She followed the guard down the gleaming tiled hallway, the smell of disinfectant stinging her nose. At the door to a reception room at the front of the building she stopped and waited while a second guard unlocked and opened the door. Her lawyer, Anisha Cook, stood on the other side, beaming. She pulled Lacy to her in a hug and Lacy stiffened. That was something else she would have to get used to—being touched. Touching wasn’t allowed in prison—even something as simple as a hug could lead to extra searches, even punishment. But those rules didn’t apply to her anymore, she reminded herself, and awkwardly returned the other woman’s embrace. Anisha, still smiling, released her, and Lacy noticed there were other people in the room—the warden, reporters, her parents.
“Lacy, what are your feelings, now that your conviction has been overturned?” A sandy-haired man shoved a microphone at her.
“I’m happy, of course,” she said. “Ready to go home.”
“Do you have anything to say to Rayford County Sheriff Travis Walker?” another reporter asked.
So Travis was the sheriff now. Putting a murderer behind bars had probably earned him points with the right people in town. Except he had arrested the wrong person. “I don’t have anything to say to him,” she said.
“Even though he’s the one who came forward with the evidence that cleared your name?” the reporter asked.
Travis had done that? She shot a look at Anisha, who nodded. Lacy would have to get the whole story from her later. “That doesn’t make up for the three years I spent behind bars for a crime I didn’t commit,” Lacy said. Three years of her life she would never get back.
“What are your plans now that you’re free?” the sandy-haired reporter asked.
Plans? Plans were something a person with a future made—something Lacy hadn’t had until yesterday, when word came down that she was to be released. She had been afraid to believe it was really going to happen until now. “I’m going to go home with my parents and consider my options,” she said.
She caught her mother’s eye across the room. Jeanette Milligan was openly weeping, tears running down her cheeks, while Lacy’s dad held her tightly.
“We need to be going now,” Anisha said. “We ask that you respect Lacy’s privacy as she settles in.” She put her arm around Lacy’s shoulders and guided her toward the door.
Outside, her mother’s green Subaru Outback waited—the same car she had had when Lacy had entered the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility three years before. Lacy’s dad embraced her and kissed her cheek, then it was her mother’s turn. “I have your old room all ready for you,” her mom said. “And we’re having steak for dinner, and chocolate cake.”
“Great, Mom.” Lacy forced a smile. Moving back home had seemed the best choice right now, since she had almost no money and no job. It would only be temporary, until she figured out what she was going to do with the rest of her life and got back on her feet. But it still felt like going back in time while the rest of the world moved forward.
“We’ll get together next week for coffee or something,” Anisha said. “If you need anything before then, just call.” She waved and headed for her own car, then Lacy slid into the back seat of her parents’ car and they were off.
They tried to make small talk for a while, but soon fell silent. Lacy rested her head against the window and stared out at the summer-browned city landscape, which quickly gave way to the green foothills, and then the Rocky Mountains. Only five more hours until she was home in Eagle Mountain, the little resort town where her family had settled when Lacy was fourteen. Once upon a time, she had thought she would stay in Eagle Mountain forever, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe there were too many bad memories there for her to ever be comfortable again.
Lacy slept, and woke only when her dad pulled the car into the driveway of the Victorian cottage just off Eagle Mountain’s main street that had been their home for the past ten years. A lump rose in Lacy’s throat as she studied the stone walkway that led up to the front porch that spanned the width of the house, with its white-painted posts and railings and lacelike gingerbread trim. The peonies under the railings were in full bloom, like big pink pom-poms filling the flower beds. A banner over the front steps declared Welcome Home Lacy!
She took her time getting out of the car, fighting the instinct to run up the steps and straight into her room. She was going to have to get used to facing people again, to dealing with their questions about what she had been through and what she planned to do next. She had never been good at that kind of thing, but she was going to have to find a way to cope.
She started up the walkway, but at the top of the steps, she noticed the uniformed man seated in the porch swing and froze. Travis Walker, all six feet of him, made even taller by the cowboy boots and Stetson he wore, stood and moved toward her. “What are you doing here?” Lacy asked, heart pounding madly. Had there been some mistake? Had he come to arrest her again?
Travis removed his hat, revealing thick brown hair that fell boyishly over his forehead. When Lacy had first met him in high school, she had thought he was the handsomest boy she had ever seen. Too much had passed between them for her to think that now. “I came to apologize,” he said. “I know it doesn’t make up for all I put you through, but I wanted to say I’m truly sorry. I’ve done what I can to make up for my mistakes.”
“Your mistakes cost me three years of my life!” Lacy hated the way her voice broke on the words. “You humiliated me in front of everyone I knew. In front of people I’ve never even met. You accused me of the most horrible crime anyone could commit.”
His face showed the strain he was feeling, his brown eyes pained. “I would give anything to take all of it back,” he said. “But I can’t. All I can do is say again that I’m sorry, and I hope you’ll find it in your heart one day to forgive me.”
“You don’t deserve my forgiveness,” she said, and rushed past him, tears stinging her eyes. She refused to break down in front of him.
She paused in the darkened living room, fighting for composure. Her father’s quiet voice drifted to her through the opened screen door. “Give it a few days. This is hard for her—for all of us.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude on your first day back together,” Travis said. “I just wanted her to know how I felt. It didn’t seem right to wait any longer to apologize. It doesn’t make up for anything, but it had to be said.”
“And we appreciate it,” her dad said. “We appreciate all you’ve done for her. It says a lot about a man when he’s willing to admit he was wrong.”
“I’ll leave you alone now,” Travis said. “You deserve your privacy and I have a lot of work to do.”
“Thank goodness there’s not a lot of crime in Rayford County, but I imagine the job has its challenges,” her dad said.
“It does,” Travis said. “But right now my priority is finding out who really killed Andy Stenson. I know now that Lacy didn’t kill him, but I have to bring to justice the person who did.”
* * *
TRAVIS WALKED AWAY from the Milligan home, down the street shaded by tall evergreens and cottonwoods, up a block to Main. He liked that the town of Eagle Mountain—the only incorporated town in Rayford County—was small enough, and the sheriff’s department centrally located enough, that he could walk almost anywhere. A big part of policing in a rural area like this was simply being a presence. Seeing uniforms on the street made people feel safer, and it made troublemakers think twice about acting up.
He passed under the large banner advertising Eagle Mountain Pioneer Days Festival, the biggest tourist attraction of the summer for the little town, with a parade and fireworks, outdoor concerts, crafts booths and anything else the town council could think of that would entertain people and induce them to stay a few days and spend money.
“Sheriff!”