Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“ W hat?” Nyla shouted, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time.
Harrison nodded. “Okay, maybe he didn’t technically frame me, but he let me take the fall for the murder. He killed an elderly woman, and intentionally or unintentionally, made it look as if I’d done it. I was convicted of first-degree murder.”
Nyla lifted her hands out in front of her, still looking a bit shell-shocked. “Wait. I—I… What. The. Hell! Are you kidding me? Please tell me your own brother didn’t do what you’re saying he did.”
Harrison sighed. “I wish I could. Come here,” he said, reaching for her.
He pulled her to his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Having her close was as calming as the soft jazz flowing through the speaker.
“I’m not even sure where to start. It’s a long story, baby, but I’ll try to give you the Cliff’s Notes version. I’m not going to lie, but this is hard to talk about.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You can trust me,” she said quietly. “Whatever we discuss in here, stays in here.”
“I appreciate that, and by the time I’m done, you’ll have a better understanding of why I struggle with trusting people.” He rubbed his forehead, debating on where to start. “I bought this house for Veronica and me a little over five years ago. She never lived here, mainly because it needed a lot of renovation and, well, because she broke off our engagement.
“At any rate, my plan was to live here throughout the renovations, but it got impossible. There were construction workers in and out every day for weeks. That, along with all the noise and dust, had me going nuts. Between the renovations and wedding plans, that I didn’t agree with, it was a lot.
“Which was why I didn’t want to move in with Veronica. I couldn’t listen to her wedding planning ideas twenty-four-seven. Which should’ve been my first sign that we weren’t meant to be. At any rate, my mother suggested I stay at her house. She has four bedrooms and was always trying to get me and my siblings to visit more. I figured that would be the perfect time. She lives in the suburbs, but I could work from anywhere.
“After a couple of days of being at her place, my brother showed up. He lived in Kenosha with his girlfriend only a couple of hours away. It was also his winter break. So, it wasn’t uncommon for him to visit my mother during that time. Problem was, like I mentioned before, he and I didn’t mesh well. As adults, we tolerated each other, but you wouldn’t find us out together having a beer.”
“Did you know he was coming?”
“No, I didn’t, and I considered leaving, but for the first few days, it was fine. Eventually though, we got into it. Actually, he was even being an ass to my mother. She’d tell him to clean up after himself, and he’d get all upset.”
Harrison rubbed his chest as if that would loosen the unease swirling inside of him. For years, he’d worked hard to bury the memories of that time in his life, but talking about it was stirring it all up again.
He startled when Nyla touched his hand.
“If you need to stop, I—”
“No, I’m all right. I’m not sure if I’m recapping everything in order, but—”
“Just tell me what you want me to know,” she said softly, and he was pretty sure he fell a little harder for her in that moment.
He had once told himself that he was done with women. That he didn’t need one in his life, but in the months of getting to know Nyla, she had changed all that. She had fallen into his life by chance, and though he didn’t believe in fate, he was starting to.
“I thought maybe there was something else going on with Geoffrey that he hadn’t told us,” Harrison continued. “When I tried talking to him, asking a few questions, he told me to mind my own business. Said that with my perfect life I wouldn’t understand, and then he left. He told my mother that he was going home to talk with his girlfriend. But the day after that, my mother came to me and suggested I return home.”
“What?” Nyla glanced at him. “She asked you to leave?”
Harrison nodded. “She said Geoffrey had come for a visit because he’d had a fight with his woman. Arriving at our mother’s house was supposed to give him some peace and give him a chance to regroup. Even though he had left to return to Kenosha, she told me that he was planning to return to her house, but he might not if I was still there.”
Harrison’s pulse pounded loudly in his ear, and he closed his eyes, willing himself to relax. He sucked in a lung full of air and released it slowly. All the while, Nyla remained quiet.
“I couldn’t…” he started but stopped and rubbed his forehead as sadness suddenly gripped him. No way was he going to break down. Not now. Not in front of the woman he was quickly beginning to care about.
