The O'Connells Box Set

Chapter 27

Her one phone call had been to Gregor Smith, and his secretary had said he was out of the office on personal business.

Personal business! What the hell did that mean? Likely that no help would be on its way for her, though she’d left a message, of course.

As she stared at the bars of her cell and the concrete surrounding her where she sat on the small cot, her stomach rumbled. She thought of the granola bar that had been in her pocket and was likely now tucked in an envelope with the key and cash Marcus had taken. She kept listening for the door, because it was only a matter of time before she was cuffed again and transported back to prison.

The image of the place she’d hoped to never see again flashed through her head, a life beyond hell, with her cell mate and the other inmates she hoped to never see again. Then there were the guards, who she knew wouldn’t welcome her with open arms.

She was leaning against the wall, her feet propped up on the cot, when she heard the door and then footsteps. She slid her feet to the floor, and her heart thudded. How could she prepare mentally for a life without freedom? She shut her eyes because the ache was too much.

She heard voices and glanced over to see Karen O’Connell. Her hair was dark with a few highlights of red and blond, hanging long and loose, and she wore sandals and a navy sundress, very pregnant. Her hand was on the bars, and the impressive ring on her finger flashed. Reine just stared, her stomach knotting, wondering what was coming next. She said nothing as she stared at a deputy she didn’t know standing next to Karen.

“I should ask how you are,” Karen said, “but seeing where you are answers that question. Your face, Suzanne said your parole officer did that?” She gestured through the bars.

All Reine did was stare at Karen, her hands curled around the edge of the cot, then drag her gaze to the lanky young light-haired deputy.

“Colby, open it up,” Karen said to him, resting her hand over her large baby bump.

“You know Marcus isn’t going to like this,” Colby said to Karen. Reine listened to the scrape of the bars as he opened her cell.

“Don’t you worry about my brother,” Karen said, patting the young deputy’s shoulder. She stepped inside the cell.

“What is this?” was all Reine could think to ask. She slowly stood up, wondering whether Marcus O’Connell, the sheriff himself, was going to appear next.

“Thanks, Colby. Can you leave us alone, please?”

Colby shook his head. “The sheriff will have my head on a chopping block for this. I shouldn’t be letting you back here…”

“Oh, Colby, I’ll deal with him,” Karen said, now inside the tiny cell.

Reine didn’t miss the wide eyes and worried expression on the young deputy’s face. Apparently, he didn’t want to be on Marcus’s bad side, which was exactly where she was. But then he reached back and ran his hand over his head.

“You’ve got five minutes, that’s it, and then you have to go,” he said in a low voice, then walked away. She heard the door at the end of the small cell block open and close. Karen pulled in a breath.

Reine didn’t have a clue what to say or do. “I don’t understand why you’re here,” she said, standing up and just staring at her. She was Reine’s height, and the way she fixed her blue eyes on her confused the hell out of her.

“Do you mind?” Karen gestured to the cot Reine had been sitting on.

“Be my guest,” she said.

Karen pressed a hand to her lower back and sat down with a groan. “You call a lawyer yet?” she said, looking up at her.

Reine wondered how much of what she said would go right back to Marcus. “He’s away on personal business. Left a message, but not sure when or if I’ll hear from him—not that it matters, since I expect to be in prison before the day’s out.”

Her stomach rumbled again, and Karen flicked her gaze from her face to her stomach and back, then gave her head a shake and said, “Well, then I guess you have me as your lawyer.”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. She pulled her arms over her chest and shook her head. “You realize your brother, the sheriff, wouldn’t be happy about that. Honestly, Karen, I appreciate it, but you’re still Marcus’s sister, his family. You all have my daughter, and before this, you have to know I told Marcus I want Eva back…”

Karen lifted a hand to stop her. “I’m very well aware of your showing up on my brother’s doorstep to see Eva and the way you two locked horns, and of what’s gone down between the two of you and everything that was said. I also know Marcus probably overreacted, but you have to know my brother would do anything for Eva. He loves that little girl. We all do, Reine. She’s part of our family.”

Reine only nodded, knowing it was true, but just hearing her daughter’s name, knowing what she’d lost, was eating her from the inside out. “So is this why you’re here, to toss me something and make sure I stay far away from Eva?” She shook her head. “She’s my daughter…”

“I know that.” Karen cut her off quite sharply. “No one is trying to cut you out, but, Reine, the situation you’re in right now is dire. You’re being charged with felony theft, and with the missing jewelry being valued over fifty thousand, that kind of charge will easily tack another ten years onto your sentence. Your parole will be revoked, too, and you’ll have to serve out the remainder of your other sentence as well, because there will be no deal.”

She only nodded, thinking of the parole officer who hated her, of Pete, her boss, who had scared the hell out of her, and of Ivy, who had left her alone with Mrs. Hirst. Most of all, she thought of the voice she had lost.

“I didn’t take any jewelry,” she said. “How is it so easy to say I did something when I didn’t? I’m not a stupid woman, Karen, but there’s a point when you have no rights that no one listens to you. Someone has said I did something and is pointing the finger, based on what? Did they find the jewelry on me? I expect they already searched my place, and there’s nothing there. Yet I half expect Marcus—excuse me, Sheriff O’Connell, to walk in here and hold up the evidence that he found it. Sure would be an easy way to get rid of me, wouldn’t it?”

