Chapter 35
35
I slump down in the kitchen table chair. “I messed up.”
“Make it right then.” My abuela delivers a bowl of reheated carne guisada to me.
She apologized repeatedly for bringing up the case the entire time she reheated it for me. I don’t blame her—or anyone—for the shit show that was tonight. It was my own damn fault.
“Easier said than done,” I grumble, picking up my spoon.
If making it right were such an easy task, Essie would’ve been mine a long time ago. I’ve been figuring out the best way to make it right with her for years. But this time, I won’t give up and disappear from her.
She settles a teacup on the table and sits across from me. “The best things in life are never easy, honey. That’s what makes them so special.” She balls her hands up and thrusts them forward. “Nothing easy is worth having anymore, really. You don’t take for granted what you had to work hard for.”
I stir my food, not bothering to take a bite. “When Essie and I were in college, it felt so easy between us. If I hadn’t stupidly run off, maybe we’d have been together all these years.”
“From what you’ve told me, you both were broken souls then. Two damaged pieces from different vases will never make one whole. You must find and repair your vase first. And often, doing so takes time. This could all be a part of your fate, your love story, with Essie.”
“Abuela, you know fate isn’t real, right?”
“Fate is as real as the moon. A destiny each one of us is born with and dies with. But unlike the moon, fate gives you the chance to change her, despite what some say. The reality is we have one life, one sun, one moon, but many fates. Some you control. Some you don’t. Honey, I can promise you, your fate with Essie is love. But it’s your job to make it your true destiny.” She reaches across the table. “Do that, and you’ll live a happy life.”
I rub my forehead. “It might be too late.”
“It’s never too late.” She plays with the string on her tea bag. “It might be harder , yes. But not too late. Saying it’s too late is saying you’re giving up, and we didn’t raise you to be a man who gives up on what he loves. Essie might need time, but don’t walk away from her.”
Time.
What Essie asked for.
Not for me to leave her alone or go to hell.
Time .
It’s what I needed when I read those texts from my dad on his phone.
So, I’ll give her those seconds, hours, days, whatever she needs.
And during that time, I’ll devise the perfect groveling plan to get my girl back and regain her trust in me.
Sleep was nonexistent for me last night.
I didn’t hear anything from Essie.
Dread rips through me when I pull up to the PEP’s building. Terrance gave me the morning off, but staying in Blue Beech might not be my future if Essie doesn’t forgive me.
It’d pain us both if I stayed there.
My mother called and texted a few times, but I haven’t gotten back to her yet.
Luckily, she’s in her office.
I watch her through the glass door, sitting behind her desk and talking on the phone.
“I need to call you back,” she says when she notices me and ends the call.
She gestures for me to take the chair directly across from her.
She looks at me with sadness. “Honey, you didn’t tell Essie about Earl. Why?”
“I planned to,” I say around a stressed breath. “I was just waiting for the right time.”
“The right time was when you opened the file and saw she was involved.”
“Did you know she was involved?”
“No, I only thought she was the girl from the pub until you introduced her by name. Now that I look back at it, Terrance had mentioned her name, but I never thought too much about it.”
“I can’t help you with Earl’s case.”
Her shoulders sag. “What if he’s innocent, Adrian?”
“Or—hear me out—what if he’s guilty and playing you and everyone else here? Essie said it was Earl. She was there.”
“Essie never saw the person behind the wheel. She saw Earl’s truck .”
“A truck he only had access to.”
“Is that a fact?” She sighs, softening her voice. “Do you want to keep Essie safe?”
“Until the day I die.”
“Then, let’s find out who really hurt her.”
“Terrance, you lived here when the accident with Essie happened, right?”
Terrance sets his coffee mug down. “I did.”
I motion toward a maroon diamond-patterned chair in his office.
He nods, waving me inside.
If I stay in Blue Beech, this office will be mine one day. It smells like dust. Books and awards line the wooden shelves. His beat-up desk shows wear of hard work, and his paperwork lies on his desk, organized into three even stacks.
I made copies of all the files from Earl’s case before returning them to my mother. I’m not stupid enough to just hand them back, especially if Earl is guilty and we have to fight to keep him behind bars.
“Did anything seem off to you about the case?” I ask, making myself comfortable. “In your honest opinion, do you think Earl committed the crime?”
He straightens his back in his chair. “Earl had a public defender. An inexperienced young man who’d had maybe four or five cases. Sometimes, when he was in town, he’d stop in and ask me questions. But my wife eventually asked me not to involve myself. She didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side in town.”
“Was that common? Did people blame him out of fear of retaliation or because they wanted to agree with the rest of the town?”
“The accident killed a young man the town loved. People were mad. There were no other suspects. Earl looked and fit the part.”
“Do you believe he did it?” I stress.
Terrance has done this a long time, and I’ve already learned so much from him. I value his input .
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he replies. “A group of his peers did and convicted him.”
Most of the time, it’s no fun speaking with attorneys.
We all share the same mentality.
I leave the office to find River waiting for me under a dark sky.
His car is next to mine. He’s leaning against the door, arms crossed, like a high school bully from an ’80s movie.
“He’s guilty,” he spits when I reach him. “Earl’s fucking guilty, and you’re an asshole for protecting him behind her back.”
I raise my hand, palm facing him. “I’m not protecting him. Let me explain myself.”
“Explain fast.”
“Let’s talk over a beer.” I rub my forehead, fighting exhaustion.
He scoffs. “Essie will kill me in my sleep if she finds out I had a beer with you.”