“I couldn’t believe she was kicking me out. My own mother . It wasn’t like I couldn’t go home, but it was the principle of it. I didn’t bother reminding her that I was the one who’d gifted her the majority of the money to buy that house. Instead, I packed my shit and got the hell out of there.”
“It’s no wonder you never want to talk to her at work. I don’t blame you.”
“Actually, that’s not even the reason I cut ties with her. She did something else that I can’t forget or forgive. I’ll tell you about it but let me keep going with this part of the story.”
“Okay.”
“For days after I left her house, I took my frustrations out on a punching bag at the gym. I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised at how things turned out. That’s how it always was when it came to Geoffrey and my mother. He had always been her golden child. Still, I’d been devastated.”
He’d been more than devastated. He’d been furious, and those feelings from all those years ago came rushing back. His pulse pounded and his chest heaved despite him trying to keep himself together.
He scrubbed his hands down his face, determined to keep talking, but it was hard. It was hard to tell anyone about one of the most humiliating days in his life.
Nyla glanced up at him. “Harrison?”
“Umm…sorry. I umm… A few days after all that happened, the cops showed up at my job. Didn’t give a damn who was around when they told me I was under arrest for the murder of Mildred Robinson.”
Nyla tried not to react, but she was sure her face showed her anger and her shock. Weeks ago, when he’d mentioned going to prison for a murder he hadn’t committed, she hadn’t known what to expect. But this? This was some next level dysfunctional family soap opera shit that you see on TV. No way was this his life.
Her heart broke for Harrison, for all that he’d endured. He must’ve been terrified. Having your freedom snatched away in the blink of an eye and being tossed in jail was beyond scary.
Questions whirled through her mind, but she wasn’t sure what to ask first. Instead, she remained quiet, barely, and hoped he’d keep talking.
“The neighbor, Miss Robinson, was found beaten to death in her backyard. She had also been robbed. According to them, she had just returned from grocery shopping when she’d been attacked. The bags of food were scattered around her.”
“Surely the cops didn’t think you did this.”
“They did. When they took me to the station for questioning, they showed me a grainy video of me talking to Miss Robinson at her front door. I remember that day because her packages had been delivered to my mother’s house, and I dropped them off. I was over there a few times. Shoveling snow, picking up baked goods that she’d made for us, and I even moved a bookshelf to her basement. I had also replaced a storm window at the back of her house.
“So yeah, I had been there often. I’m not sure if cameras caught each of those visits, but the detective showed me a video of a guy running out of the backyard. They also had turned part of the video into photos, trying to capture the man’s…or my brother’s face. Nyla, when I was watching that video, if I didn’t know it wasn’t me, I would’ve thought it was. Same build, coat, boots, everything, but neither video nor photos showed the man’s face.”
“At any time, did you think it was your brother?”
“ No. Not at all. It hadn’t crossed my mind. Geoffrey was a lot of things, but I never thought he was capable of murder. All I knew was that I hadn’t killed that woman.”
Nyla was numb. It was bad enough knowing that someone would harm an elderly woman, but to know that someone was Harrison’s brother? She shook her head, still processing his story. It was no wonder he’d been standoffish when they’d met. Or that Jamie had said Harrison had trust issues. This type of experience would change anyone.
Harrison continued. At the time of the murder, he’d been home. Unfortunately, no one could vouch for his whereabouts. Some of his mother’s neighbors told the cops that the guy in the photos looked like him. They remembered his coat. They had also seen him talking to Miss Robinson almost every day.
More tears pricked Nyla’s eyes as he told her about all the evidence they’d collected against him. Evidence that made it look like he’d been the murderer. They had searched his house and destroyed some of the renovations that had been done. All the while Harrison had maintained his innocence.
They’d found blood on the front of his coat that matched the victim. They hadn’t believed him when he told them it wasn’t what they thought. Days before her death, Miss Robinson had accidentally touched his coat before realizing she had cut her finger after chopping vegetables. Nobody believed him.
