Into The Light (Three Rivers #1)

Chapter 1

One

BEAR

T he jarring buzz of the klaxon makes my hands shake; it's a sound that's defined my days for the last ten years.

This is the last time I'll ever hear it.

Guard Jacobsen pulls the cell door open. "C'mon, Bear. Time to go."

I clench my hands into fists to hide the shaking. Rise to my feet. Let out a breath. "One minute, please."

Jacobsen nods, leaning against the frame of my cell, thumbs hooked into his belt. Jacobsen is one of the good ones. A big man with unruly blond hair and a constant five o'clock shadow, he's talkative and quick with a joke and tends to use his size and rapport with the prisoners to quell any issues rather than his billy club.

I turn to Matt, my cellmate for the last six and a half years. He stands by the bunks, visibly fighting emotion.

"Appreciate you, Matt. All you've done for me." I put out a hand.

Matt takes it, squeezing hard before pulling me into a rough embrace, whacking me on the back. "I'm glad as hell you're gettin' out, but fuck me, I'm gonna miss your big ass, brother.”

I thump him back a few times, pulling away without releasing his hand. “Gonna miss you too.” Matt clears his throat a couple of times, tugging at the neck of his bright orange Michigan Department of Corrections jumpsuit. "Give 'em hell, man."

I snort. "My hellraisin' days are behind me." I grip his shoulder and shake him gently. “So are yours."

He shoves at me. "Aw fuck off, Bear. You know what I meant."

“Yeah."

"Gotta go, Olafsson," Jacobsen says. "Ride's waiting."

"Comin'," I say over my shoulder. "See ya ‘round, Matt."

"See ya ‘round, Bear."

We both say it, knowing it’s untrue.

I nod once more, turn, and exit the cell, pacing a few steps down the hallway before pausing to wait for Jacobsen to close the cell. Hurts like hell, leaving behind the first real friend I've ever had. I refuse to look back, knowing if the situation was reversed, Matt would do the same.

Jacobsen gives me a little shove. "Move along, Olafsson." It's friendly, disguised as rough.

As I pass cell after cell, prisoners reach through the bars and I tap my knuckles against theirs, greet each man by name, and give him a nod.

Down through the dayroom and to R and R, where I'm processed for release: strip out of my jumpsuit and dress in my street clothes. They fit like shit—the last time I wore them was ten years ago, and I've put on a fuck-ton of muscle since then. The jeans constrict my thighs and my junk and rise around my ankles, the floppy brown leather belt doesn't fit even on the last hole, and the shirt fits like I'm doing my best Chris Farley "Fat Guy in a Little Coat" impression. My other belongings, which now feel like they belong to someone else, include a long-dead Nokia flip phone, eighty-six dollars and seventy-seven cents, a pack of now-stale gum, and an expired state ID card.

The sum total of my belongings as a human on this earth.

Once I'm changed, Jacobsen, against protocol, accompanies me to the gate. "Better not ever see your ass again, Olaffson, you hear me?"

I nod. “Yes sir. I hear you. You won't."

He fixes me with a hard, stern glare. "Serious as a fuckin' heart attack. You got a once-in-a-lifetime shot at turning your life around with this work-release program, Bear. Don't fuck it up."

"I know it. I won't. Got my word on that."

Jacobsen nods. “Good." He shakes my hand. "Have a good life."

I let out a short sigh. "Do my best."

Jacobsen turns and twirls his hand in the air over his head; a loud buzz precedes the gate sliding open. For a minute, I can't move, sure that a swarm of guards is going to rush me and haul me back to the box.

Jacobsen gives me a hard shove, forcing me to trip and stumble across the threshold. "Get the fuck outta here, Olafsson. Tired of lookin' at your ugly fuckin' mug, already."

I walk backward and give him a nod. "I'm going."

He hooks his thumbs in his gear belt, watching as I cross the road to the big silver F-250 idling on the shoulder. When I round the hood, he gives me a wave, which I return, and then he strolls back to the R and R room. Another buzz announces the closing of the gate, which I watch slide closed with my hand on the truck’s door handle.

Once the gate is closed, I let out a sigh.

It’s real.

