Silas’ hand touched my chin, and I looked up as he urged me to do.
“That was an accident. Something that could’ve happened to anybody in this room. I can name off fifteen people right now that drink a beer with dinner every time they go out to eat. Then they drive home. If it’s done in moderation, like you’d done that night, then it really would’ve been an accident if something happened similar to what happened to you. He pulled out in front of you. Not to mention it was raining, and they didn’t have their lights on,” he informed me. “Ask yourself this, could you have done anything differently?”
I thought back to that night.
It’d been very dark.
The storm was raging around us, and there wasn’t a single streetlight where we the accident happened.
The only thing I was able to go by were the truck’s headlights, and with the amount of rain coming down, there was only about a ten-foot section of road in front of me illuminated.
And the Bronco had come out of nowhere.
One second I’d been yelling at Bristol and the jackass to put on their seatbelts, and the next I was looking at the hood of a truck pulling out in front of me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It really wasn’t…”
I shook my head, unable to articulate what I wanted to say.
Silas dropped down to his knees in front of me, and it felt like every single person in the room disappeared.
“I swear to you,” he said. “That you didn’t mean to do what you did. You know it, and I know it. Hell, everyone in this room knows it. I spoke with the chief of police about this, went over what had happened, and he agrees.” He leaned forward. “The lead detective that was on your case is dead. The judge retired. Your lawyer’s dead. Now does that seem like a coincidence to you?”
I blinked. “My lawyer died of a heart attack.”
He shook his head. “Your lawyer died of a suspected heart attack. There was no autopsy performed on him, so they don’t know what exactly he died from, and there are medications out there that can stop the heart and make it look like a heart attack.”
“So then…what? Do I have someone out there that’s going to try to kill me now that I know? What about the rest of the people in this room?” I asked worriedly.
“As of right now, there should be a man serving a warrant,” Silas said. “Rydel Jones should be in police custody.”
My eyes were wide.
How had he accomplished all of this without me knowing?
He grinned.
“Ex CIA, darlin,’” he whispered so only I could hear. “Just trust me. He’s going down.”
Then I started to cry.
“Can I go get my nursing license? Can I finish that? I was almost halfway through!” I whispered fiercely.
To think of all those years wasted.
Where would I be right now had I been able to finish?
I only had another year.
He nodded. “You should be able to. I’m not really sure how any of that will work out, or even when it’ll all be finished by. But yeah, you are being pardoned, your record will be expunged, you’ll no longer have any criminal record at all.”
I looked at him and knew, had this awful thing not happened to me, I wouldn’t be sitting where I was right then.
I wouldn’t have this wonderful man in front of me.
He may seem harsh and hard to everyone else, since I’d heard no less than twenty people say that, but he was a big ol’ marshmallow with me.
He had an ooey gooey center that only I could see.
“I lo…thank you, Silas,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
His eyes flared at my near slip of tongue, and I thought I detected a note of panic in his eyes before they cleared.
“You’re welcome, Sawyer. I’d do anything for you,” he said roughly. “Anything you need, I’ll give to you if it’s within my power.”
***
Hours later found Ruthie and I at a diner in town.
And none other than Isaac and his new wife two booths in front of us.
“That’s my ex that I thought stood by me through it all,” I whispered, leaning forward so only she could hear. “But I found out the day I got out that he was about to get married and had a kid on the way. He has been openly cheating on me since I went in.”
“Seems like you bounced back well,” Ruthie’s eyes sparkled. “And with an older man at that! Jesus, is he sexy as hell or what?!”
I smiled.
Silas was sexy as hell.
“I know, God, how did I get so lucky?” I whispered conspiratorially. “And I never even saw him coming! It was just one second he was there, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I saw him everywhere I turned!”
What he didn’t know, is that he half saved me.
I was well on the way to being depressed.
And Silas had been there to rip me off that path with such ease that it was scary.