by Teresa Hill
"I know, Sam. I'm sorry. It's not what I want, either, although I have to tell you, the courts have never been too concerned about a guy hitting his wife or his girlfriend. Not the way they should be. I think you know that."
"Shit," Sam said.
"We can add a restraining order against him, make sure he doesn't go anywhere near Emma," he said.
"I'm sure she'll sleep better at night. I'm sure we all will," Sam said.
"I'm sorry," Jim said again.
Emma didn't know what to say. She'd tried not to think about how she would feel when Mark was out of the hospital. It had seemed very far away.
"I want him in jail," Sam said.
"Even if we pressed, I'm not sure what we could do," Jim said. "He slapped her a couple of times. I know it was a lot more than that to you and to her, and I'm sorry. But I've gone into court with women with broken bones and bruises like you wouldn't believe all over them, and... Well, it doesn't often amount to much jail time."
"So you can't do anything?" Sam roared.
"I'm not saying that. We can get him on breaking and entering. If you want me to, I'll go at him as hard as I can on both. I'm just telling you about an offer the Jacobsons' made."
"What offer?" Sam asked. "To get their kid off?"
"No. Not just that. They've gotten wind of the family connection here, and are thinking you and Emma might not want your brother in jail, Sam. In exchange for us offering probation to their son, they'll agree not to press for charges against your brother."
"You'll let him go?" Emma asked, stunned and hopeful.
"I can't prosecute one without prosecuting the other. It's not like Sam's brother jumped this guy on the street and beat him up. I can't ask a jury to punish Sam's brother for his part in it and ignore what Jacobson did. I'd never win that kind of a case."
Emma smiled for what felt like the first time in days. "So what would happen to Rye?"
"Same thing. Misdemeanor battery and probation. He may have to face a parole hearing in Georgia over it—although, a misdemeanor that turns out to be a fistfight with both parties charged, so close to the end of his parole term, overcrowded prisons, budget woes.... That could all amount to nothing, too. On our end, basically, if he stays out of trouble here, this is done."
"You'd do that?" Emma asked.
He wouldn't go back to jail then.
Maybe she hadn't ruined his life, after all.
"I'm trying to decide what to do, and as part of that, I'm asking you how you'd feel about that kind of plea bargain for both of them. I know Jacobson hurt you, and I know the idea of him going unpunished would make me furious if I were you or your father."
"Yes," Sam said. "It does."
"But, as I said, I won't prosecute one without the other, and I'll need your testimony to do that. If you get up on the stand and say Sam's brother was just trying to protect you from Jacobson... Even if the jury's looking at the damage done to Jacobson's face, the guy broke into your house. You said you thought he might well kill you."
"I did," Emma said. "I really did."
"I can't see getting a lot of jail time for Jacobson, even if we go breaking and entering and assault. The jury's going to look at pictures of his face after the beating and say the guy's been punished. End of story. But Sam's brother is going to pay big-time if the Jacobsons push this and Georgia decides this is a violation of his parole." Jim threw up his hands. "It doesn't seem fair, but that's where we are. I'm asking you, as the victim here, what you'd like me to do."
"I want it to be over," Emma said.
"Emma, think about this. Mark is going to get away with what he did."
"I don't care," she said, although, honestly, that was a lie. It scared her. But if the price was Rye going free, she'd pay it. "Rye was just trying to help me."
"That's not all he did," Jim argued. "Although, I have to say, I'm afraid a jury in this town—knowing Emma's history—would be more likely to applaud than to ever send him to jail for protecting her from another man who hit her."
It was the first time Emma had ever been glad about coming from an abusive family, and that most everyone in town knew it.
"I want you to make the deal," she said. "Let them both go."
* * *
Sam was still in shock a few minutes later. He'd sent Emma and Rachel home. Jim sat at his desk watching Sam warily, and Sam was torn, not knowing whether to thank the man or rant and rave at him.
"Look," said Joe, who'd kept quiet through everything so far, "if it helps, I think the Jacobsons have seen the light on this. I found that kid's old girlfriend and the one who came before her. They all tell the same story. He roughed them up. They're all scared of him. I made a point of telling the Jacobsons they're damned lucky nobody pressed charges before now, and I think they see that their son needs serious help."
"Emma can't even sleep at night, and you know what it takes to scare Emma." Joe put a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam shook his head and tried to breathe. "And would somebody tell me there is something fundamentally different about my brother and what he's done, and this kid who's hitting my daughter."
"Your brother doesn't hit women," Joe said. "In fact, he doesn't seem to hit anybody who doesn't hit him first."
"Yeah, but what happens when he gets mad, Joe?"
"Sam, I checked him out. He's been living in the same town in Georgia for almost eight years. The sheriff there hasn't heard so much as a peep out of him."
"He was locked up for almost ten years," Sam said. "That changes someone. And even you were shocked by what Emma's boyfriend looked like when my brother got done with him."
"I was," Joe admitted.
"So as long as nobody jumps him, maybe he'll be okay?"
"I wouldn't turn him loose on my town if I thought he was a walking time bomb," Jim said.
"And another thing," Joe added. "He knew what was happening here. He knew Emma's ex-boyfriend was going to cause trouble, and he knew what trouble could do to him. I was ready to arrest him after Jacobson did that little song and dance and showed off the bruises on his neck, and you know what your brother did? He stayed right here. Told me everything I needed to know to find out all about his record, knowing I probably could have arrested him right then for what he'd already done and that it might well send him back to prison on a parole violation. You know the only thing he asked me?"
"What?" Sam asked.
"He wanted to know whether Emma would be okay if you came back here. Which was him wondering, if he got locked up, who would look out for her? He knew the risk he was taking, and he stayed anyway, Sam. Now to me, that says something about the kind of man he is."
