Chapter 21
Hadley Dawkins
Loyalty.
Hadley had asked Elijah a question on Thursday night about the topic, but she’d exited the bar before he could give her an answer. His sense of loyalty was completely blind. It was simply given based on where someone was born or lived, and only taken away in death.
She viewed loyalty like currency. A balance sheet where every deposit meant a withdrawal elsewhere.
When each allegiance demanded collateral in hours spent and feelings invested, with no insurance against the inevitable crashes of betrayal.
She'd spent it carelessly in her youth, and the night her brother emerged from the woods covered in blood, she’d gone completely bankrupt.
Maybe that was why she found herself in the visiting room at Varner Unit prison.
She needed a loan, and her brother was the only one who could supply her with a few pennies.
She wiped her sweating palms against the black fabric of her pant suit for the third time in as many minutes, the material now slightly tacky against her fingers.
She attributed the perspiration to her inability to take a deep breath.
The stench of disinfectant was so prominent that it was difficult to siphon any oxygen out of the room.
To distract herself until the guard escorted her brother through the heavy steel door, she began to count the scratches in the plexiglass divider.
Twenty years of silence existed between the barrier, nearly double the decade she'd spent avoiding her hometown.
Hadley fought the urge to glance at the black-and-white government-issued clock on the wall behind her. Time moved differently here, stretched and warped by the institutional rhythm of guards' boots against concrete floors and the distant metallic clangs of cell doors.
She’d only counted thirty-three scratches in the plexiglass before switching her attention to the black phone attached to the left partition.
The coiled cord was frayed at the edges, presumably from the countless hands that had gripped it during scores of conversations that had never likely changed anything.
A wave of nausea washed over her, an uncomfortable reminder of the way she'd been sick in the parking lot thirty minutes earlier. The same violent nausea that had ambushed her upon returning to Whistlerun over a week ago.
The two-and-a-half-hour drive had given her too much time to think, to recall every detail of her childhood testimony, to imagine what Mason's face would look like now.
Would his eyes still carry that wounded betrayal she remembered from the courtroom?
Would twenty years of incarceration have stripped away the brother she once knew, leaving a stranger in his place?
The burning sensation in her chest intensified.
She’d been waiting too long. One of the guards would step through the door any second to inform her that Mason refused to see her. The thought brought an unexpected sting to her eyes, and she blinked the tears away, irritated by her own vulnerability.
She tensed the muscles in her legs, readying herself to stand, to leave before someone else gave her the directive. She had almost convinced herself to go when the door on the opposite side of the room opened.
Mason stepped through the doorway, and she was suddenly frozen in place.
The years had carved new lines into his face, hollow channels beneath his cheekbones where youthful fullness had once been.
His hair, once a rich brown like hers, was now cropped close to his scalp and in a way that made him look older than his thirty-eight years.
His frame had grown wiry, with lean muscle evident beneath the prison-issued uniform, but it was the way he moved that displayed what he’d learned over the years behind bars.
He walked with careful precision, each step unhurried and intentional, as if the space around him had boundaries only he could discern.
When he finally stood before her and lifted his gaze to meet hers, something broke inside of her. His irises were still the same deep green, still her brother's eyes, yet set in a stranger's face.
Mason hesitated before lowering himself into the chair, his movements once again deliberate as he assessed her through the scratched barrier. The fluorescent lights emphasized the gauntness that time and confinement had produced over the years.
Neither of them reached for the phone.
They simply stared at each other until the sound of Hadley’s heartbeat finally faded in her ears. She kept her hands clenched in her lap, as if one wrong move could shatter whatever tenuous connection hovered between them.
She startled slightly when Mason extended his hand toward the black phone with a slow, mindful motion. Hadley's paralysis snapped in two, and she reached for her own receiver. The plastic was cool and smooth against her palm as she lifted it to her ear.
“You look just like her.”