I'm a free man.

I open the door and settle into the passenger seat—the cab smells like old coffee, leather, diesel fumes, and grease. The truck is older than my prison stay: ten years, eleven months, and eighteen days. The gray leather is cracked and worn, the dash is peeling, and the analog radio is tuned to a local hard rock station, the volume low enough I can just barely make out the sounds of Nirvana. The stock manual gear shifter has been replaced with a huge wrench; the stainless steel of the handle is tarnished and worn from long use.

In the driver's seat is my boss and work-release supervisor, Riley Crowe. At six-three, he's an inch shorter than me and lighter by a good fifty pounds. His hair is neatly cut, swept back and to the right, glossy black. Clean-shaven, with eyes so pale blue they're almost white, and shocking in their intensity. He's dressed in worn, faded, dirty blue jeans, battered Wolverine work boots, and a filthy white T-shirt stretched across a muscular chest.

He grins at me. "You're a free man, Bear. How's it feel?"

I shrug a shoulder. "Not sure yet. Only been two minutes."

He laughs, backhanding my chest. "Tell you one thing—you need new clothes. Those fit like shit."

I nod. "Put on a few pounds on the inside, I guess."

"A few ?" He cackles sarcastically, shoving the shifter into first and feathering the throttle, making the big diesel engine groan.

A few miles later, Riley glances at me. "So. You know how this is gonna work?"

I shrug. "I guess."

"Might as well go over it again, now that you're officially out on parole. You've put in three years in my program, which got you a shit-load of good-time credit. That plus your overall behavior on the inside means you're out on parole ten years into your twenty-five-year sentence."

“Yes sir." None of this is news to me, obviously.

"So now that you're out, you're gonna continue to work for me as part of the conditions of your parole. You'll still have to report to your parole officer once a month, but as long as you stay good with me, you can skip the bi-weekly check-ins. Now, the official work-release program stipulates you work for me for a period of five years total, so you owe me another two. Your pay, as you're obviously aware, has gone in part to pay off your stay. The rest has been put into an escrow account for you. Now that you’re out, I'll hook you up with the bank and get you a card. You have enough to put down a deposit on an apartment, which we've already set up for you—you just gotta sign some papers and pay the deposit. You'll need a ride eventually, but until you can get one, I'll pick you up and drop you off—your apartment is on the way for me." He glances at me. "Got all that?"

I nod. "Got it." I rub my palms on my jeans. "I'm grateful, Riley. Thank you."

Riley nods. "I've been where you are. I built this program to be what I wish I'd had when I got out."

"It's the best thing that's ever happened to me," I say, watching the familiar sights slide past the window.

I've made this drive every day for three years—from Holbrook State Correctional Facility to Three Rivers, a journey of a little under an hour. Until today, however, the journey has been in a Department of Corrections bus, with an armed deputy watching my every move. Until today, at the end of the workday, I boarded the bus back to the prison, process back in, and rejoin Gen Pop for chow time and then rec time before we're put back in our cells.

Today, everything is different.

No bus. No deputy. No jumpsuit. No going back to Gen Pop. No more chow line. No more rec yard. No more long late- night talks with Matt. No more lifting in the yard with Gregg, LaShawn, and Antonio.

Sensing my need for quiet time to process the coming changes, Riley turns up the radio and cuts the chatter, left wrist dangling over the wheel, his right hand resting on the wrench shifter handle.

The hour drive passes quickly, and soon the highway angles west, the open farmland and clumps of forest giving way to roadside parks on the left and RV campgrounds on the right, and then the campgrounds and state parks give way to five and ten-acre homesteads on the right, and on the left the sky opens up and gives you occasional glimpses of Lake Michigan.

Another few minutes and the highway runs right up against the shoreline, Lake Michigan rippling blue and green and gray, stretching into the horizon. On the right, the large parcels subdivide into one- and two-acre parcels, with winding neighborhoods behind them.

Three Rivers is a small town in Northern Michigan, on the west coast of the state north of Traverse City. Perched right on the shoreline, the downtown area has seen a boom of expansion in the three years I've been coming here on work release, with an influx of young families, new businesses, and entrepreneurs quickly transforming the once-sleepy lakeside small town into a bustling, exciting up-and-coming community. It's cute and quaint—what I've seen of it, at least, as the bus winds through the downtown and into the industrial area where Crowe Demolitions and Crowe Construction have their equipment yard and headquarters.

