North Country(31)

I nod.

“But drugs? Those are a no-go. Don’t touch ’em. What else …” He returns his attention to his folder. “No traveling outside of Canada, and you need to be on your property between ten p.m. and six a.m. every day unless you have prior written permission from me, and it better be for a good reason. A ski trip to Banff is not a good reason. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Says here you’re living with your parents. Holt and Annie Landry.”

“That’s right.”

“In their home?”

“In an apartment above a detached garage.”

“Okay.” More scribbles. “The Landrys … I’ve heard of ’em. Great farmer’s market. They’re bison ranchers. Any guns on the premises? ”

“Yeah, of course. They have to deal with wolves.” It’s a regular problem, especially with the calves.

“They can deal with them. You can’t. The guns are locked up and not accessible to you?”

“In a safe. Not accessible to me.”

“Good. Your sentence prohibits you from owning or handling a firearm for life. If you so much as sneeze on one and I hear about it, you’ll be back behind bars before you can sneeze a second time. Is that understood?”

I study my open palm for a beat, remembering when Jay and I used to shoot empty cans off the fence with the .22. We’d spend all day out in the field, laughing and burning through pellets.

Now, the idea of holding a gun makes my body break out in a cold sweat.

“No worries there.”

“Good. And my guess is you came home to work on their ranch? In the market?”

“On the ranch, yeah. Not the market.”

“No?” His eyebrows arch. “A paycheck’s a paycheck.”

“I’m not dealing with customers.” People will come in there knowing my history. Or, more likely, not come in anymore because they know my history. Who suffers then? My family. Not a chance I’ll allow that. I shake my head to punctuate my refusal. “Give me a quiet field and a fence to mend any day.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of fences to mend.” He closes the folder, tosses it aside, and I can’t help but hear the double meaning in his words. “Now, while there aren’t any no-contact terms, I strongly suggest you stay far away from Jessica Whitley and her children.”

“Eric Whitley’s family.”

“That’s right.”

I note there’s no mention of David Combs’s family. But they were only up here for David’s job and they left soon after his death, wanting to move on from the entire tragedy. Where the Whitleys would have fought to bring back the death penalty, Melissa Combs asked the court for clemency on my behalf. Neither family got what they wanted.

“Is that gonna be a problem?” Glen asks .

“No, but I wouldn’t know them to see them.” Jessica Whitley came to the sentencing meeting, but it’s been decades. The kids were young. I’d never be able to pick them out of a crowd.

I once wrote letters to Jessica and Melissa to apologize for what happened. It was part of my therapy, when I finally started going. Melissa wrote back a few months later. She had moved on, remarried, and said she held no ill-will toward me.

An envelope from Jessica came back, stuffed with my letter, shredded to bits, the message loud and clear: There would be no forgiveness.

I can’t blame her.

Glen peers at me over his reading glasses. “You better get to know their faces just so you can avoid them. If you don’t, Brad Whitley will pursue a restraining order against you. How far he’ll get with that, I have no idea, but it’s not a good look for someone on parole.”

“How do you know this?”

Glen sighs heavily. “Because he paid me a visit. Maybe thirty minutes before you showed up.”

My eyebrows arch. “You’re kidding me. Brad Whitley came here?” Isn’t that some sort of violation?

“Ask Farrah if you don’t believe me.” He waves a dismissive hand toward the door.

I don’t need to. That’s what her comment meant. “What’d he say?”

“He’s convinced you’re a danger to the community, and he’s made it clear he’d like to see you back behind bars tomorrow.”

“And what’d you say?”

“That he doesn’t make the rules, no matter which tiny hiccup of a town they named after his grandfather or how much money he has.”

Interesting. “You’re not a fan of the Whitleys.”

“I’m here to make sure you keep yourself out of prison, not help put you back in, ’kay? I’m here for you. Consider me your fan, Logan.”

I snort. “How often do you use that line?”

His smile is tight. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve had plenty of failures, like Dorsey, but I’ve also had successes. Men who needed a second chance and someone to believe in them. Now, I don’t know what kind of kid you were back then.” He taps the folder holding my past. “Your file doesn’t read like the Travis Dorseys and the Ian Murphys of the world.”

“I’m not like them.”

“But prison changes a person. Especially when you’ve been inside as long as you have.” He reopens a folder, flips through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for, holding up one of my bare torso and the stitches, and another of Dorsey’s swollen, battered face.