Mason’s voice was deeper than she remembered, richer somehow, with an unfamiliar cadence. Their mother's face flickered through her mind. Her tired eyes, her weathered skin, and the premature lines that spoke of a hard life made harder by her own choices.
Hadley still couldn't form a response. There were no words adequate to bridge the divide between them.
What could she possibly say to the brother whose freedom had been exchanged for her testimony?
What words could carry the weight of her absence, her doubt, her growing suspicion that what she'd seen that night might not have been what she thought?
Mason didn't push for a response.
As a matter of fact, his next words blindsided her completely.
“I'm sorry about Reed. Sam told me what happened.” Mason dropped his gaze to her black pantsuit. “I’m surprised you’re here when the funeral is today.”
Mason made it sound like she visited often, when, in fact, it was Sam who had been spending time at the prison.
“Sam visits you?” The question escaped before she could consider its implications. Mason didn’t seem to mind, though. “He didn’t mention that to me.”
“Every Monday for the past twenty years. He brings books, keeps me updated on things…you. I’m proud of you, nugget.”
Hearing his nickname for her, familiar pressure built behind her sternum.
She wasn’t sure what had caused her to think this visit was a good idea.
Everything she needed to know about that fateful night could be found in the court transcripts.
There had been no need for her to drive hours on the day of Reed’s funeral.
Only deep down, she understood his death was what had prompted her to make such a snap decision.
Mason leaned forward, resting his left forearm on the narrow counter.
“Look, I don’t blame you for not visiting. I understand why you stayed away. And honestly, I’m not sure why you’re here now.”
He paused, clearly waiting for a reply. He was observing her with the patient gaze of someone who had learned that time was both enemy and ally. Her heart hurt for the boy who had protected her from the harsh reality of being a child with two alcoholic parents.
“I'm sorry.”
The words emerged tight and strained, carrying the guilt of everything left unsaid.
She was sorry for her absence, sorry for their mother's death, sorry for the testimony that had shaped both their lives.
Most of all, sorry for the doubt that had begun to creep into her conscience a little too late.
“You don't have to apologize, Hadley,” Mason said, adjusting his hold on the phone, as if searching for the right words.
“I was upset for a long time, but not with you. You were just ten years old. All you did was say what you witnessed and heard that night. Even when I was eighteen, I recognized how wrong it was for them to put you through that.”
If she were being honest with herself, his forgiveness and understanding were harder to bear than the resentment she'd expected.
“I wish I could say the same,” Hadley admitted, surprising even herself.
“I hated everyone and everything. For years, I couldn't even look at our family photos without feeling sick. I blamed you for what happened to me in that courtroom. I blamed Mom for the way she stared at me afterward, like I'd betrayed her, too. Yet she was the one who allowed Chief Garber and the prosecutor to force me to relive that night over and over until I couldn’t remember what was real and what they’d suggested to me. I resented her for letting that happen to me. I hated her so much that I never spoke a word to her after I left town. She died alone, Mason. I let her die alone, and I despise myself for not giving a damn, either.”
Hadley had revealed way too much.
The words hung between them, but he didn’t seem to take offense.
“We got the short end of the stick when it came to parents.” Mason shrugged, his acceptance of their roles in life obvious. “You came out the other end. Be grateful for that.”
Hadley spent years constructing a version of her brother who was angry, impulsive, and capable of violence. The man before her matched none of those formations. If anything, all she could conceive from his body language was defeat.
He’d given up, and he’d accepted his fate.
“Mason, I—” Hadley stopped, needing time to compose herself.
She'd spent so long convincing herself of his guilt that the possibility of his innocence was like standing on the edge of a cliff.
One misstep and everything she'd built her life upon would collapse. But sitting in this chair meant that she’d already fallen.
Unfortunately, movement from the guard in the corner suggested she was running out of time to explain herself.
“I think someone has been abducting young women in Whistlerun since 1978. And I think Emily might have been one of them.”
Mason's gaze locked with hers, unwavering in their intensity. He remained silent, which meant it was her turn to give him a few moments to come to terms with her change of heart.