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Since her arrest, the police had given up trying to find Matthew’s real killer. If she were convicted, that man would get away with murder. Frustrated beyond belief, she had pleaded many times with Leonard to get in touch with Matthew’s friend Brett, who was a U.S. Marshal.
Leonard had explained that marshals don’t do investigative work, but she’d insisted that he call him anyway. Brett might help her despite the fact that she’d never been very nice to him. She had her reasons.
When Dania was five, her mother died of a drug overdose. She’d become addicted to hydrocodone after knee surgery. The police found out she’d bought the fatal dose from Brett’s father. At the time, Dania hadn’t even known who Brett was, and they hadn’t crossed paths until the day she and Matthew had eloped. He had asked Brett to be his best man. When Matthew had introduced her to Brett, she’d recognized his last name. Later, she did further research and had found her suspicions were true. After that, she could hardly bear to be in the same room with him.
She’d only reached out to him once, when she’d found a stray dog in the rain. If she would have told Matthew about the animal, he would have wanted to keep it even though he was allergic. So instead of telling him, she’d called Brett. And he’d graciously taken the dog. That had been years ago. She hadn’t spoken to him since.
Still, he was her only hope.
She leaned near Leonard. “Were you able to get ahold of Deputy Marshal Brett Rollins?”
Leonard’s breath rushed out on a sigh. “Oh. With everything going on, I forgot to tell you. He’s out of the country on a case.”
The jury-room door opened. Everyone in the courtroom rose. Dania took hold of the table and pulled herself up as she watched each one file in and take a seat. None of them would look at her. That was not a good sign.
Everyone in the court sat down.
Judge Radcliff, a portly man with short, shocking white hair and a well-trimmed goatee, said in his gravelly voice, “Members of the jury, I understand you have reached a verdict.”
“Yes, we have, Your Honor.” The jury foreperson, a woman dressed in a business suit, handed the court clerk a brown envelope, which he took to the judge.
Radcliff opened it, pulled out a paper, and silently read. He glanced over the rim of his reading glasses at Dania. His cold gaze sent a shiver down not only her spine but her arms and legs as well. “Would the defendant please rise?”
Dania pulled herself up on shaky legs, her heart hammering against her ribs. She nervously smoothed a stray hair behind her ear, then leaned against the table for support.
Radcliff nodded to the jury foreperson. “Please read the verdict.” She must have kept a copy of what the judge had read.
The woman cleared her throat. “We, the jury, find the defendant, Dania Black, guilty of murder, as charged.”
Dania’s vision blurred as the wordguiltyswirled around her, taunting her like a jackal would its prey. To hear the words she’d feared spoken out loud pierced her to her core. She wanted to scream, to run away, but a tidal wave of emotions crashed over her, stealing her breath and freezing her in place. She sucked in deep drafts of air as she looked at the jury. Each and every one of them believed she had murdered Matthew.
Her Matthew. A barrage of tender memories glimmered to mind: them laughing over their favorite dessert, freedom as they road their land on the RZR, quiet nights holding each other in bed. The scenes morphed to the last eight months of reaching for him in the night and not finding him next to her. Wanting to talk something through with him and finding only silence. Needing his hug and feeling only the cold embrace of no one at all. The loneliness was more than she could bear right now, and she felt the weight of it nearly crumple her to the ground. She placed her hand on her protruding belly in a feeble attempt to find balance, and as if the baby knew how badly she needed someone—anyone—he kicked within her womb. She wasn’t alone. She had Matthew’s baby.
She had to live for their child.
She had to live and somehow, some way, find the man who had murdered Matthew. How she’d do it from a jail cell, she didn’t know. But she’d pray every night and every day that a path would open so she could.
* * *
Three years later...
The marshals had picked up Dania and Big Bertha at Stone Quarry Prison, which was being torn down, and were taking them to Deer Lodge Penitentiary. The state’s usual transport van had broken down, and since Dania and Bertha were the last prisoners to leave, they were riding in one of the marshals’ cars. Dania had heard horror stories of life within Deer Lodge walls. It had been bad enough finding her niche at Stone Quarry, but she’d managed to make friends with the right women by earning their trust with her medical knowledge. Deer Lodge was a huge prison where the state’s most notorious criminals were housed. It would be more difficult to establish herself and avoid trouble there.
They’d been driving for several hours when a late-model sedan swerved in front of the marshals’ car. Rear brake lights glowed as the sedan’s tires squealed to a stop. Two men jumped from the vehicle and started shooting.
Bertha squeezed her bulk onto the floor and motioned with her head for Dania to get down. Bullets whizzed over top of them, pinging everywhere. The marshals returned fire, and then it went deathly quiet. Gun smoke tinged the air.
The back door next to Bertha opened. A small man with massive arm muscles leaned in and kissed Bertha on the mouth.
She pulled away, all smiles. “Jackson, you did it.”
“You bet I did. Once I heard they were taking you to another prison, I had to do something. I paid a guard to yank out wires to the van’s distributor. All I had to do after that was watch who picked you up.” He grabbed her handcuffs and unlocked them, then tossed the keys to the back seat beside Dania. “You’re on your own.”
Another man she couldn’t see very well waited behind Jackson. It took both of them to help Bertha crawl out of the car, then all three disappeared into the night.
Dania heard doors slam, an engine start, and tires squeal as they sped away.
She crawled from the car. With hands cuffed in back of her, she stooped a little, bent her knees, and slipped the restraint over her bottom. Once her hands were in front of her, she grabbed the key off the back seat. She struggled to get it into the lock, but when she finally did, she couldn’t turn the stupid thing.
