Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I don’t come from a family of talkers. Halbachs have always been sweepers. We lift the corner of any old rug and tuck everything we don’t want to acknowledge beneath it.
I thought I was ready for this conversation. Thought I was ready for the truth. Thought I was ready for his vitriol, his rage. It’s not a side of Charlie I’ve seen often, but facing it head on, studying the hurt in his eyes, strikes a new kind of fear in me.
I was wrong. I’m not strong enough to confront the ways I’ve destroyed him—the way I destroyed us.
The anguish in his voice the last time we talked on the phone tortures me on a loop in my head.
I guard my heart so fiercely only because it’s so goddamn weak, and I’m certain it’ll split in two if I’m forced to reckon with this right now.
“You haven’t served me the papers either.” I’m a creature of habit, doomed to grind my heels into the mud, carve the ruts I’m stuck in deeper and deeper.
“You’re the one who left!”
I flinch. He’s right. I’m the one who started all this; I should be the one to finish it.
But what I can’t bring myself to say out loud—because I know exactly what road it’ll lead us down—is every time I’ve tried filling out the paperwork to legally sever us, bile creeps up the back of my throat.
My stomach twists into knots. Every atom making up my body, my brain, screams but he’s mine.
“Because I’m just such a terrible fucking person. Okay? There. You win.” I throw my hands up.
He scoffs. “You’re deflecting.”
His expression is all sharp determination.
He’s not letting me dance around this one—he knows my moves too well.
Pushing off the wall, I cross to the camera, avoiding the weight of his stare as I pop the SD card out and pocket it.
I don’t need any more recorded evidence of the mess I’m making, and I sure as hell don’t need my little brother ever having a chance to get ahold of this footage.
What I need is to derail Charlie’s line of questioning before I break and tell him how hard it’s been without him.
Like Mr. Lindsay is on my side, the REM Pod blares across the room. I nearly leap out of my skin. That’s my in.
“We’re not done yet,” I grit out, glancing toward the noise. “I promised we’d talk when we were done, but we’re not. And I know all of this ghost investigating might not matter to you, but it matters to me.” Cautiously, I tack on, “And to River.”
Standing behind the camera setup like it’s some semblance of a shield, I watch his shoulders fall as the anger drains from his body like water down old pipes. He palms the back of his neck, gaze dropping to the floor.
“It’s not that it doesn’t matter to me, Win.” Regret weighs down his voice, sandpapery and low. I’m both relieved and drowning with shame that I hit my mark. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I just—”
“I know.” I send a deep breath through pursed lips. As I swap in a fresh SD card, I try to ignore the way he looks at me. The way he still cares enough about me to come off genuine in his apology.
He exhales. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
I bite my lip and glance around the room.
I need space from Charlie. Just a little fresh air—as fresh as I can get in this place—not tainted with his scent, not weighed down by the shattered look in his eyes.
My body’s buzzing with restless energy, like ants spilling from a caved-in hill, ready to attack the intruding shoe.
I unscrew the camera from the mount on the tripod and fish the stabilizer from my bag again—any excuse to keep my hand to myself.
My gaze darts from one exit to the next, finally settling on a hallway out the other side of the dining hall we haven’t explored yet.
“I’m going to capture some B-roll. I’ll be right back. Don’t scare off the ghost,” I rush out, not pausing long enough to let Charlie get a word in edgewise as I swipe the camera off the mount.
Five minutes alone. That’s all I need. To remind myself why I left him. To remind myself why I have to stay away. Five minutes of fresh air to forget how good his sweat smells on his skin.
Charlie calls after me but I break into a jog down the unfamiliar hallway.
With the windows barred and set so high on the walls, and the cloud ceiling so low and dark in the sky, it’s nearly pitch black as my breath heaves in my lungs, my pulse still elevated from our little rendezvous.
I navigate solely by the light strapped to my camera.
The archway at the end yawns open into another tall, multi-story cell block unit.
Craning my neck, I count the stories—one, two, three.
Black metal stairs overlayed on top of their landings look like giant ominous X’s stacking all the way up—a warning sign that those who enter here don’t often come back out.
