Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(73)

I walk him to the door.

“You okay?” he asks.

“No, but I’ll live.”

“I take it things didn’t work out between the two of you.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m sorry. She’s…one of a kind. I liked the way she didn’t put up with your bullshit.”

“I did too.”

I close the door after him. There’s only one more goodbye to make. And it’s the hardest I’ll ever have to endure. How do you say goodbye to someone who changed your life? How do you go and leave a piece of yourself behind?





Chapter 35


Cora


When I first started visiting Beau I never thought I’d get used to the procedures you have to go through to enter a prison. Now they’re almost routine. What’s not routine is the jolt I get when I first see him. Time and repetition have not dulled that moment. It’s a shock every time. It’s no different this time, except the tears burning the backs of my eyes. We’re soldiers in the same war. I want to run to him and hit him hard, throwing my arms around him.

Instead, I walk sedately across the room and sit down across the table from him. I don’t comment on the fresh stitches above his left eye or the cuts on his knuckles.

“Hi,” I say in my most cheerful voice. “How are you?”

“Better than you.” He leans across the table, a line of worry between his brows. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I’m smiling, but a tear leaks out. “Everything’s great. You won’t believe what’s happened.”

“Did someone die?”

“No.” I sniff and wipe at my face. “Your case is being reopened. A judge agreed to hear the new evidence. The lawyers of the Freedom Project say there’s a really good chance you’ll be exonerated.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’ll take some time, but you could be free by Christmas.” I’m crying so hard now, it’s a wonder he can understand me at all.

He sits back in his chair and stares off at nothing. He doesn’t speak for so long I think that maybe he didn’t understand me.

“Did you hear what I said?”

He nods. “I just don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

“But it’s not for sure.”

“No, it’s not for sure.”

I tell him how Damien LeFeaux recanted his testimony. I tell him about Mrs. Wheeler and her notebooks. I tell him about the hair found in Cassandra’s bed that’s a match to Paul Winfro. I tell him about Winfro and about how he’s going on trial for attempted murder in Mexico. I tell him about how impressed the people at the Freedom Project were with how easy we’ve made their job.

I don’t tell him about Leo and me. I don’t tell him about Dylan and Cassandra. I don’t tell him that our dad’s in the hospital for alcohol poisoning…again. I don’t tell him what our mom said when I told her Beau could be freed. And I don’t tell him that it was Winfro seeing Beau leave Cassandra’s apartment that night that drove him to rape and murder her, because in Winfro’s mind they were a couple and she cheated on him with Beau.

When I’m done speaking I see something in my brother that I haven’t seen since before Cassandra died—hope. I want to start crying all over again. The rush of relief is so great I nearly sag from it. We’re in the home stretch.

He doesn’t speak for a long time. There’s so much to absorb. I lived it and I still get overwhelmed when I think about it all.

“I don’t—” His voice cracks. He puts his face in his hands and takes a deep, shaky breath. When he lowers them his eyes are red from unshed tears. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh, Beau. I wanted this for you for so long. I’m just so sorry it’s taken almost six years.”

“Sorry? Jesus, Cora. What do you have to be sorry about?”

More than I have words for. There’s so much more that needs to be fixed.

“Thank you for not listening to me when I told you to f*ck off and stop investigating. Thank you for being the only person”—he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a breath—“who believed in me.”

I want to reach across the table and take his hand. More than that I want to hold him and tell him everything’s going to be okay.

He rubs his eyes. When his hands fall away I can see that his eyelashes are clumped and wet. “Are you going to get a life now?”

“I have a life.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“What happened with Leo?”

I rub my lips together and look away.

“Ah, shit, Cora. Really? You f*cked that up because of me, didn’t you?”

“It’s f*cked up, but not because of you.”

“I liked him for you. He seemed like the kind of guy who would call you on your shit.”

I nod. “He did that.” Too well.

“So what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, I know. I f*cked it up.”

“Because of me.”