We're nearing downtown now, passing through a short stretch of beachside resorts and hotels and inns, mom-and-pop diners, fudge shops, kayak, jet ski, and paddleboard rental shops, and the marina, with sprawling neighborhoods climbing the steep hills east of the shoreline and highway. With every mile, the buildings get closer together and the steep hills settle and smooth out. And then, abruptly, the four-lane state highway narrows to one lane in each direction and becomes Main Street, still running parallel to the shoreline. On the left is the beach, with parking lots just off the road, state park-run bathrooms, and city-owned concessions buildings dotting the lots at regular intervals; beyond the parking lot and bathrooms is a wide swath of grass sprinkled liberally with benches, grills, and picnic tables, eventually giving way to sand and then the water.

On the other side of Main Street is the town itself. Parking lots run alongside the road with businesses beyond them, cross streets running perpendicular to Main Street crammed with restaurants, shops and stores, cafes, and bars. The downtown area itself isn't especially big, containing only a square mile or two, but the rest of suburban Three Rivers is actually fairly sizeable, sprawling out along the shoreline and extending several miles to the east in suburbs, industrial complexes, and shopping centers. Cutting through the town and emptying into Lake Michigan are the three rivers that give the town its name: Crooked Trout, Red Bottom, and Michigami. Some five or so miles north of where it narrowed, Main Street widens back into a four-lane highway and continues northward, eventually reaching Mackinaw City and the Mackinac Bridge.

Riley makes a right onto Compass Street; here, breweries abound, sitting on the Michigami River, interspersed with fancy restaurants. The further east we go, the more the landscape changes, shifting from bustling downtown and its attendant sprawl to quiet, tree-lined neighborhoods, elementary schools, and play parks with slides, jungle gyms, and sandboxes. This, too, shifts after a while, giving way to industrial complexes—warehouses, manufacturing facilities, dentist and doctor offices, accountants, tax professionals, law offices, and the like. And then eastward beyond that is Division Boulevard, running parallel to Main Street, a wide, busy four-lane road lined with places like Target, Best Buy, Meijer, Applebee’s, Chili's, car dealerships, and strip malls.

Riley pulls into the Target parking lot and shuts off the engine. "C'mon, big guy. Let's get you some clothes that actually fit."

I follow him into the store, where he grabs a red shopping cart and beelines for the men's clothing section.

"What size are you?" he asks, eying me. "Quadruple XL?"

I shrug. "Dunno."

"Guess you'll have to try a few sizes, then." He grabs a few T-shirts and jeans in various sizes and then directs me to the changing rooms. I try things on until I find my sizes, and then Riley makes some selections for me—I let him choose, because I have no clue. Haven't worn anything but orange jumpsuits in ten years.

With a few changes of clothes in the cart, he grabs some personal effects like deodorant, a hairbrush, a five-in-one bottle of shampoo and whatever else, a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, and a pair of work boots.

As we wait to check out, I glance at him. "I don’t have money for all this."

Riley shrugs. "Yeah you do, just not with you. I got you covered. We'll sort it all out later. Don’t worry about it."

After making the purchases, I change into the new clothes in the bathroom, take a long piss, and wash my hands. I examine myself in the mirror for the first time in a while: prison mirrors leave something to be desired, to say the least.

Standing six-four-and-a-half in my socks, I have bright red hair that's currently loose and shaggy around my shoulders, wavy and frizzy and tangled. My beard matches in color and overall appearance, hanging to mid-chest, bushy and wild. My eyes are somewhere between green and gray. I've always been a big guy, but with nothing to do in prison but eat, lift, talk, and sleep, I've packed on a massive amount of muscle over the last decade, and probably weigh at least two-sixty-five, if not more, most of it solid muscle, although I do have a decent layer of padding sheathing my muscles.

All in all, I look…scary. I was into tattoos before I went inside, so my arms and torso are covered in ink. A lot of it was gang-related imagery, which I either altered or covered on the inside with prison ink.

