Death Row novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Walking Out

They found her two days later.

Evan told me at the cell door at seven in the morning, and he was smiling so hard he could hardly get the words out.

"Alive," he said. "Leah, she's alive."

"The woman in Calloway?"

"Marlene gave them every letter she ever mailed for him. Hauck sorted them on his kitchen table all night. There was a second post office box, in another county." He pushed his glasses up. "The troopers drove out at dawn. It's a farmhouse at the end of a gravel road, forty miles from Garrow."

"Was she hurt?"

"She was in the kitchen, making coffee. She had a wedding ring on, and a stack of his letters in the drawer. She asked the troopers if her husband had been in an accident."

I sat down on my bunk.

"What did they say?"

"They showed her his picture."

I could hear her in my head, saying it.

"She's thirty-three," Evan said. "She's been in that house for sixteen months. He told her he was working on the oil rigs and she couldn't call, because the reception was bad. He came once a month to see her."

"Once a month."

"He was keeping her alive. He needed her alive for the policy to mean something." Evan stopped. "Hauck says she's the fourth name on the ledger, with a number but no name. He hadn't finished yet."

"And now?"

"Now she's giving a statement to three agencies, and she has not stopped talking since she sat down."

"Evan."

"The judge will hear both motions at noon. He's read the carbon, and the lab page, and the log, and the page from the wallet." He took a breath. "I think he's going to let you walk out."

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