"Let's just say their witnesses weren't as reliable as they initially thought. In a case that is circumstantial at best, it's the witnesses that make or break it." She looked straight ahead at the road in front of us. She didn't make any sort of eye contact with me but adjusted the rearview mirror for the third time.
"What did you do?" I asked her. There was no way she didn't have a hand in my release.
A small, sly, corner of the mouth smile. A little glimpse at the pit bull lawyer Bethany used to be before morphing herself into a grandmother figure for Georgia. The woman who would move heaven and hell to win a case and who would do anything it took to win a case.
ANYTHING.
There was no doubt in my mind that she did something to cause those witnesses to become 'unreliable'.
"It was the oddest thing, really," Bethany said. "All of the witnesses who were going to testify that you and Owen were mortal enemies suddenly remembered what great friends you two were, how much time you spent together, how much you loved and respected one another. And then there was the little matter of your wedding." Bethany's smile was now a full toothed grin.
"Our wedding?"
"Yes, your wedding. It's odd that it had slipped their minds that they attended your wedding reception and that Owen was your best man."
"My best man?"
"Yes, you see since Owen was the best man at your wedding, which took place at Bert's Bar weeks after his alleged death, there was no way he could be dead, right? There was also the fact that he signed your marriage license as a witness which was filed by the court and a matter of public record..."
"Bethany..." I started, unsure of exactly what to ask her next.
"And of course, as Owen's mother I told the FBI that he disappeared often, sometimes for months on end and that I'd heard from him recently."
"Say what?"
"Yes, I told them that I'd heard from him recently, and he told me about an accident he'd had with his hand while gator hunting. He was still distraught about accidentally hurting Georgia when he was tinkering with his old shot gun, so he didn't have any plans to come back to town just yet."
And there she was, Bethany, the most ruthless grandmother in Coral Pines.
"Why did they wait so long to charge me if they had all these things in place a year ago?"
"Owen's father. He wasn't buying the story that Owen just took off, mostly because Owen had stopped using his credit cards the night he went missing, so when they discovered the hand and the surveillance video he used all his leverage with the DA to push everything forward even though the case was shady at best. Took him a while, but that persistent bastard wouldn't take no for an answer."
"How do you know he isn't still going to try and take me down somehow?" I couldn't relax until I knew I was out for good. That I could hold my family and not be worried about being dragged back in again.
"Because, Jake, he may have been a lousy husband, but he's a very smart man. I told him if he continued down this path that I would cop to Owen's murder myself, and since the bastard won't even sign the divorce papers because he's afraid of how it would look, he wasn't about to let me go down for murdering our son."
"How, how did you get the witnesses to change their stories?" I wasn't close enough to anyone to have them lie for me because they liked me.
Bethany thought for a moment. "You see Jake, the secrets of Coral Pines run deep. Like roots from an old tree, they grow and grow. For years, they spread under the surface until the roots are too big, and the surface starts to crack."
"What does that have to do with the witnesses?"
"Because, Jake, I'd been in Coral Pines long enough to know when it was time to do a little digging under the surface."
"So, basically, you blackmailed them using shit you had against them?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word." Bethany patted my knee. "I just pulled up some roots."
NINE
Abby
The last thing in this world I ever wanted was for my daughter to suffer like I had. I spent every single day since the moment I brought her into this world making sure that her childhood looked nothing like the living hell of mine.
That's why at night I waited until after I helped her change into her pajamas, after I read her a bed time story, after I tucked her in and kissed her forehead, after I slowly closed her door and crept down the hall, and after I made my way outside to the patio, to sob uncontrollably into my hands.
Georgia had scars.
Lots of scars.
Some deeper than mine.
Scars from the bullet spray, scars from the multiple surgeries to remove what shrapnel they could. Scars resembling white and red paint splatter across her ribcage from armpit to waist on her left side.
I'd failed her, I'd failed my baby girl, and now she was going to have to live with the exact same fate I never wanted for her.