one more in a long line of motherfuckers who'd screwed him over.

Best defense available under the law? Shee-it. His own lawyers hadn't done jack to get him out of this jam. Oh, sure, they'd gone through the most basic of motions to file an appeal, but had given up almost immediately with a "Sayonara, sucker." Nobody cared if he rotted in here for the rest of his miserable life.

"Boyd!" the guard snapped.

Putting on his best poker face, Jesse replied, "I didn't think she was comin' today, thassall. Good news."

Yeah, fat chance of that. He couldn't help wondering how the guard would react when he found out this was a mistake. Because it had to be. Jesse didn't have no new attorney.

It's possible. You never know.

Maybe it was good news. Everybody's luck had to turn around sooner or later, didn't it? Maybe it was his time. Maybe somebody had finally realized he'd gotten no goddamn justice and they were here to fix this mess.

"Move it, then."

He crossed the gym, ignoring the glares he got from his fellow inmates. Screw them. Self-righteous bastards. They could slit the throats of old grannies-or pop shopkeepers for three bucks, and still thought they were so much better than him? That he was sick and degenerate? Hell, he wasn't no cold-blooded killer.

As Kildare escorted him to one of the meeting rooms, which was used only by inmates and their attorneys, he prepared for the guard's wrath. It wasn't Jesse's fault somebody screwed up and thought he had a new lawyer. But Kildare would blame him for inconveniencing his lard ass anyway.

Reaching the room, he couldn't help peering through the barred glass window to make sure there was a woman inside, and he wasn't about to walk into a guard's birthday party, with him playing the part of the pinata.