“I need you to know I loved her,” I said, voice thick. “Please tell me you know.”
“I know, Jess. Me too.”
Jack leaned and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Listen. Before I go, I just want to say that I don’t know what’s going on between you and Coop—why he’s dropping everything to stay here and fight to get your charges dropped—”
“He is?”
“And one day, I’m going to ask you about it.” Jack let go of my shoulder and stood. “But today you get a reprieve.”
Making peace with Jack was like taking an antidote to the twin poisons of anxiety and guilt. My need for forgiveness was so intense it was nearly physical. So I made a second vow, right there in that moment. A silent one, only to myself: for as long as I lived, I would never tell anyone else the truth of what I’d really done.
***
A day later, the same cop who’d dragged me burned and bleeding from Blackwell Tower uncuffed me from the hospital bed.
“No charges,” he grunted. “Free to go.”
I rubbed my wrists. “Thank you.”
He squinted. “If it were up to me, you’d be behind bars, and we’d let a jury decide whether you’re innocent. But I guess the court of public opinion won this time.”
He waved me from the bed. I took a staggering step up, clutching the bed for balance.
“Clothes are on the chair. Get changed in the ladies’ down the hall.” The cop eyed me. “Wouldn’t want to greet your adoring public looking like that.”
I frowned as he hustled away, then shrugged and gathered the clothes—purchased by Jack at a Target nearby, bless him—and went to get dressed.
I was free. My hands shook and wouldn’t stop as I dressed and washed my face. With nothing left to hold me, I wound through the hospital corridors and stepped out the front door. I took a deep gulp of crisp autumn air.
Then I heard yelling. Across the parking lot, a group of reporters were watching the entrance to the hospital like hawks. They must’ve been tipped off I was getting released today. I froze as they ran for me, the photographers lifting cameras, each click a bright pop that stung my eyes. The reporters belted questions:
“Jessica! How did it feel to push your college boyfriend to his death? What do you think about the allegations that he murdered Heather Shelby? How do you respond to her parents’ statement that you’re an avenging angel?”
I spun, looking for a way past them, but they swarmed me, blocking my path. Oh god, I’d never get to leave. I’d be trapped here, at the mercy of their prying questions. I stumbled back, clutching my side.
An engine rumbled, cutting off the reporters’ questions. Like a mirage, Coop shot through the parking lot on a motorcycle, forcing reporters to jump out of his way. He slid to a stop right in front of me and flicked back the shield on his helmet.
“Get on.”
It took only a moment for my brain to unfreeze before I ran and jumped on the back of his bike, clutching the helmet he tossed me. He revved the engine and turned us around. Over the noise I could see, rather than hear, the reporters, openmouthed and shouting as we gunned away.
We took off out of the parking lot in a burst of speed, winding through the streets, passing cafés where I used to study, bar patios where we used to drink buckets of beer, tree-lined streets I’d walked a million times. We passed East House, where it began, then Bishop Hall, where it ended, zooming past the Founder’s Arch in a blur. Then we were really off, away from town, the streets growing less busy, wider and more rural. The wind whipped my hair and iced my skin, but I didn’t care. We’d escaped.
After ten minutes driving through farmland, Coop slowed the motorcycle and pulled off near a grove of trees. Winston-Salem had started to turn brilliant-hued during the days I’d been in the hospital. The trees Coop parked in front of drooped with russet and burnt-orange-tinged leaves.
He rested the motorcycle on the kickstand, swung a long leg over it, and tugged off his helmet, letting his dark hair spring loose. I did the same, my stomach hollowing. Despite the cool air, sweat gathered at my neckline. What would he say? Where would I start?
Coop dropped his helmet on the ground and walked toward the trees, footsteps crunching. I followed. When he finally stopped, turning to face me, his back against a tree trunk, I felt every inch between us.
He pushed his hair off his face. “No more handcuffs.”
“I heard I have you to thank.”
“Remember in college when you told me I’d never be a lawyer because I was too much of a criminal? Should we take a few moments to soak in the irony?”