I Took His Prison Sentence. Now He Begs. novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Statement

By Sunday noon the video had been watched two million times.

The harbor news ran it every hour, and the crew's group chat was nothing but crying faces.

I did not feel like I had won.

I felt like I had been holding my breath for three years and had not been allowed to let it out yet.

At one o'clock Ben's phone rang, and a reporter told him that Daphne Slingsby had called a press conference on the steps of the Harbor Club.

"She's going to say it's fake," I said.

"She's going to say you're lying."

"Then I'll go."

"Willa."

"I'm done being talked about in rooms I'm not in." I took the phone from the counter, the one with fourteen minutes on it. "Drive."

The steps were crowded with cameras and microphones.

Daphne stood at a podium in a pale blue suit, with Morton two paces behind her and a lawyer at her elbow.

She looked rested and sorrowful.

I stopped at the back of the crowd with Ben beside me.

"I am heartbroken," Daphne said into the microphones. "Carter has made a terrible mistake and he will answer for it. But I owe the public the truth about the night on Harbor Road."

Reporters leaned in.

"Carter was not driving," she said. "He was protecting someone he loved. Willa Soderberg was behind the wheel, and when she saw what she had done, she panicked. He took the blame in the heat of the moment, and then, out of loyalty, he let her carry it."

I heard Ben's breath stop.

"Last night, a man who is grieving the death of his own sister took advantage of Carter's illness." Her voice trembled. "Carter has struggled with drinking since the accident. He is a man who says what the room wants to hear."

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