Page 39 of Deliver Me

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 thenwe’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 athim and shook her head, obviously bemused. “That girlfriend of yours is going to make agreatlawyer 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 familiarprocess 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.

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