The end of the tracks. Like the other block, this one’s decrepit in a way things only untouched for decades become, disintegrating under the hot, relentless breath of north Texas summers, freezing rigid and cracking in its winters.
A series of three soft plinks wrenches my neck sideways, and I pan the camera over the cell it echoed from as my stomach twists.
Could it have been a bug? A heavy curl of peeling metal slipping loose from the bars, disturbing whatever grime is caked on the floor?
The cell stares back at me in perfect silence.
Attempting to regain control of my breathing, I take measured steps across the long corridor.
Double-checking my mic’s still in place, I clear my throat and dive into the nearest distraction I can reach: the episode, which needs to be my first priority. “Black Magnolia Penitentiary was built back in the 1890s with inmate labor.”
My narration’s breathy and far less certain than River’s normally is, but I can’t bring myself to dwell on it.
Crossing closer to one of the cells, I pan across its compact space, the light affixed to the top of the camera illuminating it.
There’s a metal bed frame chained to the wall, now sagging from it, a utilitarian sink and toilet, and a single shelf.
My throat swells as the light crosses a series of clumsy tally marks etched into the stone, several hashes of five lined up and stacked in a four-by-three rectangle. Tracking months? Or years?
Running my thumb along the first set, I whisper, “These men were literally forced to live in a prison of their own making.”
Sadness swells in my chest—and for what? For prisoners, long and gone? Murderers, rapists, arsonists, you name it? Terrible people or not, I can’t fathom living in this sad, lonely squalor for the rest of my days.
“The man we’re trying to contact today,” I start, attempting to steel the embarrassing shake from my voice, “is now believed to have been wrongfully convicted of his crime. Not by the public. Not by the justice system. But by the surviving family of his victim.”
I keep walking down the row of cells, passing barred door after barred door.
I’m still not convinced the guy didn’t do it—even if he was Edith’s lover—but this is the story River’s latched onto, so it’s the one I’m committed to.
He’s desperate to find the good in people—a trait I try to encourage as much as possible, even if I can’t lead by example.
I would sacrifice anything to protect his hope forever.
“If you’re a returning viewer, I’m sure you’re familiar with our resident research aficionado, River.
” I sniff a laugh. “He was able to dig up old newspaper articles, around the time Mr. Dewhurst was first pinned for the crime. Locals all said he was strange. Kept to himself a lot, didn’t attend church regularly.
He was a black sheep, an easy scapegoat.
And that’s what landed him a lifetime in a place like this.
The one person who would’ve fought for his innocence was gone. ”
I reach the end of the line and pivot.
“Our research—well, River’s—said that Mr. Dewhurst died of a heart attack in prison.
He had seven more years of his sentence to serve when he passed.
” I suck in a deep breath. “And the unfortunate reality is Edith Page Milton’s killer may have been living as a free person while Mr. Dewhurst had to live with the reality that the woman he loved was dead, and he was behind bars for it. ”
I pause and take one last look up at the cascading stairs, the seemingly infinite cells they lead to, and huff a dry laugh.
“It’s no secret that our justice system is often anything but. And nothing can give James Dewhurst or Edith Page Milton their lives back. But at least we can do our best to share their story. And James, if you’re here and willing to talk to us, we’d love to get your side of things, too.”
I hold my breath. I don’t blink. I don’t move. I listen for anything around me.
Absolutely nothing. With a sigh, I keep walking.
I’m three cells away from clearing the block and making my way back into the adjoining hallway when the room plummets into darkness as my light goes out.
I gasp, stomach swooping dramatically. The camera light flickers back on, but every hair on my body stands on end, and my head swivels, instinctively in search of threats.
Warmth coats the back of my neck—soft, the tiniest bit moist, like an exhaled breath, and every molecule in me ices over as I whirl around.
Nothing. From the corner of my eye . . .
movement. Shadow. Slinking into a cell. On the opposite side of the ones I walked by.
Shit. Is something in here? With me? Hands trembling, I back up until my shoulders meet the rusty bars of another cell, not taking my eyes from where I saw something move.
“Charlie? Is that you?” My voice quivers.
No answer.