The Perfect Liar (Last Stand 5)

"It's a trap. She's hoping to catch you in a weak moment, get you to say something that can be used against you later. Trust me, Captain Trussell, she's called a victims' advocate for a reason."

But McCreedy was dispensing advice based on a false premise--that Luke might be lying. Most defendants lied, didn't they? They couldn't be honest, not if they expected to stay out of prison.

"This case is different," he argued. "I'm not like most of your other clients. I have nothing to hide, so I don't see how it can hurt to talk to Ava Bixby."

"Al my clients are innocent until proven guilty. And you could do a world of damage."

"But if I didn't rape Kalyna, how can anything I say hurt me?"

"Depending on her level of motivation, Ms. Bixby could misinterpret a comment or two, or even misrepresent what you said."

"But if I don't respond, she'l assume the worst. Anyone would."

"No, she'l assume you have good representation," he said. "Because you do."

At that point, Luke gave up trying to convince McCreedy. He was paying the man for a reason. He needed to trust his advice.

Fifteen minutes later, driving to the gym, he was telling himself he'd done the right thing. But it didn't make any difference. He couldn't stop thinking about Ava Bixby and her message, so he turned around and went home. He wanted to learn more about The Last Stand, and he was too impatient to put it off a couple of hours.

Tossing his keys on the counter as soon as he walked through the door, he went directly to his computer.

Google provided a whole list of links on the charity, mostly newspaper articles citing how various individuals from the organization had found missing persons, helped convict sex offenders and murderers, protected abused spouses.

The praise lavished on them made Luke nervous. McCreedy had said they were "dogged" that seemed to be true. But would they go after an innocent man with the same dogged determination they'd go after a guilty man? Would they bother to notice the difference?

One link that came up went to the official Last Stand Web site--

TheLastStandVictimsCharity.com. There, he saw their mission statement posted on the home page: To help victims of violent crime find justice, safety and peace of mind.

It sounded noble. Several other paragraphs detailed the need for such an organization and made a plea for financial support. There was even a way to donate directly through the site via a secure server.

Luke would probably have given them a couple hundred bucks had he stumbled upon the site at another time, but right now he was afraid his money would end up being used against him.

Surfing through a few of the other pages, he pulled up information on the staff. According to what was posted, only three people, all of them women, worked full-time in the Sacramento office. Unfortunately, the Web site didn't include pictures of these "directors," as they were called, but he found a short bio on each one. Ava had been born and raised in Northern California. She'd graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a B.A. in psychology, and she'd gotten involved with The Last Stand through volunteering.

Luke stared at the short paragraph he'd just read. She seemed smart.

But could he trust her? Would she have an ear for the truth or even care about it? Or had she been so convinced by Kalyna that she'd care only about chalking up another conviction?

He needed someone to listen, to stop this travesty of justice before it went any further. He wanted to resume his life, get back to flying.

He called the office number Ava had left on his machine.

A pleasant voice answered. "The Last Stand."

"Is Ava Bixby in?"

"She's on another line. Can I take a message and have her call you back?"

Don't talk to her. She's on their side, McCreedy had warned. Why wasn't he listening?

"No, no message," he said, and hung up.

Chapter 6

"You got a minute?"

Ava glanced up as Jonathan Stivers poked his head into her office on Thursday afternoon. "Of course," she said. "Get in here. I've been trying to reach you."

"Sorry, my phone's dead and I lost my charger."

Just shy of six feet tall with a wiry build, brown hair and brown eyes, Jonathan was definitely handsome. Although Ava had never been attracted to him in a romantic sense, the interns and volunteers gushed over him all the time--to no avail. He was engaged to Zoe Duncan, a woman he'd met while he was working to locate her kidnapped daughter.

"Then I'm glad you stopped by." She shoved some phone records she'd been studying for another case off to one side. "I've been dying to talk to you."

He ambled in and took a chair across from her desk. "Fortunately, you're stil here. I didn't want to drive all over the place looking for your houseboat."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't start, okay? It's not that hard to find."

"It's at least a forty-minute drive."

"But I dock it in the same place every night. Well, every night so far this month," she corrected.

"When are you going to buy a real house?" he asked. "It can't be convenient driving out to the delta every night."

"Skye's house is farther." She shrugged. "Anyway, a houseboat has its advantages."

"And they are..."

"I'm not sure I want to live in Sacramento forever. If I had a regular house, I'd have to sell it in order to leave."

"So you're saying you can pick up and go whenever you want."

She opened her top drawer to get a package of gum, then slammed it shut. "Exactly."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Like right now."

"Yup. I could if I wanted to." She unwrapped a piece of gum and tossed the paper at the wastebasket, but missed.

"You can't simply abandon the houseboat."

"I'd call my father and tell him to take care of it himself. After all, it's his, isn't it?" She popped the gum in her mouth.

"You couldn't do that. Because then he'd have to sell it, dispelling the il usion you've helped him create that he hasn't gotten too henpecked to steal away on a fishing trip now and then." Jonathan jerked his head toward her desk. "I'l have a piece of that."

She threw a stick of gum at him instead of to him, but he managed to catch it. "His il usions are not my problem."

"Now you're dissembling."

"Dissembling? Where'd you come up with that word?"

He wadded up his wrapper and tossed it in the direction of the wastebasket--it went right in. "I have a good vocabulary. I just try not to use it. I don't like to intimidate those around me."