She didn’t know what to make of the expression on Karen’s face, the way her jaw slackened and she let out a breath as if she couldn’t figure out what to say. Reine expected her to get up and leave. After all, family was family. But instead she looked away and shook her head, an odd expression on her face.

“I hear you, Reine. But the anger you have for Marcus is misplaced. He would never plant evidence. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you don’t believe me. Will they find something that shouldn’t be there, Reine? I think you know what I’m talking about.”

She thought of her cell phone, the one she’d hidden in the box of cereal. She still couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been able to shake the need to hide it.

“Other than the burner cell I bought, which I tucked into a box of crispy rice cereal…”

Karen lifted her brows. “Why would you hide a cell phone?”

How was she supposed to explain her irrational fear, having to hide everything, being allowed nothing? “Because a cell phone isn’t allowed in prison, even though there were inmates who had them, you know, the ones who run things from the inside with the help of the guards. I know it’s not rational, but I can’t just wake up one morning and suddenly act normal. I’m scared all the time, and maybe it’s paranoia, I don’t know, but being told over and over that I have no rights and that anyone can take anything from me at any time…” She didn’t think she’d get her to understand. She let out a weary sigh and lifted her hands, because just saying it out loud sounded so crazy.

“Okay, all right, let’s just park that thought and back up,” Karen said. “So other than the cell phone tucked in a box of cereal, what else is there?”

Reine shook her head. “Your sister, Suzanne, showed up with food this morning, but there’s nothing else. You know, what makes me so angry is that I didn’t even want to stay in that house. The nurse I work under left me there and told me to stay and wait for the daughter to come home after giving me a list of everything to clean. I wasn’t supposed to be there alone. The old woman has dementia. Did you know I had to run up the street after her because she walked out the door? Her daughter, Valerie, didn’t come home when she was supposed to, at two. It was after four when she walked back through the door, and I was so damn angry at her, and she had to know. How can you get anything done while keeping an eye on an old woman who can’t look after herself? I didn’t see this coming. But Mrs. Hirst asked me to help her with a pearl necklace, so I put it on her. She had this box of jewelry…”

“So your prints will be on the jewelry?” Karen cut in.

Reine shrugged, trying to remember every moment of that day. She wished she could go back and do…what, argue with Ivy, tell her no? Then she’d have been fired, another mess, a different parole violation.

“My prints will be all over the house, and on the pearl necklace for sure. But why is the finger being pointed at me? I don’t have the jewelry. Could the old woman have put it somewhere? Did anyone look in the house? She stashed things, you know, especially her soiled adult diapers. I found them in the oddest of places, behind the toilet, in the back of the cupboards under the sink in the bathroom, in the hall closet when I was getting clean towels, under her bed… Maybe this missing jewelry is there?” She pressed her hands over her face and pulled them down. “How is it, Karen, that someone can accuse me of stealing? Where is the jewelry?”

Karen rested her hand over the baby she carried. Seeing her like that reminded Reine of when she’d carried Eva, how happy she and Vern had been. Another lifetime, one in which she had no idea anyone could be treated so horribly.

“Unfortunately, it happens too often, Reine. You can be charged, depending on the circumstances and who accused you of the theft. With your record and your being on parole, unfortunately, you won’t be believed, because in the eyes of the law, you have to prove your innocence. The person accusing you has status and credibility in the community. The law is usually grey, not black and white. But let me find out what’s going on. Let’s get these charges dropped. But hear me on this, Reine: They could transport you back to prison and revoke your parole even if we manage to get this dropped.”

Karen struggled to edge off the cot and stand up, and Reine stepped closer and held out her hand. Karen hesitated only a second before slipping her hand into hers and letting her help her to her feet.

“So when is the baby due?”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Five more weeks, give or take.” Karen reached over and ran her hand over her shoulder. “Hang in there, Reine. Don’t talk to anyone,” she said, then flicked her gaze to Reine’s face. She knew she was staring at the bruising, which had been a constant stiff ache. She lifted a hand, and Reine thought she was going to touch it, but she pulled her hand away. “And just know, too, that I plan on nailing the asshole who hit you. He can’t get away with it.”

Reine pulled in a deep breath and stared at Karen. “Don’t you understand? He already has.”

Karen glanced at the open door of the cell and then looked back at her. “Reine, I get why you say that, but a man like him, this isn’t a one-time thing. He’ll have done this before, and he believes he’s untouchable.”

“It’s my word against his. Don’t forget who he is and who I am.”

Karen groaned, and it sounded like frustration. She stepped out of the cell. “I’ll have some food sent back to you. Any requests?”

There was just something about Karen O’Connell that she remembered fondly. The woman was a pit bull, and she made Reine feel as if she mattered.

“Anything is fine, thank you.”

Karen nodded and stepped out of the cell, her hand on the bar, about to close it. “Don’t lose faith, Reine. I know you have issues with Marcus, but when this is all over, we really do need to sit down and talk about Eva.”

She sensed she was about to be warned off. “Are you asking me to walk away from my daughter in exchange for helping me?”

Karen reminded her of Marcus in some ways, like how she looked over to her with a flicker of fire in her eyes. “I would never do that. One doesn’t cancel out the other. Reine, no one is asking you to walk away from Eva. You’re still her mother, but we’re her family, too.”

Then she tapped the bars, pulled the cell door closed with a clatter, and, with a final look to her, walked away. Reine heard the door at the end open and close, and she strode over to the cot and sat down, feeling for the first time that maybe, just maybe, someone was in her corner.