CHAPTER ONE
Monday, June 15
Kindred Residence
Tupelo Pike
Scottsboro, Alabama, 2:00 p.m.
Rory Harris stood very still for a long time after getting out of her brother’s car.
It was a warm day. The sun was shining, and she was home for the first time in almost two years.
Two years.
Two long years. First in the Jackson County jail, and then in the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women…for a murder she did not commit.
A collage of emotions whirled inside her like a tornado building in intensity, making her heart pound and her skin feel too cold. All those hours…the days and weeks of cowering in fear of the other inmates. All that time wondering if she would survive the next minute, much less the next day. Over a hundred weeks of her life…lost to fear and uncertainty.
But now she was home. She was free. This was a huge deal. An opportunity to right a grave wrong. She should be happy.
Somehow the reality hadn’t sunk in…maybe by tomorrow.
“Well, damn, Rory.”
Rory glanced over the top of the car, where her brother, Austin Wilkins, stood on the driver’s side. She followed his gazetoward the little white house that had belonged to their aunt. On the front porch, the old wooden screen door stood open. Not unusual. The thing never had stayed closed properly unless it was latched. But it was the front door behind the rickety screen door that held her brother’s attention. The pale pink wooden slab had words spray-painted in black on it.
You Should Die Too
Austin swore again and stamped off toward the house their aunt had left Rory. Lulu had been their favorite aunt—their only living relative. That she had died while Rory was in prison was just another travesty in the horror movie that was her life. She suddenly felt sick. Sick of trying to prove her innocence. Sick of being looked at like she was a monster.
Sick of it all.
But there was nothing she could do except keep going and hoping the truth would come out. That might be the biggest travesty of all—the helplessness.
With nothing else to do, she trudged after her brother. She had begged him to forget about her. To pretend she no longer existed. To stay away. Get on with his life.
But he refused. She was all he had, he insisted.
It was true. Only the two of them were left. They had clung together since they were kids and their parents died in a house fire. Lulu had raised them. She’d had a heck of a time getting custody in the beginning. She was forty-nine with a less than sterling reputation around the little town of Scottsboro, and there had been some back-and-forth during the hearings. Finally, the judge, a reasonable man with a broader view of things, had come to the conclusion that for all her eccentricities, Lulu was a good person who loved Rory and Austin, and that was more important than social status and her standing in a church.
“If I find out who did this,” Austin threatened as Rory reached the porch.
She put a hand on his arm. “Please don’t say or do anything to anyone. The more we fight back, the worse it will get.”
He nodded, his head hung in defeat. “I’ll go out to the shed and see if I can find some of that paint.” Before walking away, he thrust the key at her. “Go on in. Get settled. See if I did things right.”
She smiled, accepted the key. “You always do everything right.”
“So you say,” he muttered as he bounded down the steps.
Rory turned to the door, ignored the ugly painted words. Lulu would be furious that anyone had dared to deface her precious pink door. She had been a total pink fanatic. She had painted the door on her house a lovely pink well before anyone else would have been so bold. Lulu always did things before anyone else had the courage. Just another characteristic that caused folks to give her the side-eye.
Deep breath. Rory walked inside. Felt an instant relief.Home.She and Austin had lived in this house from the time Rory was five and he was three. And it looked basically the same, even more than twenty years later.
Lulu had been an aging hippie who believed flowers, peace symbols, boho style and vibrant colors could solve most anything. Having a bit of medicinal marijuana also helped greatly, in Lulu’s opinion. Though she had hidden her little therapeutic secret well, Rory had known. Her mother, Lulu’s younger sister, often said that her big sister was a little crazy—but in a good way. Not that Rory could remember a whole lot about things her mom said, but Lulu had gone to great lengths to ensure they remembered as much as possible about their parents. She had made it as important a mission as sending them to school—maybe slightly more. As for church, they had regularly attended the Church of Lulu.
Rory smiled, the warmth her aunt had always prompted spreading through her now. There had been no one else in the world like her. The life-crushing events of two years ago had hurt Lulu almost as much as they had Rory.
