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Fifteen minutes later, Finley knew my entire story. She’d been quiet throughout, asking only a few questions.
“So that’s why you’re here?” Finley asked. “I had a feeling it was something like that.”
“Do you see me differently now?”
She shook her head, sending her dangling earrings to and fro. “No. It was an accident. You were defending yourself. A judge and a jury would see that if this went to trial. Except you can’t do that because of his family.”
I clasped and unclasped my hands. “The guys thought the guest might be here for me. Which he could be, by the way. Where are the guys? Shouldn’t they be back by now?”
“It’s only been a few minutes,” Finley said. “And spiderweb tattoo guy’s probably harmless. Other than his poor judgment when it comes to inking his head.”
“I hope so. If anything happens to one of you because of me, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Especially Thad, isn’t that right?” Finley asked, eyes narrowed. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Actually, I think I’m in love with him.”
“I thought as much,” Finley said.
“It’s hopeless, though. With my situation, it’s unlikely we could ever be together. I’ll always have one foot out the door. In fact, I’ve stayed here too long. I just can’t find it in myself to leave. Now that all this is out in the open, I feel such relief. At the same time, I know it’s dangerous to expect a miracle.” I told her Atticus and Thad’s plan to find something they could use as leverage.
“I like that idea,” Finley said. “Fight them with the same ammunition they’re using—fear and threats.”
“I don’t know. Getting them involved is a terrible thing to do to people I care about. I’m running from some very bad men. Thad’s a good person, without baggage and nothing but good to offer someone—he deserves to be happy with a woman like him. Not someone like me.”
“You’re not the only one running from something.” Finley looked down at the table, brushing a finger across the base of her glass, clearly struggling to decide how much to tell me. “I have a story of my own.”
“I’d like to hear it, if you want to tell me.” As anxious as I was for myself, my chest ached in sympathy. Something had brought her here, just like me. Was it a man?
“I’ve not told anyone the truth since I came here,” Finley said. “Thad has an inkling that there’s something dark in my past, but he’s never pried. Before I came to Montana, I was in jail.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “Here or in England?”
“England. I was falsely accused of robbing a bank.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“It was a case of mistaken identity. Turns out the real thief looks a lot like me. In fact, she looks just like me. She’s my identical twin.”
“Oh, Finley, that’s awful.”
“She got involved with some bad people—namely a man she thought she was in love with. He talked her into robbing a few banks, the last of which was captured clearly on bank cameras. Danielle and her boyfriend wore plastic masks, like the kind people wear at Halloween, but hers slipped at one point and the camera caught her face before her partner shot out the cameras. My sister disappeared somewhere—like vanished into thin air. The boyfriend lied and told them it was me with him. When they brought me in for questioning, I could tell they’d already decided it was me. No matter what I told them, I couldn’t convince them that it was Danielle and not me. I had no alibi, as I was home sick with a cold. I lived alone, so there was no one to back me up. To make matters worse, I was assigned a public defender who didn’t do their job.”
“What about family?” I asked.
“I’m like you—there’s no family, other than Danielle and me. We grew up poor with a single mum, who died of cancer when we were eighteen.”
“You were convicted?” My stomach clenched at the idea.
“Yeah. I spent an entire year in prison. During the time I was incarcerated, a friend of mine found an attorney willing to work pro bono. He finally located a woman who had worked at the pharmacy where I’d gotten the cold and flu medicine earlier that day.”
“Why hadn’t she come forward before?”
“She’d moved back to India to care for her sick mother shortly after the robbery. It was a fluke that he found her, actually. Or a miracle from God, depending on how you look at it.”
“Yes, right,” I said, hanging on every word.