His boots were also evidence. They’d had the same tread as a boot print found in the backyard. It also hadn’t helped Harrison’s case that his knuckles had been bruised from all the boxing he’d done before his arrest. They claimed it was from beating up Miss Robinson.
“I was mentally and emotionally lost. Veronica had hired a lawyer for me, someone her family knew,” Harrison said of his ex-fiancée. “At the time, I couldn’t remember if the guy ever asked me if I had killed the woman. I didn’t even know if the man who was supposed to be representing me, defending me, believed that I was innocent.
“Those first few months, I think I was in a daze. So much I still don’t remember, especially about the trial. My therapist said I might’ve blocked it out. I don’t know. There’d been so much that had happened that I didn’t have the mental ability to deal with it.”
“My God,” Nyla whispered.
Harrison rubbed a hand over his mouth, and Nyla didn’t miss the tears in his eyes. They didn’t fall, but they were there.
“The wheels of justice turn so slow, and not getting bail kept me behind bars well before my trial. Then after hearing the evidence, the jury found me guilty. They tossed my ass in prison and didn’t give a damn that I maintained I was innocent.”
Nyla feverishly swiped at her tears. She wanted to say something, but she feared if she did, she’d burst out crying. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Harrison’s waist and held on tightly.
“If it hadn’t been for Royce, I don’t know where I’d be right now. He kept my life intact on the outside. My job was saved. My mortgage was paid, and… Let’s just say, I owe him my life. I owe him everything.”
Nyla listened as he recounted how his boss, Royce, had vowed that they were going to prove his innocence. They weren’t sure if Harrison’s first lawyer or the cops had done due diligence when it came to investigating. Royce got him a new lawyer and within weeks, Harrison’s case was reopened. Thanks to a private investigator, they’d learned that some of the witnesses had been coerced into a statement. At the time, Harrison didn’t know whether his first lawyer had talked to his mother, Geoffrey, or Geoffrey’s girlfriend, but the P.I. of his second lawyer had.
“All the details began falling into place. Geoffrey’s girlfriend had lied, saying that he’d been with her in Kenosha during the time of the murder. I still don’t know exactly how they found this out, but Geoffrey had a coat identical to mine.”
“What?”
Harrison nodded. “My coat had been a Christmas present from my mother the year before I got arrested. I had no idea she had also bought the same coat for my brother.”
“ Oh. My. God. You’re not saying…”
Nyla’s words trailed off, and Harrison couldn’t seem to speak for a moment.
Seconds ticked by before he said, “When it came out that my mother knew it could’ve been Geoffrey in those photos, and she never said anything, it had been the ultimate betrayal. She had eventually admitted to fearing that it was Geoffrey, but she’d said she couldn’t believe he would do something like that.”
The more Harrison talked, Nyla could feel the tension in his body ratcheting, and though she was glad he was sharing, she hated she had him reliving this horrible time in his life. She kept her head on his chest and gently rubbed her hand in circular motions over his flat stomach.
But when his body started shaking, she bolted upright and found him silently crying.
God…
Not knowing what else to do, she straddled his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, glad that he wrapped his around her too. They both cried. She didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but eventually Harrison kissed the side of her forehead, then loosened his grip on her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew talking about this would be hard, but I didn’t know I’d get this emotional.”
Nyla gently gripped his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. “You have nothing to apologize for. Sweetheart, I am so sorry you had to go through all this. It’s no wonder you want nothing to do with your mother.”
He released a ragged sigh. “I was emotionally destroyed, and it took years to close the gaping hole in my heart.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t believe that just came out of my mouth. Sounds like a damn country song.”
Still holding his face between her hands, Nyla chuckled and caressed his damp cheek with the pad of her thumb. “I thought it sounded poetic.” She kissed him slowly before climbing off his lap and resting her head on his broad shoulder.
After a long hesitation, Harrison continued. “I haven’t talked to Geoffrey since before that day my mother kicked me out of her house. Nor did I attend his trial. I heard he was charged with second-degree murder and is set to serve twenty-five years in prison.
