Page 142 of Catch the Sun

The weight of my doubt crushes me. All these years I had allowed the visuals of that night, the evidence presented, the media frenzy, to direct the narrative. I let suspicion cloud love. All of it overshadowed the boy I grew up with, the man I knew, deep down in my soul.

Our mother chimes in, dabbing a tissue to her eyes. “The lab that was processing the evidence had a contamination incident,” she explains. “Some of the samples got mixed up, including Jonah’s. Your grandmother helped pay for Dr. Jensen’s services—the forensic expert I’ve been in contact with for the past two years. He was the one who brought it to light. He discovered that the DNA results from the bloody clothes didn’t just have anomalies; they were fundamentally flawed.”

My heart races, trying to grapple with the enormity of such an oversight. “How was this not caught during the trial?”

Jonah shrugs, his frustration evident. “Inefficient cross-checking, maybe. The prosecution built a strong story and everyone got swept up in it. Erin was my girlfriend, and I was the jealous lover who caught her cheating. No one thought to question the authenticity of the evidence. They trusted the labresults and followed the seeds planted by thirsty prosecutors. But this wasn’t just a simple error. Dr. Jensen revealed that the lab had faced similar issues before, but they were brushed under the rug. This time it cost me years of my life.”

I’m still shaking my head, still buzzing with incredulity. “And then you had a second trial? How did I not hear about it?”

“I didn’t go to trial again. With no witness testimony to put me directly at the scene, the verdict was entirely based around that DNA evidence. The rest was circumstantial and hardly enough for a credible case. The odds of a guilty verdict were fifty-fifty.”

I stare at him for a heavy beat. “But…youwerethere,” I breathe out. “Who else was there? Did you see the real killer?”

Jonah doesn’t blink, doesn’t break eye contact. Harrowing seconds pass before he replies. “No. And it doesn’t matter. There’s no concrete physical evidence now, no witnesses to corroborate anything. It’s not my job to figure out who really did it.”

I wasn’t there…but I saw him.

He came home, covered head to toe in blood.

They never found the murder weapon, but Mom always kept a gun in the house and still does. The ballistics matched one of them.

Still, it was circumstantial. It was a common pistol—a 9mm firearm. A Glock 19.

His bloody clothes were the smoking gun. If the DNA evidence was no longer credible, they had nothing to go on but assumptions: Jonah’s lack of an alibi, his relationship with Erin, and Mom’s weapon that she told the packed courtroom was stolen years prior; she’d just never reported it.

Jonah pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “The prosecutor chose not to retry the case due to the publicity and notoriety it gained,” he continues. “Given the errors in the initial trial, they felt that a new trial could further erode the public’s trust, especially if there was a chance they might lose. Which there was.” Jonah stands from the couch, hovering over me as I sit slumped on the floor, still trembling, still reeling. “Piglet…it’s over. I’m a free man,” he says softly, crouching down in front of me and pushing a piece of hair off my eyes. “And I’m so fucking glad you woke up. That you’re okay. I thought about youand Mom every damn day. I worried, I stressed, I wrote you letters. I missed you both so much.”

Tears glimmer in his eyes. Raw pain reflects back at me, filling me with the same sentiment.

He sinks down lower until we’re face-to-face.

I’m looking directly into the eyes of my brother. The man I thought was lost forever. The man I slapped with my own guilty verdict.

Jonah.

He’s no longer sitting on death row, awaiting a needle to the arm. He’s here and he’s free.

He came back to me.

I break into pieces, throwing myself at him with the remaining fragments of my strength. He holds me tight, pulling me to his chest as we stumble back against the front of the couch. Strong arms wrap around me, and his face drops to the crook of my neck, his tears falling and dampening my blouse. He smells like cedar and cigars and the stale musk of lost time.

We break together.

Mom slides down from the sofa to join us, slinging her arms around us both. We sit like that for close to an hour, huddled up on the living room floor.

Sobbing, releasing, healing…together.

Mom.

Jonah.

And me.

We’re a family again.

***

We sit together by the sun-kissed lake, set only a few feet from the road. My walker rests beside me for support after Jonah drove me over, eager to spend alone time together.

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