“You are not going to believe what happened today, big guy,” I announced when I answered the call.
“As it turns out, I have news for you too,” Lucian’s buttery smooth voice said through the Jeep speakers. “You go first.”
“Stef asked Jeremiah to move in with him, and Jeremiah asked him to marry him!”
“That escalated quickly,” he quipped.
“I can’t wait for their wedding. Queer weddings are the best,” I said happily as I turned onto my street. “Now, tell me your news. Is it good or bad?”
“It’s very good news. I just got out of a briefing with Special Agent Idler. It appears that Hugo’s shell corporation was bribing officials to assign prisoners to his private prisons. They’ve only just begun quietly digging, and it looks as though several judges, district attorneys, even some local law enforcement were also on the receiving end of some highly illegal kickbacks. The higher the sentence, the bigger the kickback.”
“Wow,” I said.
“The preliminary list includes the Not So Honorable Judge Dirk Atkins.”
“As in the Dirk Atkins who refused to reconsider Mary Louise’s sentence?”
“One and the same,” Lucian said smugly. “Idler promised me she’d personally look into Mary Louise’s case. There’s a very good chance that an investigation will result in many of his sentences being overturned.”
“Overturned?” I squeaked. “As in get out of jail overturned?”
“It will take some time, but I’ll do what I can to speed things along. We should have her out before Allen’s graduation,” Lucian continued.
My response was a choked sob.
“Sloane.” Lucian’s voice was an affectionate rasp over my name.
“I’m so happy,” I whispered through tears.
“Yes, I can tell,” he said dryly.
“God, I love you.”
“Get ready to really mean it, because I arranged for you and Fran to call Mary Louise to tell her the good news in five minutes.”
“Geez Louise, Lucian,” I said, whipping into my driveway. “I’m running out of room on the blow-jobs-when-the-doctor-clears-you tally sheet.”
“I’m confident you’ll make room,” he said. “Now go call Mary Louise.”
“I appreciate the call, but like I said before, I’m not going to change my mind about this. I’m not going to endanger my son by telling my story,” Mary Louise announced as soon as the greetings were exchanged.
“Why don’t you share the news?” Fran said to me from the screen of my laptop. She was wearing a canary-yellow knit blazer with sparkly threads.
I was all but bouncing out of my chair. “Mary Louise, you don’t have to tell your story, and we don’t have to appeal. But you’re still going to go home soon.”
Her face froze and then her eyes started to go wide. “I’m sorry. I think there’s something wrong with our connection. It sounded like you said…”
“It’s true,” Fran verified. “The judge has been implicated in some hinky dealings, and once the investigation is underway, they’re going to be taking a hard look at his cases. Starting with yours.”
“The judge and everyone else connected is going down. Not only won’t you have to do anything about it, you also won’t have to worry about retaliation anymore,” I promised her, knowing Lucian would help me keep that promise.
Mary Louise brought her hands to her face, covering her eyes. “I don’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Fran advised with a rare smile. “Now here’s what I think we can expect…”
As the lawyer walked Mary Louise through the next steps, I absentmindedly paged through Mary Louise’s case file. All those years lost. All that time stolen. It could have easily been Lucian all those years ago.
All because greedy men wanted to line their pockets. I hoped they’d pay. Every last one of them. Lucian and I would make sure that they did, even as we figured out this new normal and began to build a life together.
And Mary Louise would get her life back.
Tears clouded my vision again. I blinked them back and stared down at the papers on the desk. A familiar name on the page caught my eye, and I frowned. It was a copy of Mary Louise’s arrest record. Arresting Officer: Chief Wylie Ogden.
My heart stuttered in my chest.
Lucian had mentioned local law enforcement had been on Hugo’s prison scheme payroll. Was Wylie one of them? He sure as hell hadn’t played by the book when he was chief of police, letting his friends off the hook and cracking down on citizens he didn’t feel any loyalty toward.