Deliver Me

Chapter Sixteen

G abriel wasn’t surprised that Lilah still refused to speak directly to him—she had never been the type of person that was able to bend easily or often—but he was surprised that she had agreed to pay for lawyers and private investigators. And not just any lawyers—according to Mia, Lilah had spared no expense on hiring the best.

Amy Hail, the woman who was now tasked with trying to save what was left of his life, was tall and slim—all long limbs and graceful movements beneath a perfectly polished exterior of pressed fabrics and expensive perfume. There was a hint of red in the brown of her hair and an edge of meanness to the green of her eyes. The impossibly high heels and expertly cut suit jackets reminded him painfully of Lilah on her way out the door to some important government meeting.

It also quickly became apparent that, much like his mother, her fragile appearance was not an indication of weakness. Like Lilah, she was a diamond, polished but unbreakable. She was not unkind, but she offered him no false hope, no platitudes or guarantees. She knew the stakes, and she didn’t sugarcoat the odds.

Her familiar abrasiveness soothed his nerves.

“You’re sure that you can’t think of anyone else?” Her pen tapped restlessly on a legal pad that already had the names and dates of everyone and everything he could remember from the day he was sent to Richard’s to the day his father died in his arms. The small room used for lawyer’s visits was cold and cramped, with nothing but a few chairs and a small table that was nearly invisible beneath heaps of printed records and hastily scribbled notes.

Every meeting he’d ever had with a lawyer had held this same tense atmosphere of quiet desperation. Unwanted memories dug into his mind, and he rolled his shoulders against the intrusion, trying to focus on the task at hand.

“I’m sure,” he told her defensively. “I’ve been over it in my mind a hundred times since your last visit, and that’s everyone.”

She leaned forward and her tone was impatient. “I know you’re trying, and you want out of here, but the chances of us tracking any of these people down is slim and the odds of them being willing to testify …”

“Can’t you just fucking make them? This is my life on the line here.”

“Theoretically?” She shrugged, unfazed by his outburst. “But do you want them to be honest?”

“You think they’d lie,” he said flatly.

“I think that what you’ve described to me are multiple scenarios of abuse and illegal activity of the kind that people want to leave behind them,” she said as she flipped through the notes she’d taken. “The more names we have, the greater the chances of finding someone willing to give honest testimony.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, helplessness choking him. “I can’t think of anyone else.”

She flipped the page of the pad again, eyes narrowed on the list. “We’ll pass what you’ve given me along to the P.I. and then we’ll just have to wait and see what we come up with. One way or the other, we have to build you the best case we can.”

He fell silent as she wrote, the pen scratching across paper the only sound as the minutes ticked by.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she asked finally, glancing at him as she started to pack her things away. Their time was limited and nearly done for the day.

“How will this be different from my first trial?” He’d avoided asking her during their first several meetings because he wasn’t sure he could handle another experience like the last one. Not when Mia was involved.

“Most of it will be the same but primarily we’ll have witnesses and expert testimony about your state of mind at the time of the murder,” she said, ticking the list off on her fingers. “We won’t be arguing that you’re innocent, not exactly, but—”

“What are we arguing?”

“We’re asking the jury to consider the circumstances of the murder and the role your past played in the events. To be very honest, I don’t understand how they managed to get a conviction for capital murder the first time when there was so much to indicate a lack of premeditation at a minimum. This time we’ll give the full story. Show the jury you’re a victim here, just a kid who was overcome by the circumstances and unlikely to offend again.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I have a responsibility to defend you no matter what my beliefs are,” she said firmly, “but in this case, I believe you deserve to walk out of this prison someday.”

“You think that’s possible? Honestly?” He wasn’t sure why her opinion mattered to him so much, just that it did.

“You’ve certainly got the best chance of anyone I’ve ever seen in your position and a great support system.” She smiled at him and shook her head, obviously bemused. “That girlfriend of yours is going to make a great lawyer someday.”

“About Mia … Can we keep the media from prying into my personal life?” His voice spiked, fear setting in as he realized that Mia was on record at the prison for visiting him. The idea of aggressive paparazzi swarming her house made him sick.

“The first thing that I’m going to ask for is no cameras in the courtroom. There’s always the chance that someone will be willing to leak sensitive information no matter what the court orders, but media interest is likely to be significantly reduced if they aren’t getting trial footage every day. Your first trial was a mishandled media circus.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he mumbled.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep her safe,” she promised. “We’re all going to do our best for you, but nobody is fighting for you harder than Mia and even if the press shows up, she’s not going to get scared off by a few reporters.”