“Supposedly, he hadn’t intended to kill Miss Robinson. He had just planned to rob her. Which isn’t any better. But she surprised him by fighting back, and he accidentally shoved her too hard. She hit her head on the back of the house. Supposedly, he’d lost his job and needed money.”
Nyla closed her eyes, fighting another wave of tears. Senseless. It was like people didn’t value life anymore. Another senseless death.
“Why do you think your mother has been calling?”
“I’m not completely sure. She called me last month on Christmas, which is normal, but she normally doesn’t call this often.”
“Maybe something’s happened. Have you talked to your sister?”
“Yeah, I talked to Piper this morning while you were asleep. We made an agreement years ago that whenever she and I talk, she can’t mention our mother. I know it sounds crazy, but my sister is a peacemaker. If it was left up to her, we’d all be one big happy, yet dysfunctional family living under the same roof. Though she hates what my mother did to me, she can’t abandon her, which I didn’t expect her to.”
Harrison grew quiet, and Nyla waited for him to continue.
“This morning, for the first time, Piper said I should talk to our mother. I didn’t ask why, and she didn’t say. So, I assume something’s going on, but I don’t want to talk to her.
“I know they say forgiveness improves your health and helps reduce stress. Hopefully, I’ll be able to forgive her someday, but I’m not there yet.”
Nyla believed in forgiveness, but what his mother did was unconscionable. If Nyla were Harrison, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to forgive and move on either. But she wanted to do whatever she could to help him get the closure he needed.
“The main two women in my life at that time, the ones who claimed to love me, the ones who I thought I could always count on, let me down.”
Nyla shook her head. Who were these people who hadn’t loved Harrison enough to stand by him? To believe in him? To help him get his freedom? She hoped she never ran into either woman. She might do something crazy like haul off and punch them. Which would make her just as bad as them.
“Veronica’s family own a ton of businesses, one being a local gossip newspaper. After I was released from prison, and my record cleared, they wanted my story. Veronica didn’t work there, but her father pressured her to try to get an exclusive.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Nyla said, disgust dripping from each word.
“Nope, and I made it clear that I wouldn’t be giving an interview to anyone. For weeks, I was hounded by the media. I couldn’t leave my home, not that I wanted to, but every local network wanted my story.”
That probably had a lot to do with why he hadn’t returned to playing in nightclubs. He was so musically gifted, but he probably feared the media would come back around.
Nyla wasn’t a big TV watcher, and she had never heard Harrison’s story before today. Though she’d been tempted to google him a couple of weeks ago, she was glad she hadn’t. Letting him tell his story instead of reading what the media had to say about it was better.
“It was horrible having cameras and microphones shoved into my face. It got so bad I worked from home for a while and barely went out in public.”
“I hate you went through all this.”
“Yeah, which was why I had no choice but to see a therapist after being released. I didn’t know what to do with the anxiety, the depression, and the feeling of loss. I met with her for a year, and then I started back not long ago once I was ready to really get my life on track. I don’t go weekly like I used to, but even every few months for check-ins have been helpful.”
When he yawned and slumped down a bit farther in the bed, Nyla knew it was time to let him get some rest.
She sat up. “Why don’t you take a nap. You were up late last night, and I know you got up early this morning. You must be tired.”
Harrison wrapped his arm around her and kissed the side of her forehead. “I am, but I need you to know how much I appreciate you listening to me. I know that was a lot to share, but talking with you really helped. I feel more at peace. So thank you.”
She kissed his lips. “Anytime and thank you for trusting me. I know that wasn’t easy for you. Now, how about you get some sleep?”
“I’ll only take a nap if you stay in here with me.”
Nyla grinned up at him. “Okay, but we’re going to sleep . No funny stuff, Mr.”
He laughed and her heart leaped. God, it sounded good to hear him laugh. After hearing his story, it was amazing he still could.
Harrison rolled her onto her back and hovered above her. He kissed her slowly and sweetly. “How about we take a short nap and then play around?”
Nyla rolled her eyes playfully and sighed dramatically. “ Fine . Whatever you want.”