CHAPTER 39
WHEN FORMAL WORD OF GRACE SEBOLD’S EXONERATION LEAKED, THE Internet went wild.
The biggest real-time documentary in television history got bigger, despite the fact that what was sure to be featured in the final episode had just been spoiled.
The final installments started writing themselves in Sidney’s mind as the taxi pulled from the Bordelais Correctional Facility and onto the main road.
Without a credit card or a dollar to her name, besides the St. Lucian currency she was issued just before she was released, Grace Sebold was as helpless as a newborn when she walked from prison.
“Thank you,” Grace said. “I don’t know where to go. My counselor said they’d pay for a taxi, and I got the impression they just wanted me out of the prison as fast as possible.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Not just for picking me up, though. For everything.”
Sidney nodded. “You’re welcome.”
The taxi clicked into a higher gear as the driver merged onto the highway.
“Listen, Grace. There’s a reason things happened so fast. The St. Lucian authorities wanted you out of their hair before the press started to swarm.
The documentary has become very popular back home, and the Internet is already buzzing about your release.
They wanted you out of their courts before the cameras were raging and journalists were shouting questions.
It looks bad for them, for the St. Lucian government.
A large portion of their economy depends on tourism and they want badly to avoid being painted as a tropical island that unjustly imprisons vacationers.
They want you out of their country as fast as possible.
In time, they’ll hope that America and the United Kingdom and every other country whose citizens vacation on their tiny island will forget that St. Lucia once wrongly convicted you. ”
Grace nodded. She stared out the window of the van, lost suddenly in the lush rain forest that blurred past.
“You’ll soon be the most sought-after interview in the United States,” Sidney continued.
“Later today, journalists will arrive in St. Lucia and start looking for you. I’m sure they know when your parents’ plane is landing.
As soon as your parents step foot off that plane, there will be cameras in their faces and journalists asking for their reaction to your exoneration. ”
Grace didn’t answer. Her freedom, Sidney believed, had overwhelmed her.
“I reserved a room for you at a hotel near the airport. I used an alias, so if we get you there quickly, I think you’ll be okay until you get to the airport tomorrow.”
Grace continued to stare out the window.
“Grace, are you listening to me? You need to get ready for a media storm, and you should start thinking of ways to avoid it.”
“I want to go to Sugar Beach,” Grace finally said.
“Not a good idea.”
“I have to.” She looked away from the window for the first time and locked eyes with Sidney. “I have to see it again.”
Captured by the camera that rested on Derrick’s shoulder as he sat in the backseat of the van, Grace’s words would ring out in a future episode.
Millions of viewers would watch the back of her head, her hair prematurely graying and in a prison-issued crop, as the taxi snaked through the mountains of St. Lucia en route to Sugar Beach, where her ordeal had started ten years before.
The viewers would be given a voyeuristic glimpse as the girl convicted of a crime she did not commit climbed from the taxi forty minutes after her release from jail and stared down at Sugar Beach and the mountainous Piton from which the man she loved had been pushed.
She was a free woman the last time she laid eyes on the Pitons, young and in love.
It was evening now, and the sun was starting its descent.
With Bordelais situated on the eastern side of the island, this was the first time in a decade that Grace Sebold would watch the sunset.
During her ten-year nightmare, only the beginning of each day was visible, never the end.
Today, Sidney would tell the viewers in a dramatic voice-over, Grace Sebold was ten years older, free at last, and with a life unrecognizable from when she last stood and watched a sunset at Sugar Beach. The only thing that remained unchanged was that she still very much loved Julian Crist.