The Inmate (17)

“No. No. Please just listen to me, okay?”

I shake my head. “I can’t. This isn’t a good idea.”

“I just need you to know…”—his voice suddenly sounds hoarse—“I wasn’t the one who tried to kill you, Brooke. I swear to you. I swear on my life.”

I take a step back from the table. “I was there. I know it was you.”

“You don’t know that.” He grits his teeth. “I didn’t do anything. That asshole Reese knocked me out with a baseball bat, and then the next thing I knew, the police were shaking me awake and telling me I was under arrest.”

“Shane,” I hiss. “Stop this right now.”

“I would never have hurt you, Brooke.” His eyes are wide and earnest, and he looks so much like the seventeen-year-old boy I fell in love with. “I’ve been wanting to say that to you for the last ten years. You have to believe me. I would never have done something like that. I couldn’t. I loved you.”

My right hand balls into a fist. How dare he? How dare he lie to my face that way? “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?” I say in a voice just low enough that Hunt won’t hear.

“Brooke—”

Whatever Shane is about to say next is interrupted by Hunt knocking on the door to the examining room. Without waiting for an answer, he pokes his head in. “You done yet?”

“Yes,” I choke out. “We’re done.”

I help Shane sit back up on the table. Now he has to get off the table, which is a challenge with his ankles shackled. He’s doing it carefully, trying not to fall. Hunt watches him, his lips twisting downward.

“Hurry up, you piece of shit,” Hunt spits out at him.

I look at the guard in surprise. Hunt isn’t exactly a picture of compassion with these prisoners, but he’s polite enough. This is the first time I’ve heard him hurl profanity at one of them. And when Shane finally gets to his feet, Hunt jerks him forward much more roughly than he needs to.

Why does Hunt hate him so much? What did Shane do to elicit that kind of response?

The two of them leave the examining room. I watch Hunt take Shane down the hallway with the flickering fluorescent lights, back to his cell. When he gets halfway down the hall, Shane briefly turns his head to look back at me.

I touch my throat. I still wake up at night sometimes, covered in sweat, the memory of the necklace tightening around my windpipe still fresh in my mind. It was a long time ago, but I can still feel it happening like it was yesterday. I could feel the links of the gold necklace digging into my neck, I could smell Shane’s sandalwood aftershave tickling my nose, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck.

But there’s one thing I can’t do. I can’t see his face.

I never saw the face of the man who tried to kill me. The power was out that night and everything was pitch black. But I knew Shane very well. I knew the feel of his body. The smell of him. I knew it was him.

It had to be.

Because if it wasn’t him, I have made a terrible mistake.





Chapter 11


The entire drive home from Raker Penitentiary, I can’t stop thinking about Shane. I had truly believed I would never see him ever again after his sentencing went through. I certainly never thought I’d be inches away from his face again.

After the visit, Hunt brought me Shane’s chart. This time I had permission to look through it without guilt. It was fairly slim, which made sense given that Shane is still young and in good health. Most of the notes were from injuries, likely sustained at the hands of other inmates.

The last note was written by my predecessor, Elise. Shane had come to her complaining of abdominal pain. She had prescribed him medication for acid reflux, but then at the bottom of the page, she wrote, “Manipulative, drug-seeking.” And she had underlined the word “manipulative.”

I’m not sure if I would agree with that assessment. I even offered Shane pain medication and he wouldn’t take it. But seeing those words written in his chart made me uneasy.

Just as I’m pulling into my driveway, my phone buzzes in my purse. A text message came while I was driving. I sift through a surprising number of loose tissues in my purse—you can never have too many tissues when you have a young son—before I retrieve my phone.



Hey, it’s Tim Reese. I got your number from the parent directory. Hope that’s not too creepy.



Despite everything, I have to smile. Tim is a lot of things, but he’s not creepy. But if he looked me up in the parent directory, he must have figured out that Josh is not a kindergartener. And inexplicably, he still wants to talk to me.



Only slightly creepy.



He writes back almost instantly:



So I was just thinking, coffee in the evening is just going to keep us up. How about getting a drink one night this week?



A drink. That’s a bit more serious than coffee. That’s a very date-y kind of get-together. Do I want that?

I have no idea. But I do know that if there’s one guy I can trust to back off if I need him to, it’s Tim. And I haven’t socialized outside of work in far too long. Maybe I should just let myself have a little fun for once. Don’t I deserve it?



Let me check with the babysitter and I’ll get back to you.