The countryside had blossomed since the first time she had been to the prison, the trees bursting with the unfurling leaves that marked the relentless passing of time. The weeks that had turned winter into spring had also made Mia comfortable in her visits. The drive and her arrival were uneventful, the barbed wire and the dogs and the clanging of the doors nothing more than background noise.

It terrified her when she stopped to think through the implications of her acclimation.

She knew the route to the prison, the names of the guards, the smell and sounds of the visitation room so well that she had started to dream about them—her mind replaying the familiar process until she finally made it inside and saw Gabriel as an old man with his hair gray and his back bent with age. In the nightmare, a lifetime had passed, and she knew that he would never leave his cage, destined to die behind the walls that kept him prisoner. He still smiled when he saw her, his face wreathed with wrinkles, and she choked back her tears because she didn’t want him to see how badly her heart was broken that they had been denied a life together.

She prayed with clenched fists every day that she would never have to see him like that outside the panicked projections of her mind … and she did not tell Gabriel. Even if it meant keeping some things to herself, she was unwilling to burden him with her fears when she knew he had so many of his own.

After a subtle and intimate brush of her fingers over his wrist, she twined her fingers with his and took in his appearance as they sat down at the nearest table. He was as handsome as ever, his smile as genuine, but his eyes were shadowed with dark circles.

She had suspicions that she wasn’t the only one having nightmares.

“How was the drive?” he asked, already rubbing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. He was always touching her, like he was trying as hard as she was to soak every bit of their visits in through the skin where it would live forever, an indelibly etched memory.

“It’s not as stressful as it used to be.” He nodded but he said nothing else, and she frowned, sensing an undercurrent of something dark that made her uneasy. “What’s wrong?”

“I spoke to Amy,” he said quietly. “They’re still looking but without those witnesses … What if they don’t find anyone?” His hand tightened on hers until it was almost painful as he spoke a portion of her own fears aloud, and he looked at her like he might fall apart.

“We just have to keep our faith.”

“I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life because I’m stuck in here.”

Mia sighed and pressed a hand to her eyes, willing back the tears there before he could see them. She knew he loved her, that he wanted her, but right now he needed her hope more than he needed anything else. It had been her hope that had finally swayed his mother and it would be her hope that kept him going.

Her pleas to Lilah had earned them an opportunity they couldn’t afford to waste in fear and self-pity. Amy had told her plainly, when she had arranged to meet her at a little coffee shop just off campus, that this process would be long and exhaustive, that it would push her to the limits of her emotions, with one day bringing the highest of hopes and the next the dark certainty of failure and despair. They would need as much support from others as they could find, but mostly they would need each other, and she prepared to give him all that she had.

“Hey,” she crooned, hating the guards and the rules for preventing her from pulling him into her arms, from running her fingers through the soft waves of his hair and kissing his anxiety away. “We can’t think like that.”

“I didn’t care so much the first time because I thought my life was over anyway, but now I have you and I have a fucking life waiting for me.” She started to speak but his head whipped up and she was caught in the tumult of his eyes. “Do you want to know the worst part, though? Even now she isn’t here, and she doesn’t care.”

“Who?”

“My mother,” he said, surprising her as the words tore into her to lodge somewhere primal, nestling into her heart. He hadn’t spoken at all about Lilah since he had found out about the lawyers and she’d been reluctant to bring it up, afraid of upsetting him.

“Gabriel, I’m so sorry,” she said, squeezing his hand and wiping away the tears that she could no longer hold back. “I tried to get her to talk to you, but she said she wanted to hear what the P.I.’s had to say first.”

“Of course, she did,” he said bitterly.

“She talked about you and your father,” Mia told him softly. “She’s not a soft woman, obviously, but I think she loved you both.”

“And Richard ? Did she talk about him ?”

“Yes,” Mia admitted, still unsure how much she should say on the subject of his uncle. “I got the impression they were close, and she felt very betrayed by the idea that he might have hurt you.”

“They were close,” Gabriel said. “Richard was able to get away with so much because people trusted him.”

“It looks like he dropped out of the public eye around the time your father died, but Amy and my dad told me how famous he was.”