“One beer. And you can tell her you threatened to kill me.”
“I am threatening to kill you.”
I spread my arms wide. “We’re not lying, then.”
He nods toward his BMW. “Let’s go, then.”
A cover of “Sweet Caroline” plays in the background while the server delivers our drinks to our table. We’re in the back, away from the noise, and Jax is tending the bar.
While I’ve been sticking to Down Home ale lately, tonight, I need something stronger. And that’s gin. Gin has helped me through many late nights of working on cases .
“Listen, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt since you weren’t here when the accident happened,” River starts. “I’m sure you’ve read the case, but those files don’t include every detail.”
I scratch my chin, taking a second to answer so I can filter out sounding like a sarcastic ass. “The case file has all the evidence used in his prosecution.”
The file has more information than even River and his parents know.
He takes a sip of beer. “Before we get into the case, I want you to do something for me.”
I raise a brow. “What’s that?”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t come to Blue Beech to get information about Earl from Essie.” He leans in closer. “Tell me you weren’t using my sister to help him.”
I grimace.
Oh fuck .
I never considered that Essie might look at it like that.
That I was using her.
“I give you my word, I didn’t,” I reply. “I found out the same day you went to Essie’s and told her. I had no idea about Essie’s past until my mom handed me Earl’s file.”
“Why’d you hide it from her?”
“When we were in college, I made a mistake and fucked it up with her. I was scared of losing her again.” I swipe a hand across my face. “I planned to tell her everything.”
He scoffs, picking up his beer. “Eventually, you’d have had to. It was better now than seeing you at Earl’s side, defending him in court.”
“I’m not defending him.”
“Tell your mom to withdraw from his case. He’s guilty. End of story.”
“That’s not in my power.”
“What’s in your power, then?”
“Deciding whether I help the PEP. ”
“Help by convincing them of his guilt. In fact, I have no problem helping you with that.”
“Does that mean you’ll work with me?”
“I’m not an attorney, but I’ll fucking become one if it means protecting my sister.”
“Cool. Let’s get to brainstorming, then.” I’m not wasting a moment of this.
He rubs his hands. “Let’s get this done.”
“What makes you so certain he committed the crime?”
“All the evidence was there in black and white.”
The details are fresh in my mind since I reread them repeatedly last night.
I drain my drink. “Earl’s night began here, at Down Home.”
He nods.
“He realized he was too drunk to drive and called his grandmother, Esther, for a ride. Esther had a friend drive her to the pub so she could drive Earl and his truck home. Earl was so intoxicated that he needed help getting out of the pub and into the truck.”
River nods again.
“Earl lived with his grandmother. In her statement, she said they went home and Earl didn’t leave for the rest of the night.”
“She could have been covering for him, or he’d snuck out, and she didn’t know.” He makes a simple as that motion.
“This man, who couldn’t even walk out of a bar, somehow drove from their home in the middle-of-Blue-Beech nowhere, tracked down Essie and Ethan, waited until no other cars were around, and then played a traffic game with them?”
River shuts his eyes.
I can tell he’s playing out the scene in his head.
“The grandmother also said she hid the keys,” I continue. “They were still in the place she’d hidden them when the police arrived less than an hour after the accident. It took them over twenty minutes to wake Earl up. ”
“They found a spare key under the truck’s floor mat,” River argues.
“Earl’s prints weren’t on that key, and the grandmother, who drove his truck regularly, said she’d never seen it before.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t use it.”
“There was a logo on the key from the machine where it was copied. The PEP reviewed Earl’s bank and credit card statements. They couldn’t find a charge for it.”
“Cash.” River snaps his fingers and slams his hand on the table.
“The machine doesn’t accept cash. Only credit. There was nothing on the grandmother’s bank statements either.”
“He could’ve found another way. A prepaid card. Paid someone to make a copy for him. The key isn’t a deal-breaker on the case.” He signals the server for another round of drinks. Instead of a beer for him this time, he orders a whiskey shot.
“All right, moving on from the key. Why would he target Ethan or Essie? Neither of them was involved in the prank.”
“Ethan was at the party on the football field.” River pulls at his jacket collar, as if he’s suddenly burning up.
“With twenty other students.”
River works his jaw, focused on my every word.
“Why Ethan?” I go on to really drive my point home. “Why not retaliate against one of the kids who played the prank that cost Earl his job?”
As soon as the server drops off our drinks, River downs his shot. “Maybe Earl thought Ethan was one of them. There’s no disputing that the truck that hit Ethan’s Jeep was Earl’s.”
“In her statement, Essie said the truck followed Ethan every time he tried to move out of the way. Do you think a man who was carried out of a bar less than an hour before had the motor skills to do that?”
He glares at me. “And here you were, trying to convince me you weren’t fighting for Earl.”
“I’m fighting for the truth, River, and you said you’d help me. I won’t work with Earl, but I also can’t forget this case until I know the truth. Blame it on the attorney part of me and the part of me who wants to keep Essie safe.”
“Fine, let’s say we rule out Earl. Then, who did it?”
My gut knots. “That’s the million-dollar question.”
“If you’re thinking it was high school kids, there’s no way they could have pulled off a crime like that in revenge. Hell, half the kids were happy they had been suspended and got days off school.”
“It could be them or the family who wanted his property.” My mouth goes dry, and I pray that it wasn’t Pete and Agnes. I still can’t bring myself to ask them about it.
River cracks his neck from side to side. “Let’s figure it out, then.”