Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“And what’s your relationship with the Landrys, if not a conflict of interest?” His smile is smug. “Are we about to repeat old mistakes?”
I school my expression as I think about how close I was to making one last night. “Our priority remains as it always has been—to keep the residents of this jurisdiction safe.”
“Is that true, though? It’s no secret Clive gave Jason Landry passes when he should have been building a paper trail of his misdoings.”
“There was nothing to document,” I counter, mention of my father’s choices stiffening my shoulders.
Brad shakes his head. “You’re a smart person, Emery. You and I both know Clive was too soft, and look what it cost.”
“I have a meeting now, so you’ll have to leave,” I force through clenched teeth.
“Four lives. My son’s life—”
“Get the hell out of my office!” I point to the door. How dare Brad blame my late father for that night!
My father spent enough years blaming himself as it was.
With pursed lips that tell me this isn’t the end of our battle, Brad ducks out.
My appetite officially ruined, I log in so I can greet Doug Freeman’s bloated face.
Chapter 11
Logan
“I’ve driven past this place … I can’t tell you how many times over the years. Had no idea it was a parole office.” My mother leans forward in the driver’s seat to peer out at the old brown-brick house on the corner of a residential street, its backyard paved over for cars. A picnic table sits on a patch of grass by the sidewalk.
There’s no obvious signage to identify it for what it is, but I’m sure the residents around here have a good idea who’s strolling in and out that front door.
The clock on the truck dashboard shows three minutes to ten. “I should get in there.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” She looks at me expectantly.
I chuckle. It’s bad enough I’m thirty-eight and needing a ride everywhere from my mother. She’s not meeting my parole officer with me. “I can handle it. But I don’t know how long this’ll take.”
“That’s okay. I can kill time at the feed store. They have a special on fertilizer. Just text me when you’re done.” She holds up the new phone sitting in the cup holder. I would have left it there. “Do you remember how?”
“I’ll figure it out.” The last time I texted anyone, it was with a tiny flip phone, the messages short and painful to send with the three-letter number pad. This thing? Nothing makes me feel my absence from civilization more acutely than a tiny computer I’m supposed to carry around in my pocket.
Thomas showed me a few basics yesterday—how to set up a face-screening password and connect my email address—his fingers flying over the screen as he prattled words like iOS and AirDrop. He may as well have been speaking German.
“Okay, honey. Just get this over with so we can go to the bank, and the license office, and all that other fun stuff. We’ve got a long list of things to attack today.” She reaches across and smooths a wrinkled hand over my forearm, squeezing once before she releases me.
“See you in a bit.” I slide out of the truck and move for a front porch decorated with various flower planters and palms, browning at the ends with the colder temperatures. The wooden steps creak under my weight.
The foyer inside is cramped, the left side delegated to holding coat hooks and shoe mats. The air smells of freshly brewed coffee, perfume, and citrus cleaner. Everything is gray and beige except for the floors, which look like original hardwood refinished in a golden oak. Framed motivational pictures decorate the wall. Images of daunting snowcapped mountains and scenic meadows with slogans like “From setbacks come comebacks,” “Rebuild. Renew. Rise,” and “The past is a lesson, not a life sentence.” That, I’d argue, is false advertising.
A middle-aged brunette with black-brown eyes and long, red-painted nails peers up at me from her reception desk. “Name.”
She sounds as excited to be here as I am. “Logan Landry. I have a ten a.m. with—”
“Glen Howard. So you’re the one causing such a stir.” She appraises me with a gaze that says she deals with convicts all day long and isn’t the least bit unsettled by me.
“How am I doing that?”
Her eyes flitter over my face, slowing on the scar a beat, and then she reaches across her desk to collect a clipboard. “Fill this out.” She nods toward a row of chairs. “I’ll call you when he’s ready.”
With a nod of thanks—because Farrah, as the name plate reads, isn’t interested in conversation either—I take my seat.
“They really made an example out of you, huh?” Glen Howard flips one page after another from the thick stack before him, pausing only briefly to skim the highlights. “And on your eighteenth birthday too. You couldn’t have committed your crimes a week earlier?” My parole officer’s tone is dry, his expression flat, but I sense his pokes are meant to test me—my reaction, my remorse, or both—so I stay quiet and study his pockmarked cheeks and small eyes. He must be close to sixty, his middle thick, and his tawny-beige skin heavily creased. The pack of smokes sitting on a nearby filing cabinet label him a smoker, but even if they weren’t there, the stench of tobacco gives him away.