For the Right Reasons

by Kara Lennox

  “Nope.”

  “It’s all commonsense stuff. You can’t even bring food in—no birthday cakes that might have a file inside, I guess. There are vending machines available if you want to buy someone a snack.”

  Eric wasn’t planning to buy Ralston a snack, that was for sure.

  They had to negotiate another checkpoint, with a metal detector, and a guard carefully searched through Bree’s purse. Then they had to wait. Bree had requested a face-to-face meeting rather than one with a glass partition and a phone, and there was a line.

  Finally a guard motioned that they should follow him. They were taken to a small windowless room with a table and three chairs. Eric swallowed back the bile creeping up the back of his throat. He’d done okay so far, feeling only mildly anxious walking through the gates into this hell that had been his home for three years. The waiting area, with its semblance of cheerfulness in the form of pictures on the walls and magazines to read, hadn’t seemed so bad.

  But this room definitely felt like prison. It smelled of prison, a noxious blend of body odor, urine and hopelessness that he had never encountered anywhere else.

  Eric broke out in a sweat.

  “Hey, you okay?” Bree asked.

  He’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice. “I’m okay. It’s just...”

  “Oh, God, Eric, I hadn’t even thought about that. I was so focused on seeing Kelly and helping him that I forgot what kind of effect this place might have on you.”

  He didn’t want her pity. “I’m okay. Let’s just get this over with and get out of here.” He sucked in a breath and followed Bree into the cheerless room, glad that at least the guard hadn’t recognized him. The man didn’t look familiar to Eric, so perhaps they’d never met.

  After a few minutes, which they spent in silence, the door opened again and Kelly Ralston entered.

  Eric kept his gaze downcast, not quite ready to look at this man he had so hated—and feared. Yes, despite what he’d told Bree, he felt fear.

  “Bree.” The voice was familiar yet not. That was because it held a note of fondness, certainly not a tone Eric had ever heard coming out of this man’s mouth.

  “Kelly, you’re looking well.”

  “In the prime of my life. For all the good it does.”

  Eric forced himself to look up. He had tried to prepare himself for this moment, but it was still a shock to the system seeing Ralston again, sitting not three feet away as if it were no big deal.

  Ralston met Eric with an even gaze and a placid expression on his face. “Eric Riggs. Bree told me you were coming, but frankly, I had a hard time believing her. I thought you were dead.”

  “Alive and kicking.” Eric had decided during the drive to Huntsville that he would say very little, allowing Bree to orchestrate the meeting however she wanted. He wouldn’t do anything to deliberately provoke Ralston, but neither would he placate the man or make any friendly overtures.

  “So,” Ralston said, returning his attention to Bree. “What’s this all about? You said you had some news?”

  “It’s not good, Kelly,” Bree said. “Philomene turned up missing.”

  Eric tensed, waiting for some kind of explosive response from Ralston. Eric remembered how it felt every time a glimmer of hope for his release had been snuffed out.

  But Ralston merely shook his head. “I knew it was too good to be true.” He shifted his gaze back to Eric. “What does this have to do with him?”

  “Eric works for Project Justice.”

  “I’m not here in that capacity,” Eric said quickly.

  “But that’s how we met,” Bree said. “I went to the foundation to try to get them to accept your case—”

  “Well, no wonder they turned you down!” Ralston actually laughed. Eric was sure he had never heard his fellow inmate make that noise, either.

  “So I guess it’s true you two knew each other?” Bree said.

  The question irritated Eric. “You thought I was lying?”

  “No. But, Kelly, I do want to hear your side of things.”

  Ralston shifted in his chair and refused to meet Bree’s earnest blue-eyed gaze. “Whatever he told you, it’s probably all true.”

  “You cut him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kelly...why would you do something like that?”

  “I don’t think you understand what it’s like in here. Every day is a fight for survival. The strong do everything in their power to stay on top. The weak...”

  “I understand the need to defend yourself,” Bree said. “So did Eric attack you?” The question came out awash with disbelief.

  “No. He was trying to break up a fight between me and another guy. I didn’t cut him on purpose.”

  Bree looked between her former lover and her more recent one. “Eric? Is that what happened?”

  Eric shrugged. “What he says is true, technically. I was trying to break up a fight, and I can’t honestly say your friend meant to slice me open like a cut of meat at the butcher shop. It’s what happened afterward that colored the incident for me.”

  “And that was...?” Bree asked impatiently.

  “Okay, about that.” If anything, Ralston looked even more uncomfortable. “That was for your own good, Riggs. You know that, right? You were green back then, maybe, what, a week in?”

  “Something like that. But how can you imagine that threatening my family, my child, was for my own good?”

  Bree gasped. “Kelly. Please tell me you didn’t....”

  “I had to say something that would get to him—fast. He was about to go to the guards. Do you have any idea what happens to stoolies in this place?”

  Bree winced and shook her head.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” He returned his attention to Eric. “I remembered what it was like to be new and scared. You were young, pretty—I imagine you were terrified.”

  “Of course I was. And what you did made me feel so much more secure.”

