“Where do you recognize him from, Aja? Is he the man that attacked you?”
“His name is Taylor Sullivan. He’s Earl Sullivan’s son. He was part of the original contractor team that worked on my ranch before his father pulled them for unsafe working conditions. Aside from all that, he’s a friend of my family. I’ve known him all his life. I used to babysit him, for God’s sake. This has to be some mistake.”
Jackson pulled a notepad from his back pocket and scribbled the information down. “Is he the man that attacked you?”
She held out a hand. “I never saw his face. I don’t know.” She looked back at Number Six and then turned back to Jackson. “That’s not a man, though. That is a sixteen-year-old boy. He’s a child.”
“I’m afraid the law says he’s an adult, ma’am. I intend to prosecute him as such.”
Aja’s glare was sharp enough to slice Ross in two. The man didn’t know Aja like Jackson did. He didn’t understand the warning signals. If Aja’s fury reached the point where she had to cross her arms or place her hands on her hips—gestures he believed were a control tactic to keep her from smacking fire out of someone—John Ross was in trouble.
Aja took a deep breath, her fight for restraint obvious in the labored sound of her actively pushing air out of her lungs, and turned toward Jackson. “The smart move would be to get that boy some representation. If Mr. Ross does in fact prosecute Taylor as an adult, you don’t want the charges kicked back by the jury simply because they don’t believe he’s capable of this type of menacing behavior since he’s a kid.”
Jackson had to admit to himself she was right. As much as he wanted to see justice done, finding out the person he’d put in cuffs was this young gave him pause.
“What about height and build, Ms. Everett? Does the individual you’re identifying seem similar to your attacker?”
Again she shook her head. “I don’t know. I was lying down, asleep in bed when he attacked me. When Ranger Dean entered the scene, the attacker was straddling me on the bed. The Ranger dove onto the bed to get him off me, and they fell to the floor. The attacker scrambled out the balcony on all fours. I never saw him standing up.”
Jackson picked up the phone on a nearby desk and waited for Maureen, their floor receptionist, to answer. “Hey, Reenie, would you escort Ms. Everett from the lineup box to my office, please? Thanks.”
A few seconds later, Maureen opened the door. Aja took a deep breath, her eyes filled with sorrow and disappointment. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“You were more help than you believe. Wait for me. I’ll meet you in my office soon.”
She left the room, and Maureen closed the door with a quiet click, leaving Jackson and Ross alone.
“She a friend?”
Jackson ground his teeth together before he answered. “What do you mean?”
“You seem…invested in her. Like it’s important to you she’s okay.”
Give that man a prize.
“I wish that for every person who’s been the victim of a crime. Don’t you?”
Ross watched him a moment longer, then placed his hands on his Texas-sized belt buckle. “I do,” he answered. “I guess if we didn’t, we should all be in a different line of work. Right?”
Jackson let the breath he was holding ease out through pursed lips. “Yeah, we should,” he responded. “What do you think of that ID? Think it will hold up in court?”
“I’ve seen weaker IDs work. But I would like to see a bit more evidence to connect him to the assault. I can probably get him to agree to a deal based on what we have now. But if this goes to court, we will probably need more.”
Jackson ran his fingers through his tight curls and headed toward the door. “All right, Counselor. Let me get him into an interrogation room so I can get you that more you’re talking about.”
Chapter 29
Aja’s patience was wearing thin. She’d gone from sitting at the small table in Jackson’s office and tapping her fingers against the cool metal surface to pacing back and forth across the room.
She didn’t like this. Not one bit. She was all for people being held accountable for their actions, but this was a child. A sixteen-year-old boy who Aja knew personally. The image of Taylor standing in that lineup didn’t mesh with the mild-mannered, sweet young man who’d worked on her ranch for the better part of the summer. Something wasn’t right.
She’d been waiting to tell Jackson that, hoping she could persuade him to urge the prosecutor to show a little leniency or, at the very least, wait until Taylor had a lawyer or parent present before he questioned him. But she knew in her gut that John Ross wouldn’t give any such boon, and he was probably in there right now, grilling that poor child.
A child who may have attacked you.
She shook against the bristle of doubt as it brushed its way down her spine. Nothing about her interactions with Taylor had ever showed he was capable of that kind of rage. She had to believe this was some kind of mistake. She refused to believe the sweet child she’d had such a special bond with all these years could turn out to be this kind of monster.
She had to do something, try to find out what was going on. She couldn’t sit idly by again, watching another child get dragged into adult court because of her.
