AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
“Your mug shots don’t do you justice.”
Stormy Maxwell froze. The man’s reference to her lost year crawled all over her. “You flashed some I.D. at my sister, and she allowed you in, but a badge in a wallet doesn’t sway me these days. Who are you, and what do you want?” If the man was her new parole officer, Stormy knew she’d just started their relationship off on the wrong foot.
He tilted his head and gave her a sardonic smile. “Tyler Mangus, at your service.”
“You’re not at my service, Mr. Mangus. Your name doesn’t ring a single bell. I’m afraid your reputation has not preceded you. Were you voted man of the year, perhaps? Or maybe you’re running for a political office?”
He grinned. The grin reached his green eyes. So deeply green Stormy thought he wore contacts.
“Ex-cons are often mouthy, but I’ll say this for you, you’re mouthy with style. We’ll get along fine.”
“Don’t bet on it. I’ll do what’s needed of me, but nothing more. So let’s get to the point of your visit, shall we?”
“Sure thing,” he said, seemingly not the least bit perturbed by her outburst. “I’m an asset-recovery agent.”
Stormy was taken aback. She’d assumed he was from the parole office. “You’ll have to explain what that means.”
“Sure. The company that insures Beach Coast Savings and Loan wants its money back. I’m the person they hired to find it for them. Is that explanation enough?”
Stormy’s mouth went dry. Shaken, she looked beyond him out to the sand dunes, where stalks of sea oats flailed in the wind.
The dunes were higher this year than the year she’d been arrested. A marine-science program had encouraged St. Augustine residents to bury their expired Christmas trees on the beachfront, which helped avoid erosion, giving coastal grasses time to take root and supply protection for nesting turtles. She fumed with buried anger. She, too, needed time to take root again. Her entire life, as she once knew it, had eroded. She shifted her gaze back to Tyler Mangus with a fierceness she had not displayed in months. Perhaps years.
“I testified at my trial and Hadley Wilson’s that I did not steal the money. I never even saw that money. I can’t return what I never had.”
“My client begs to differ with you—in the matter of about one hundred and two thousand dollars, less the few bucks you had the chance to spend, of course. The problem with your testimony, Ms. Maxwell, is that it was all lies. Both you and Hadley Wilson were convicted. The jury found you guilty.”
Recalled pain weakened Stormy’s knees. She sat abruptly on the arm of the sofa and once again felt keenly the theft of time. When first convicted, she’d gone mute for weeks. She’d had to practice words to speak to her daughter on the phone and, even with practice, her voice had only come out in a whisper, like a spider web ripped from its anchors.
No! She chastised herself. In prison, she’d had no useful direction for her bitterness, angst, and worse—worry for her daughter. But now she had her voice.
She looked the arrogant creep in the eye. “I was not a good witness for myself,” she said, voicing this truth aloud for the first time. She’d been a scared wimp in court. “I was—am—innocent. I believed justice would prevail. It didn’t.”
Tyler Mangus gave her a look of pity as if embarrassed for her. “Every convicted felon says they’re innocent.”
“I don’t expect you to believe me. All I’m saying to you is that I don’t have that money. I never had that money.”
His smile implied the patience of a saint that nothing she could say or do would shatter his infuriating composure. “I don’t expect you to come right out and tell me where you hid it.”
Mangus’s words and mannerisms were nettling her more than she cared to admit. “If you’re so certain the money has been hidden, go see Hadley Wilson. He’s the one who robbed the bank—not me.”
“You drove the getaway car.”
Fear squeezed Stormy’s heart. She camouflaged it with anger. “I didn’tknowI was driving agetawaycar. Get out, Mr. Mangus. Find yourself a copy of the trial transcript and read it. I’m not reliving my testimony for you or anyone. And I’ll tell you something else. Whether I committed a crime or not, society has punished me. I’ve paid my dues. It’s over. I don’t have to talk to you.”
“With that kind of attitude, it’s a wonder they let you out so soon.”
She lifted her chin. “As it happens,” she said, parrying his thrust, “I was a model prisoner. I earned an early release.”
His eyes twinkled. “Must’ve been hard—keeping your mouth shut.”
“I’m a fast learner.” Stormy faked a smile. Holding her tongue in the face of taunts and goading by guards and other inmates had been almost unbearable. “It was awful,” she admitted. “Outside of being separated from my daughter, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Sadness enveloped her. “On the other hand, the separation from my daughter, the need to end it, was what drove me to keep out of trouble.”
“Mom?” came a little voice from the foyer.
Stormy moved swiftly across the room and put her hands protectively on her daughter’s shoulders. Liane had suffered, too. The seven-year-old was an innocent victim, even more than Stormy herself had been. And Stormy meant to make amends in any way she could. Once home, she’d sensed a rift with Liane, as if her daughter no longer trusted her—or life.