  “If you had tattled to the guards about your little injury, you might have gotten some short-term satisfaction. But you’d have gotten a label. The worst kind. It would have made you look weak. And once the guys in here figure that out... Even if your body had survived, your mind wouldn’t have. I was saving you.”

  Bree looked back and forth between them as if she were watching a Ping-Pong match. Now she was waiting for Eric’s next volley.

  “Someone told the guards,” Eric said.

  “But it wasn’t you. I know that. You damn near went to your grave with the secret. But once you went to the infirmary, word got out. I spent a week in the hole. No biggie.”

  Eric couldn’t believe this. Had he really gotten this all wrong?

  “You could have just told me. Might have saved me almost dying. I could have gotten medical attention without telling who cut me. Instead I let it fester. They had to find me unconscious in my cell.”

  “Maybe I could have handled it differently,” Ralston said gruffly.

  “You didn’t have to threaten to kill my baby daughter.”

  Bree didn’t just gasp. She turned white as whipped cream. “Kelly. Dear Lord, is he telling the truth?”

  Ralston just looked away.

  “Oh, Kelly...”

  “It wasn’t like I was ever going to do it, for Chrissake. Even if I ever get out of this godforsaken hellhole, which is looking less and less likely.”

  Bree said nothing.

  “I had to make an impression,” Ralston tried again. “It was for his own—”

  “To threaten a man’s child was for his own good? In what universe? I can’t believe this. Eric told me there was a side of you I didn’t know, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “He’s right. To survive in this place, I have to show a
different face than I do to you.”

  “So was it all a lie, then? That sweet, gentle, sensitive guy I once fell in love with—”

  “I’m still me, Bree. But you don’t know what it’s like in here.”

  “I think we’re done.” Bree got up and headed for the door, reaching for the buzzer that would summon the guard. In mere seconds it would all be over. Bree’s faith in Kelly had been destroyed. She wouldn’t continue with her attempts to prove his innocence.

  “Bree, wait.” Eric couldn’t believe he was doing this. She turned and looked at him, her eyes filled with unshed tears and questions.

  “He’s right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  It had taken Eric a few moments to process Ralston’s explanation, but to his chagrin, it made perfect sense. “What he said. It’s true. If I’d ratted him out to the guards, I’d have been labeled a snitch and punished in ways you can’t imagine. I had victim written all over me.”

  “So you’re taking his side? You’re excusing his behavior?”

  “Excusing isn’t quite the right word. But let’s just say I now understand why he did it. And in some ways, he did me a favor. After I got out of the hospital, I was put in a different cellblock. The guys saw that gnarly scar on my chest and they didn’t cross me, didn’t think about using me, even if I was pretty.”

  “For the record,” Ralston said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I especially didn’t want you going through life thinking I was coming after your kid. That’s horrible.”

  Bree folded her arms and returned to her chair. “You might think about that next time you’re tempted to threaten someone’s child. Jesus, Kelly.”

  “I’m sorry, Bree. I hate disappointing you. You’re the one person who hasn’t turned their back on me.”

  Bree seemed to shake off her outrage. “Let’s move on. I brought Eric here because the only way Project Justice will take on your case is if we convince him you’re innocent. Now that I understand why he wanted to keep you here, I’m not sure why I’m bothering.”

  “Because I’m innocent, and you know I am.”

  Bree didn’t look as positive of that fact as she previously had been. “What about the bragging? Eric said—”

  “Inmates say a lot of things,” Eric swiftly interrupted. If he didn’t take over this conversation, his lies would take center stage and he had no desire for Ralston to know Eric had so viciously slandered him to the one person who believed in him. “To gain stature, to make ourselves more frightening. We don’t have to rehash it.”

  After a moment, Bree nodded tightly. “That’s true. Nothing would ever make me believe you could rape or kill anybody.”

  Suddenly Ralston smiled at Bree, and Eric was shocked by what he saw. The smile transformed him from hardened criminal to...a man worthy of Bree’s admiration. The look exchanged by the two of them, though fleeting, spoke of more than admiration, though. Eric saw love, a universal love that transcended the hell these two people had gone through.

  Eric couldn’t explain it, but in that moment he’d seen all he needed to see.

  “No convincing necessary, Kelly. I believe you’re innocent.”

  “What?” Bree and Ralston said at the same time.

  “I don’t think you did it. Bree was right. The person I knew behind bars is different than the one she knows.”

  “Just like that? There’s no catch?”

  Eric shook his head. “If Philomene was pressured by anyone—the D.A., the sheriff or a janitor—to pick Ralston as her attacker, and if she was going to recant, her disappearance takes on a more sinister air. Something needs to be done. Immediately.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Finally. So you’ll talk to Daniel?”

  Did he have a choice? He’d backed himself into a corner, and he had no one to blame but himself, for lying in the first place. He should have known no good would come of it. But he wouldn’t let an innocent man continue to suffer as he had suffered. Even if that meant losing his pride, his job, his license to practice law.

