Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(77)
“You almost done with that search?” she asks me.
All I get is the top of her blue and black streaked head. I can’t help but stare at her when she’s not looking. Leaning back a little in my chair, I crane my neck to check out her legs in the skirt she’s wearing. Nice. High heels look good on her, making her legs longer somehow. It’s one of those tricks only women know that make a man forget his name and apparently the question they’ve just been asked.
“Nolan?”
Shit. My gaze snaps up to hers. Busted. “Ah, yeah. Just about.”
“Good. I have something here I want you to take a look at.”
My mind spins her innocent words into something lurid. I give myself a stern lecture about workplace decorum and about not horning in on another guy’s woman. That’s not cool. That’s not who I am or who I want to be. I just wish my boss were a little less hot.
“Oh, yeah?” I ask.
She slides the folder she’s holding in front of me and leans in with a hand on my desk. “The Freedom Project sent these cases over for our review. Every year we choose one and work it pro bono. I wish we could work on them all.” She sighs. “I see Beau in every face and it’s hard to say no. I need an objective opinion.”
She separates the three pages, spreading them across my desk. Her arm brushes mine briefly and I instinctively flinch away. If she notices it doesn’t show in her face. All of her focus is on the papers in front of her. There’s a crease between her brows and her bottom lip is pinched between her teeth. This is important to her. Even if I didn’t know her brother’s story, I’d know it in the look on her face and how she touches the black-and-white mug shots of the three incarcerated people staring back at her.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
“Read the case summaries and the notes from the Freedom Project’s staff. We need to choose one and I just can’t decide. It feels like I’m handing down a sentence to the other two if I don’t select them.”
And she thinks I won’t get the same feeling? I glance up at her.
“We’re not,” she amends. “Their cases will get handled by another PI firm, but it won’t be us, you know?”
“Yeah, I think I get it. That makes me feel better about choosing.” That’s a lie. I’m lousy at making decisions. She should already know this about me.
“Have a look and let me know what you think. I need to get back to them by the end of the day.”
“Sure thing.”
She leaves her scent behind and the lingering sense of doom that I’ll make the wrong choice. God, really? She’s leaving this up to me? Someone’s life’s in my hands, the hands of a f*ckup. Does she have any idea what she’s doing?
I pick up the first sheaf of paper. Bruce Swanson was convicted of the brutal murder of his parents, Doug and Nancy Swanson. As the only child he stood to inherit his parents’ vast estate, which entailed a personal fortune of close to eleven million dollars, a company worth twice that, and various real estate properties worth millions more. The conviction hinged on hinky DNA evidence and a questionable witness—a cousin who inherited everything when Bruce went away. As an only child, I’m tempted to choose poor Bruce who should be sitting on fat stacks instead of a thin prison mattress.
I force myself to put the paper down and pick up the next one. D’Shawnte Devon was convicted of attempted murder for the drive-by shooting of a rival gang member based on faulty eyewitness testimony. Three people—who also happen to be members of his gang and thus deemed unreliable—said that D’Shawnte was at a barbecue at the time of the shooting. There was nothing to tie him physically to the crime and although the eyewitnesses later recanted, D’Shawnte remains in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
That one sucks. D’Shawnte reminds me of me and my bad luck. I’m starting to see what Cora was saying about not being able to choose. You only have to have a smidgeon of empathy to want to do something that could change these people’s world.
The third page has a photo of a woman. A young woman. Nineteen. Dang. She looks younger. Like maybe fifteen. Carla Ruiz is an undocumented immigrant in prison for the murder of her son. Even though the coroner declared the boy’s death an accident the district attorney filed murder charges and won. There’s a note about a witness that wasn’t called by the defense who could’ve corroborated the coroner’s report. She was convicted for a crime that wasn’t even a crime. That’s harsh. She lost her son and then her freedom. I wonder what will happen to her if she’s freed. Will she be forced to go back to Mexico or will she get to stay in the United States?
I set her sheet next to the other two, my gaze bouncing from one to the other, then the other. Who to pick? Eeny meeny miny moe? Roshambo? Put their names in a cup and draw one?
Cora’s depending on me to make a decision based on something real not something arbitrary. I’ll probably have to justify my decision. It would be pretty tough to defend rock, paper, scissors.
I look at their faces. They’re all young. Under thirty when they went inside. They’re older than that now. D’Shawte is in his forties. Bruce is thirty-six and Carla is nearly thirty. I should pick D’Shawnte. He’s been in the longest. But Bruce reminds me of myself except for the rich parents. Carla lost her son. That’s a horrible thing. Uuuugh. I just don’t know.