I Took His Prison Sentence. Now He Begs. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Day I Walked Out
Willa walks out of prison, finds Carter toasting his first love, refuses his hush paper in front of forty phones, and meets a stranger in the rain who says his name is Ben.
In the next room, forty people were chanting "kiss" while I walked into the lobby of the Harbor Club.
Three hours earlier I had walked out of prison with a clear plastic bag and a gray envelope.
I had served three years for a crash that killed a young woman on a dark road.
I was not the one driving.
Carter Linwood was.
He had promised he would be at the gate.
At the gate there was a guard, a bus schedule, and my old phone, which buzzed once it had enough charge.
"Sorry, baby. Work thing with my dad. Take a cab to the Harbor Club and wait in the lobby. I'll explain everything. Please don't take the bus."
I took the cab.
The lobby was white lilies and marble. Through the double doors came glasses clinking and the chant, getting louder.
Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.
A blonde woman in a cream dress stepped out of the ballroom and saw me.
She didn't ask who I was.
"Willa," she said. "You must be freezing."
She held out a dove gray wool coat. It was my size.
My old jacket from three years ago hung off my shoulders. I put the coat on over it, because my hands had been cold since the gate.
"Sit down," she said. "I'll tell him you're here. I'm Daphne. I'm so glad you're home."
She slipped back through the doors and left them open an inch.
I didn't sit.
Through the gap I could see a little stage with a microphone.
Carter stood on it in a navy suit, holding a champagne glass, his arm linked through the arm of the woman who had just given me a coat.
"To Daphne," he said. "My first love. The one I should never have let go."
The room roared.
Daphne laughed and ducked her head, and she did not look toward the lobby once.
Nobody had told Carter I was here.
I pushed the doors open.
The chant died one voice at a time.
Forty faces turned. Phones came up. A man near the front said, "Is that her?" and his wife said, "Shh."
Carter's smile stayed on his face while the rest of him went white.
He was down the steps and across the floor before the microphone stopped squealing.
"Baby." He had both hands on my shoulders and his voice low. "Baby, hey. You're early."
"You said the gate."
"I know. I know. It's a show." He kept his smile for the room. "My father is closing the Harlan land deal and the Slingsbys want an engagement. Two weeks, I swear. Then it's you and me."
He slid a folded paper and a gold pen from his jacket.
"Just sign this so Dad stops worrying. Tonight I'll be at your door."
I opened the paper.
It was one page, typed.
I read it out loud, because he had never once let me read anything in front of anyone.
"I, Willa Soderberg, state that I was driving the car on the night of March 19. I state that I was alone. I state that no one asked me to take the blame."
Nobody in the ballroom made a sound.
"Willa." Carter's smile was shaking now. "Not here."
"Where?" I asked. "You picked here."
Behind him Daphne had come down from the stage with her hand at her throat.
"Carter," she said gently. "Let her sit. She's been through so much."
Her voice was the kindest one in the room.
I looked at the gold pen.
For three years I had said yes to everything he asked, in a courtroom, in a visiting room, in letters he never answered.
I clicked the pen.
Across the bottom of the page I wrote a single word, big enough for the back row to see.
No.
I dropped the pen into his champagne glass.
"Congratulations," I said to the room. "Kiss her. He's very good at letting other people pay."
So I walked out again.
Nobody stopped me. Behind me somebody finally said, "Oh my God," and every phone in the place turned to follow.
It was pouring outside. I stood under the awning with the coat buttoned to my chin and nowhere to go.
I tore open the gray envelope with my teeth.
Inside was one card in the Widow's slanting hand.
Benedict Crane. Husband.
Under it, smaller, she had written: He will hate you at first. Let him.
A black pickup slid to the curb with its wipers going.
The man who got out was tall and soaked and did not look glad. He looked at the envelope in my hand and then at my face.
"My mother says a woman would be waiting outside this club." His voice was flat. "She says I'm to marry her. What's your name?"
"Willa," I said. "Willa Soderberg."
Something in his face shut.
His eyes went from curious to cold, and they stayed there.
"Get in the truck," he said.
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