Chapter 11 - ONE HUG
Ethan didn’t move.
He simply stared.
Sunlight spilled across the floor.
Real sunlight.
Not prison-yard sunlight chopped into rectangles by fencing.
Not light through reinforced windows.
Open light.
Officer Knox stepped beside him.
“Go.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Go where?”
“Through the door.”
“Why?”
Knox actually smiled.
“Because for once in your life, Cole, stop arguing with a correctional officer.”
Ethan stepped forward cautiously.
The door led to a small secured courtyard beside the administrative building.
Warden Briggs stood there.
So did Dana Brooks.
And two county investigators.
Ethan’s pulse exploded.
“What happened?”
Dana walked toward him.
“The judge vacated your conviction.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“She signed the order twenty-six minutes ago.”
Ethan’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Dana’s eyes filled.
“You are no longer serving a sentence for the death of Marcus Reed.”
Ethan looked at the fences around him.
“Then why am I still wearing this?”
“The state requested a temporary hold while they decide whether to retry the case.”
Of course.
Hope rose.
Then stopped.
“How long?”
“Up to forty-eight hours.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Right.”
Dana grabbed his arm.
“Listen to me.”
He looked at her.
“This matters. Your conviction is gone.”
“I still can’t go home.”
“Not yet.”
There it was again.
Not yet.
The two cruelest words Ethan had ever heard.
Warden Briggs cleared his throat.
“There is something else.”
Ethan looked over.
“Your attorney requested a special contact visit.”
His heart stopped.
“I denied it.”
Ethan’s face fell.
Briggs continued.
“Then Judge Porter called personally.”
Knox coughed, hiding a smile.
Briggs looked annoyed.
“She has strong opinions.”
Dana laughed.
The courtyard door opened.
Claire stepped through.
Holding Rosie.
No glass.
Ethan forgot how to breathe.
Claire stopped too.
They stood twenty feet apart.
Three years between them.
A prison uniform between them.
A thousand bad nights between them.
Rosie saw him.
Her eyes went wide.
“Dada?”
Ethan dropped to his knees.
“Come here, baby.”
Claire lowered Rosie to the ground.
The little girl stood unsteadily.
One step.
Two.
Then she ran the awkward, stumbling run of a one-year-old who had no idea she was carrying an entire man’s heart in her tiny hands.
Ethan opened his arms.
Rosie crashed into his chest.
He caught her.
And broke.
Not cried.
Broke.
A sound came out of him that he had held inside for three years.
He buried his face in his daughter’s hair.
Rosie grabbed his cheeks.
“Dada!”
“Yeah.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Yeah, baby. Daddy.”
Claire knelt beside them.
Ethan pulled her in.
The three of them collapsed together on the concrete.
Claire laughed and sobbed at the same time.
“You’re real.”
Ethan kissed her hair.
“So are you.”
Rosie squeezed both their necks.
Knox turned away.
Even Briggs looked at the ground.
For sixty seconds, Graystone Correctional disappeared.
There were no fences.
No charges.
No uniforms.
No Ray Damon.
Just a father.
A mother.
A baby.
A family holding on like the world might try to tear them apart again.
Then Dana’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face changed.
“Where?”
Ethan immediately knew something was wrong.
Dana lowered the phone.
“Police found Ray.”
Claire stood.
“Good.”
Dana shook her head.
“No.”
Ethan held Rosie tighter.
“What happened?”
Dana stared at him.
“Ray says he’ll talk.”
“That’s good.”
“He has one condition.”
“What?”
May you like
Dana’s voice dropped.
“He’ll only talk to you.”