I throw away the old clothes and exit the bathroom, feeling a little more human now that my clothes fit. Riley is waiting by the exit, chatting with a beautiful woman in her thirties.

"Bear, come say hi to my friend." Riley waves me over. "Jess, this is Bear, he works for me. Bear, this is Jess. She runs the office for Felix and me.”

As I approach, Jess's eyes widen and she backs up a step, involuntarily. She's tall and willowy, with long brown hair shot through with blonde highlights and soft brown eyes.

"Ummm…hi?" Her greeting comes out like a question.

"Nice to meet you, Jess," I murmur, keeping my distance and my hands in my hip pockets; I glance at Riley. "Meet you at the truck."

I amble away, self-conscious after her reaction.

I've always had sharp hearing, so I can't help overhearing her as I walk away.

"Jesus, Rye, where'd you find a monster like that?"

"He's in my program," Riley answers. "He's a good dude."

"If you say so," Jess mutters, sounding doubtful. "He's the biggest person I've ever seen."

"Should see what he can do with a ten-pound sledge."

"Looks like he could demo a house with his bare hands," Jess says.

Riley laughs. “Yeah, he probably could.”

I lose the rest as I leave hearing range.

I feel her eyes on my back and unconsciously hunch my shoulders.

I should be used to it—I've been bigger than everyone my whole life. Now, though, with the amount of muscle prison put on my already huge frame? I think Jess's reaction is gonna be something I'm gonna have to just accept.

I'm a monster: an ex-con; a violent offender.

I do my best to shrug it off, leaning against Riley's truck. A red SUV pulls in beside the truck, and a tiny Asian woman emerges, helping a little kid out of a blue booster seat; she scoops him up with a scared glance at me and hustles away.

"Mommy? Was that man a giant?" the little boy asks, watching me over his mother's shoulder.

"Hush, baby,” she murmurs to him. “Don't stare."

With an irritated growl, I rake my hair back. Women and children are terrified of me just from being near me. When Three River locals discover what I was convicted of—

Forget it.

Focus on the here and now.

I hear Matt's voice in my head, reminding me to breathe, and focus on what I can control.

Riley swaggers up to the truck and yanks the back door open, tossing the Target bags on the back seat, which is already littered with fast food trash, folders stuffed full of documents, a black and yellow Dewalt bag full of tools, work gloves, Mt. Dew bottles, and who knows what else.

"Don't mind Jess," Riley says, slamming the door closed and hopping behind the wheel. "She's a sheltered little white-bread girl who's never left Three Rivers."

I shrug as I latch the seatbelt across my chest. "It's fine."

"I keep waiting for her and Felix to hook up, but my brother is a pussy-ass dipshit, apparently. I know he likes her and I know he knows she likes him, but he won't pull the trigger."

"She's pretty," I say.

Riley just nods and shrugs one shoulder. “She is.”

Felix is Riley's older brother, and owner of Crowe Construction, the counterpart to Riley's Crowe Demolitions. Felix builds spec homes, and he and Riley also work together flipping homes—Riley does the demo, Felix renovates, and then they sell it and split the profits.

Riley grins at me. "Yeah, she is. Not my type, though. Sweet girl, but I like 'em with a bit more spark, y'know?"

I shrug. "Sure."

I have no idea.

I haven't spoken to a woman who wasn't in uniform in ten years. And the first woman I did talk to, just now, literally backed away from me. And that's before she knew anything about me.

The rest of the day is spent getting me settled: we go to the credit union where my savings are held, and I get a temporary checkbook and pick a debit card, which will be mailed to Riley's office since I don't have an address yet. Next, he takes me to an apartment complex back toward town, near the industrial area.

Foxwood Commons is a massive apartment complex running along Tompkins Road between Main Street and Division; the buildings are long and low, three stories, beige brick with faded green shingle roofs and matching shutters, balconies connecting the buildings at the second and third levels, with a fenced-off swimming pool serving the whole complex, and laundry facilities for each building. Riley walks me through the process of signing a six-month lease and writing a check for the first and last months' rent, and then I'm given keys to my very first home.