“Convincing people that he wasn’t as perfect as they thought he was will be almost impossible.”

“We’re going to be taking on a big legacy,” she admitted, “but we can do this.”

“How was the visit?”

Mia sighed, pausing with her foot on the bottom stair. She’d thought she might be able to get by without her father seeing her, but she hadn’t been so lucky.

“It was fine,” she said, turning to smile at him as she took another step up the stairs. “Just going over some stuff that we had talked to his lawyers about.”

Pastor Anderson nodded absently, still rooted to the spot in the doorway to the dining room. He had been waiting for her to come home, she realized. He hadn’t done that since she was in high school, when he needed to talk to her about her mother’s illness. It was usually an indication that he had something serious to say.

“Can you come in here, please?” he asked, confirming her suspicions, and tapping his fingers nervously on his thigh.

“Sure,” she said, turning away from the stairs and taking a few hesitant steps to follow him into the dining room, where he sat at the table, a cup of coffee sitting untouched in front of him.

Kennedy wouldn’t be home from class for another two hours, and without the buffer her presence had provided, Mia had a sinking feeling that this conversation was going to be the one that she had been specifically avoiding for the last three months.

“We haven’t had much time to really talk since the unfortunate disagreement we had at Christmas,” he said, confirming her suspicion.

“No, we haven’t,” she agreed. She hugged her arms around her middle, anxiety already prickling beneath the skin and making her thoughts buzz uncomfortably.

He swallowed and shifted his hands restlessly on the coffee cup. “I guess, if I’m being honest, I just wondered if things were still the same as they were the last time we spoke?”

“You want to know if I’m still planning to apply to law school and if I still have feelings for Gabriel?” She knew her tone was blunter than he would have preferred, and he looked away.

“Yes, that’s what I was wondering,” he confirmed.

“I am,” she said simply. “I’m enjoying my classes and I love Gabriel.” Her father’s face was tired as he nodded and she relented enough to add, “I know Mrs. Newberry’s been causing problems because of my relationship with him and I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that.”

He waved a hand to dismiss her concerns. “I’m not blaming you for that. She’s being extremely difficult but … there’s still hope.”

He was stubborn about those things, but that relentless hope had once kept him from returning a wide eyed and terrified little girl, so she patted his hand, determined to work out the tension between them now that the conversation had begun.

“I know that you wanted me to follow the path that God had laid for me,” she told him with an understanding smile, “and that you always thought that it would be the same path as Mom, but it isn’t. I know that hurts you, but I can’t change it. I can’t change what God created me to be.”

“Is that what you think? That I want to change you?” He dropped his head into his hands, shoulders slumping.

“Isn’t it?” asked, bewildered when he lifted his head from his hands, eyes red rimmed and cheeks wet.

“I want you to be happy , Mia. Happy and safe and loved. I know you have feelings for Gabriel and after everything you’ve told us, I hate what happened to him, but if he never gets out …” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to be heartbroken. Heartbroken and alone.”

“I can handle this.”

“I know you can achieve anything you set your mind to, but I don’t want you to put so much of yourself into your career or into waiting for Gabriel that you miss out on other things in life.”

“I understand—”

He shook his head, his face broken and anguished. “You don’t understand. I don’t think you remember what things were like when you first came to us. You were so touch starved, so scared of even being in a room by yourself, that we couldn’t leave you alone. I never wanted you to be lonely again. I wanted you to have a family, Mia, and someone to grow old with.”

“I know,” she told him. “And I’m fighting to have that. I’m fighting for the person I want to be with.”

“What if he hurts you?”

“What if I had married James and had a bunch of babies and then he left me and ran off with a stripper?”

He laughed bleakly, recalling the story she was talking about. A pastor in the next county had done exactly that a few years before, leaving his young wife brokenhearted and alone with three children to raise.

“I always wanted to find a man just like you and somehow I did,” she continued, patting his hand at his shocked expression. “He’s got a difficult past, but I promise you that I know what a good man looks like, what love looks like, because you and Mom showed me. He listens to me, he cares about me, he supports me in everything I do. He looks at me like you looked at Mom, and that’s how I know it’s right.”

He pulled her in for a hug and exhaled a shaky breath. “You’re sure that you can be happy? That this is the life that you want for yourself?”

“Yes.” She sat beside him, her cheek pressed to his shoulder and her hand on his. “I trust him and I’m asking you to trust me.”