  Even if it meant losing Bree to her first love.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BREE’S STEP FELT light as they left the prison. She hadn’t felt optimistic on her way in. She’d expected an ugly scene between the two men. But she never would have guessed the tide would turn so quickly, that Kelly would convince Eric of his innocence in a few minutes’ conversation.

  But Eric was a lawyer, and she supposed he was used to sizing people up at a moment’s notice, determining who was an enemy or an ally, who was lying and who was sincere.

  As soon as they cleared the prison gates, Eric slid down his window and took several gulps of the fresh air.

  “You okay?” Bree asked.

  “I need that stink out of my nose. It took me two days to get rid of it after my release.”

  The place did have a distinctive odor, but she’d never thought much about how it would be to live with that smell, day in and day out.

  “Now that we’re outside the fence, you aren’t going to change your mind, are you? You’ll still talk to Daniel?”

  “You don’t have much faith in my word.”

  “No, I do. I’m sorry.”

  “You know what puzzles me? You thought I was lying about how I got that scar. But you slept with me anyway.”

  “I...um...I wasn’t thinking about that when we... I mean, you had agreed to meet with Kelly, even though I knew you didn’t want to. That said a lot about your character. And the way you were with MacKenzie, such a good dad... What?”

  He wasn’t smiling. “It just occurred to me that you might have gone to bed with me to seal the bargain. You know, make sure I didn’t go back on my word.”

  “Wow. You really think I’m that calculating?”

  “No. No, not really. But it was clear that once it was over, you wanted to forget it happened.”

  “That’s not true. I’m not likely to forget it anytime soon.”

  Once again they were drenched in an uncomfortable silence as they hurtled down the highway in Eric’s car.

  Bree was going to have to admit she’d blown it with Eric. Any goodwill or warm feelings they’d created had been obliterated by her manipulations. Threatening to go to Daniel, pressuring him to return to the prison where he spent three obviously hellish years, had yanked him right out of the friendly state of mind he’d been in.

  You got what you wanted. Eric was going to talk to Daniel and get him to accept Kelly’s case.

  But now that she was away from Kelly, she was filled with doubts about whether she was doing the right thing. Did she really know Kelly? Was he innocent? She’d always been convinced he wasn’t capable of rape or murder. But until a few minutes ago, she’d been convinced he wouldn’t stab a man with a homemade knife or threaten him and his family with bodily harm.

  Even if Kelly was innocent of the crimes for which he’d been convicted, had prison ruined him, corrupted him to the point where he couldn’t be redeemed?

  Whatever the final outcome of this, it would be on her head.

  * * *

  ERIC’S MOUTH WAS dry as he descended the stairs into the lair. He had always thought it was amusing before, referring to Daniel’s underground home office as if he were some wild animal holed up in a subterranean cave.

  But Daniel could be a dangerous man—everyone said so. Right now comparing him to a lion or bear didn’t seem all that funny. Eric couldn’t escape the feeling that he was about to be ripped to shreds.

  “Ah, Eric,” Daniel greeted him, standing and extending his hand from behind the gigantic U-shaped desk that dominated his command center. He had two laptops open as well as his phone. Above them on the walls were three TVs, each set to a different news broadcast. Thankfully, the sound was muted on all but one, on w
hich a somber-voiced anchor discussed a plane crash.

  “Daniel. You’re looking well.” Tanned, anyway. He had somehow avoided that late-winter pallor everyone else sported. Probably from playing polo no matter what the weather.

  “You, too. I heard you visited my barber.”

  “Felix worked wonders with the post-prison haircut. I’m feeling a lot better, too.” Physically, he hadn’t felt this fit since before prison. Travis had some weights in the garage, and the two of them had been working out in the evenings and sometimes running in the mornings.

  “How about in here?” Daniel tapped his temple with his index finger. “I know I healed physically a lot quicker than mentally. Even eight years later, I’m still fighting a few demons.”

  “Yeah, of course. Having MacKenzie back in my life has gone a long way toward healing me, though. I’m more worried about her emotional scars than mine. But she’s improving—opening up, talking more, not quite so scared of strangers.”

  “Glad to hear it. Being responsible for the well-being of another human being—it’s huge. I’m about to find out what it’s like.”

  “It can be pretty terrifying. But so worth it. Apparently my marriage was a sham, but I’ve never once regretted bringing MacKenzie into the world.”

  “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  Eric was too nervous to sit, and this cordial chat made him even more on edge. He had to get to the point soon. Daniel was a busy man. There were people in the world who would pay a million dollars to have Daniel’s ear for thirty minutes, and Eric had it for free.

  “It’s about Kelly Ralston.”

  “The guy in Huntsville? I thought that matter had been decided. The business we’re in, you can’t spend too much time second-guessing yourself. We have limited resources and we have to spend them on the candidates most deserving of freedom, as best we can determine. A guy who brags about his crimes in disgusting detail doesn’t sound like someone I want out on the streets.”

  Eric could have continued lying. He could have said that he believed all that jailhouse bragging was simply a way for Ralston to up his status, establish him as a tough, scary guy and make sure he stayed on top of the pecking order.