It's on the far north end of the complex, a third-floor unit, one bedroom and one bathroom with a tiny living room and galley kitchen, threadbare tan carpet in desperate need of replacement, Formica counters and laminate flooring, popcorn ceilings, and battered twenty-year-old appliances.

Riley stands in the living room with a sour look on his face. "Well, Bear, it ain't much, and it ain’t exactly the Ritz, I know, but—"

"Beats the shit out of a ten-by-twelve prison cell," I cut in.

He laughs and claps my shoulder. "You said it." He sets my bags of purchases on the floor. "You'll need some furniture, I guess. C'mon. I know where we can get some cheap."

"Why are you doing all this?" I ask as we descend the stairs.

He waits to answer until he's behind the wheel again. "When I got out, I had Mom, Dad, and Felix. Felix let me crash on his couch and gave me work on his clean-up crew. But several guys I was on the inside with didn’t have that support. They got out and didn’t have dick. Nowhere to go. No one to help them. What're they supposed to do? Where are they supposed to go? That's why recidivism is so fucking high in this country. Prison is about punishment, not reformation. I watched a good half a dozen guys I did time with end up right back on the inside within weeks or months and a couple within fuckin' days —because they had no fuckin' options .” He lets out an angry sigh. “I vowed that when I had the ability, I was gonna do something about it. So, after I got the company going, I put the program together. I don't have the time or wherewithal to help a lot of people, but I do what I can for the guys who go through my program. I figure if I can help you develop skills while you're on the inside, pay you enough to have something to live on when you get out, help you find somewhere to live, and then give you a job, you're not gonna go back in. Do it right once, and that's all you need." He looks at me. "It's a bridge, Bear. A bridge from prison to real life as a responsible member of society."

"Can't ever thank you enough."

"You can—stay on the path, man.” He cuts a sharp, insightful glance at me. “Stay clean. Do good work. Be a good person. Don’t go back to prison. And maybe pay it forward a little. That's how you thank me."

We spend an hour at a resale shop, picking out a bed, dresser, couch, and coffee table—we have to make two trips to get it all from the store to the apartment in the back of his pickup.

By the time we've gotten my apartment set up, it's almost five o'clock.

Riley glances at his phone. "Guys are about to knock off for the day. Whaddya say we check in and grab a bite?"

"Sounds good."

I'm overwhelmed. It's been a whirlwind of a day, and I've barely had time to think, let alone process everything that’s happened. But I go along without a word because what else am I supposed to do?

I greet the guys on my crew, mostly guys with checkered pasts like myself—rough dudes with criminal records suited to the work of demolitions. Riley takes us to a dive bar not far from the worksite. The other guys all get beer, but I'm not ready to try booze yet, so I stick to ice water. The cheeseburger is the best thing I've ever eaten. The guys all watch me devour it, likely each of them remembering their first meal on the outside.

After sitting at the table with the crew, sipping ice water and watching them chat and laugh and hurl playful insults at each other for a couple of hours, the gathering breaks up and Riley drives me back to the apartment. He parks outside my building with the engine idling.

"So. First day of work as a free man tomorrow. I'll be here to get you at seven-thirty. Cool?"

“Sounds good,” I answer. “Thanks for everything."

He holds out his fist, and I tap my knuckles against his. "Hey. One thing, Bear. First night alone might be rough. Just, you know, don't do anything dumb, yeah?"

"I'm good. See you in the morning." I give him a chin lift as I close the door and head up to my new place.

Close the door.

Sit on the couch in the peace and quiet for a few minutes.

Now what? It's just past eight in the evening, and I have no clue what to do with myself. No TV, no phone, no books, no friends, nothing to lift with. No cellmate to talk to.

It's dead quiet. Still. Stifling.

Yeah…I’m gonna need something to do in my off-hours so I don't go crazy. The first order of business is gonna be some books, some sort of weight-lifting equipment, and probably somewhere to go or something to do that's not gonna get me in trouble.

I end up laying in bed fully dressed, listening to traffic rush past outside, mind wandering and spinning.

Eventually, I fall asleep, knowing I'll wake up at dawn regardless.

Freedom is trickier than I'd expected.