We’re sitting in his office and I’ve just told him everything.
“And you—” he looks at Lauren. “You’re telling me no crime has been committed here?”
“Only the one committed by my ex-fiancé,” she replies. “But unfortunately, I don’t have any proof, so it looks like he’ll get away with it.”
He won’t get away with it if he ever crosses my path again, that’s for sure. Lauren won’t let me go after him and dish out some justice, though. She even made me promise I won’t go looking for him, and after a lot of arguing, I agreed. But if for some reason he’s ever in reach of my fists, all bets are off and I’ll break the sonofabitch into a million pieces.
“Shame,” Willard relaxes into the back of his chair. “When he stormed into my office acting like a big-city asshole and suggested you had faked being kidnapped, the thought crossed my mind that you might actually be better off. But I digress. Since no crime was committed, I’ll consider the matter closed. Unless you’d like to lodge a complaint.”
“There’s no point,” Lauren says. “Plus, I think we have bigger battles to fight.”
Willard’s eyes dart to me. “Ah, yes. The warrant for your arrest.” He opens the laptop in front of him and I watch him, my heart hammering like a jackhammer, as he types something. “Calder Christofferson…” he says my name as he continues to read. I see his jaw tick and suspect he’s just gotten to the part that tells him I am a convicted murderer.
He reads in silence. But in my head my racing pulse is deafening. I glance at Lauren. She looks apprehensive. Nervous. But at the same time, her lavender eyes tell me that she has a lot of fight in her. She’s ready to take on whatever comes our way. My fierce mountain queen. My fingers tighten around hers. I’m so fucking in love with her, it’s all I am capable of feeling.
“That’s quite some story,” Willard says. He is relaxed. Calm. Weirdly so.
“I’m surprised you haven’t thrown the cuffs on me,” I reply, confused by his lack of interest in throwing me into a jail cell.
He shakes his head and chuckles. “Now why would I do that when you’re not wanted by the law?”
“What do you mean? I just told you. And even though I can’t see it, I’m pretty sure whatever you’re reading on your laptop backs up what I say.”
“It sure does, son. But what you didn’t tell me—and what it does tell me—is that you’re no longer a fugitive. Your conviction was overturned. Now it says that it was overturned posthumously, which tells me I can be sure there’s more of this story to come. But this is black and white, son. You’re no longer a wanted man.”
He turns his laptop to face me, and I stand so quick the chair almost topples.
My eyes roll over the computer screen and there they are, next to the mug shot of me taken more than ten years earlier, the words: Conviction overturned (posthumously).
“I don’t understand.” I frown. My mind scrambles to make sense of it. The information on the screen simply says my conviction was overturned because of new evidence. “Is there a chance it’s an error?”
“I doubt it. But there is always a chance, I suppose. Where there is human input, there is always a chance for human error.”
“It mentions new evidence?”
Sheriff Willard stands. “Give me some time to make a few calls.” He nods toward the waiting room behind the other side of his glass door. “Take a seat and let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of this.”
Time ticks by slowly. So slowly it’s excruciating. I try not to get my hopes up. Try not to think that I might actually be a free man. Try not to think about a future with Lauren that doesn’t involve me trying to clear my name.
Lauren sits stoically beside me, the warmth of her body calming me against the flood of anxiety coursing through me.
Finally, Willard reappears, some papers in his hands, and motions for us to rejoin him in his office.
“Well?” I ask, shifting nervously in my chair. I’m big. The chair isn’t. “Was it an error or not?”
“There was no error. Looks like someone in the Crawford family got an attack of conscience. Submitted the CCTV footage of the night in question. It clearly shows what happened.”
“Missing footage? The prosecution said the cameras weren’t on that night.”
“As they believed to be the case when they took it to trial. But it wasn’t accurate. The cameras were on and they were recording. Apparently, when the older brother watched the footage and saw what happened, he took it to his parents and asked them what they wanted to do about it. Anastasia’s parents were distraught. If I was a speculating man, I’d say they needed someone to blame, and in their moment of extreme grief, they fell prey to some seriously bad misjudgment.”
“They knew all along…”
I feel an overwhelming sense of disbelief wash over me, and Lauren’s fingers tighten around mine.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, son.”
“Me too…” Lauren whispers beside me.
I nod slowly. I could hate them for what they had put me through. But at the end of the day, who knew what you were capable of when you’re put in a situation of extreme emotional pain. Grief can topple the mighty. Break the most stoic. Darken the hearts of the purest of souls. They had lost their only daughter.
“The footage was handed over five years ago. I believe it was the mother. When they found those bones and thought they were yours, a flash drive containing the CCTV footage was sent anonymously to the police department. Eighteen months later, your murder conviction was overturned. Afterward, Mrs. Crawford sent a thank-you card to the detective in charge. The handwriting matched the envelope the flash drive was sent in.”
I try to absorb it all.
“So, what does this mean?”
“It means you’re a free man.”
For a decade I’ve been running from the conviction of a crime I never committed. I sank into the shadows of Mirror Lake Mountain and lived the lonely life of a man who had more than his fair share of things to hide.
Now, right here in this minute, I am being handed my freedom. No. I’m being given so much more than that. I glance at Lauren. I am being given the freedom to love this woman and give her my name.
My untarnished name.
Sheriff Willard offers me his hand. “On behalf of the US judicial system, I offer you my deepest apologies for the wrongful conviction of murder imparted upon you.”
I accept his hand.
“Now, there’ll be some further paperwork and legal matters we need to attend to in order to get this closed off properly. But in the meantime, I’m going to suggest you go home and let this sink in, son. My gut feeling is you won’t be going very far, and you might like to go and enjoy your first afternoon as a free man. My office will be in touch.”
“Thank you,” I manage to choke out.
You’re a free man.
I can hardly believe it.
I’m about to leave his office with Lauren when Willard stops me as an afterthought.
“You wouldn’t know anything about two low-life city suits who showed up on my doorstep yesterday afternoon? They were beat up pretty bad. Had to take them over to County Hospital, but they disappeared before I could take their statement. You know anything about that?”