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That afternoon, a guard came to tell me my public defender was here. I was handcuffed and taken to the visitors’ room where a tall guy—maybe forty—with a receding hairline and glasses was sitting at a table with a file in front of him.
“Mr. Wentz? I’m Forrest Perry, your court-appointed defender.”
I sat across from him, my handcuffed hands in my lap. Just like my dad had, once.
Perry shuffled through the papers. “To be perfectly frank with you, this doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t touch Dowd,” I said. “I found him at this place he hangs out, and I warned him to leave Shiloh alone. That’s it.”
“Because you think it was him who trashed her place.”
“I know it was him.”
“How?”
“He all but told me a few weeks back, before graduation. And the security footage—”
“Shows a guy covered head to toe in black. No prints. No DNA.”
“It was him. And when I confronted him, he confessed and said he was sorry.”
Perry’s brows rose above his glasses. “So you admit to confronting Dowd that night? He’s currently at UC Medical in intensive care and said it was you who put him there.”
“He’s fucking lying. That night, I told him to lay off and I walked away.”
“If that’s true, who beat the hell out of him?”
“Don’t know.”
Perry met my gaze for a minute, then waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s not our job to prove who did, only that you didn’t. But I’m going to be honest, Mr. Wentz, this is an uphill battle. Looking at your files…your history with Dowd…”
Your father’s bloody crime…
“I didn’t do it,” I said. “That should fucking count for something.”
The words sounded stupid and weak in my own ears.
Perry rapped his fingers on the file. “You want to fight this? Enter a not-guilty plea at your arraignment? Because I can talk to the D.A. and see about cutting a deal. Otherwise, you could be looking at twenty-five years behind bars. Maybe more if the charges stick and the judge decides you intended to kill Frankie.”
The possibility of a life spent in prison made my chest so tight I could hardly breathe. But I had Shiloh. I had tenants who needed me. For the first time I had something to fight for. The system had ruined my mother. Maybe this time would be different.
“No deal.”
Perry studied my face for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay. Tell me what happened.”
My arraignment was the following afternoon. I was bussed to the courthouse and marched into a hallway with a dozen other inmates there for the same reason. Shiloh had tried to contact me at County, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of her seeing me there. Or at the hearing, which I knew she and Bibi would show up for. The orange jump suit was a uniform of humiliation and degradation. They had called me a criminal at Central and now, that’s what I was, guilty or not. Less than human. A kind of animal that had to be restrained, caged, and guarded. The cuffs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.
Finally, the side door to a courtroom opened, and we were shuffled in, the chains connected to foot and handcuffs rattling. I kept my head down, but there was no avoiding it. Shiloh was there, in the front row, between Bibi and Maryann Greer.
Fuck…
Shiloh was so fucking beautiful—lightyears from the sick, sobbing girl I’d seen a few days ago.
Because she’s so damn strong.
And if she could be that strong, maybe I could be too. I lifted my head and nodded at her, my gaze full of apologies.