"I hope so," Sam said. "Don't get me wrong. I appreciate what you're trying to do for him. I don't want him in jail for the rest of his life."
"Let's give him a chance," Joe said.
It was more than he'd thought his brother would ever have when he came back here and found his brother in jail. Maybe they could make something of this yet. Maybe everything would be okay.
"Have you talked to Rye about this?"
"Not yet," Jim said. "I wanted to know how you and Emma felt first. I figured there was no sense in getting his hopes up, in case it didn't work."
And then Sam had to ask for one more thing. "Can you make him stay here, as part of the probation deal?"
Joe nodded. "As long as they don't want him back in Georgia, sure, I could probably swing that."
Sam thanked both of them, staggered by the sense of relief that washed over him. His little brother...
"So, that's what we'll do," Jim said, closing the file in front of him. "You want to tell him the news yourself?"
"Yeah, I could do that."
* * *
Rye was staring at the walls, wondering if he could take another stint behind bars. He'd thought he was going to die at first, and that he might be happy to do it, given the alternative of life on the inside. He'd railed against everything, the unfairness of it, the shock, the shame.
>
Then that guy jumped him, and things had gotten so much worse.
If they sent him back...
Rye started to sweat. Inside, he was screaming and outwardly, he just shook.
In the midst of that, the door to the cell block opened and in walked his brother.
Rye made himself stand up straight and look the man in the eye, still getting used to the idea that there was someone else who was so like him, so familiar and yet such a stranger. He had about a million questions about their parents, about what life had been like before they died, questions he'd probably never ask. And he felt the need to make a lot of excuses and apologies for the way he'd ended up. How ridiculous was that? None of it would do any good.
He also really didn't want any more scenes like this one, him on this side of the bars, Sam on the other.
Maybe this would be it—the big good-bye, nice-knowing-you, please-stay-the-hell-out-of-my-town speech before they shipped Rye out of here. They should have taken him to the regional jail days ago, not that it really mattered. He knew where it was going to end—with him behind another set of bars.
"What's wrong now?" he asked finally, when Sam didn't say a word.
"I was just wondering if you're ready to get out of here."
"Sure." He was up for anything, as long as it put some miles between him and Sam. "Where am I going? Regional jail? Or back to prison in Georgia?"
"Neither one. Joe and the county attorney are about to make you an offer you can't refuse. They're going to let you go."
"Yeah, right." He laughed at the idea.
Sam didn't. "They are. Misdemeanor and a year's probation."
Rye couldn't quite breathe for a moment. He had a flash of how it had felt that day when the prison doctor had gotten done stitching up his side, and one of the guards had walked in and told him the guy who attacked him, the one Rye had beaten senseless, was dead.
For a long time, it was like Rye was, too. Even after he'd gotten out, he couldn't quite believe the nightmare was over, that he was free. Maybe he'd always known it wouldn't last, that nothing ever really did. Maybe he'd been preparing himself all along for the day he went back inside. He hadn't been all that surprised to find himself back here.
And he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing now.
They were letting him go?
Finally, he managed one word. "Why?"
"Plea bargain," Sam said.
"What does that mean?"
"You know... where they cut a deal—"
"I know what a plea bargain is," he cut in. "I just can't imagine anybody offering me one like that."
Sam shrugged. "Joe's a friend."
"Of yours, not of mine."
"You're my little brother," he said.
As if that mattered? He wasn't sure if the relationship meant anything to Sam, and why it might mean anything to the sheriff or anyone else in this town, he didn't understand. He and his brother had seen each other three times now in the past thirty years or so. They didn't know shit about each other.
"You must have some serious pull in this town if you can make something like this go away," Rye said. "I thought you just restored houses."
"I do, and I didn't pull any strings. I would have tried, if I thought it would do any good. But I never expected anything like this, either."
It was still too much to take in. He kept looking for reasons this would never work. "Sure you want me loose on your town?"
"I don't want you locked up, Robbie."
Rye just looked at him. Hearing Sam call him Robbie like that was like taking a kick in the gut every time. Who the hell was Robbie? He really didn't know. He never would.
"Sorry," Sam said. "It's going to take some time for me to get used to the new name."
"It's not like I'm in a position to complain about anything right now." Rye took a breath and let it out slow. "So, these friends of yours... They're just doing you a favor?"
"They're trying to be fair. They know what's at stake for you. A felony conviction, and you'll probably go back to prison on the manslaughter charge. I suspect they're thinking of Emma, too. She told you about how she and Zach and Grace came to me and Rachel?"
"She said her father liked to hit her mother."
"He did. She'd left him but a couple of years later, she was sick and desperate to find someone to take care of her kids. She was going back to her hometown to ask a relative for help, but was scared to take the kids anywhere near her ex, so she left them in a motel here. They'd been there for three days before anybody found them. Grace was almost a year old, Zach was nearly five, Emma was not quite twelve. It was right before Christmas seven years ago. Rachel and I have had them ever since. We finally found their mother two weeks later in a hospital in Indiana. Her ex-husband had beaten her up and left her for dead. She'd been in a coma the whole time. Three months later, she was dead."
Not a very pretty story, Emma had told Rye. He remembered thinking she had old eyes, that she understood him so well. All those dark places... She'd been there, too.
"Anyway," Sam said, clearing his throat. "People in this town know what Emma's been through. I don't think the county attorney liked his chances of getting a jury in this town to convict you of anything to do with keeping that guy from hurting Emma. So they're letting you go. Hopefully this won't mess up the parole situation in Georgia."
"I can't believe it." It was starting to sink in. The room started spinning for a moment. He leaned back against the wall, needing the support.
"I know." Sam dug into his pockets and came up with a key, which he fit into the lock on Rye's cell door. "Maybe this'll help."
Honestly, it didn't. Sam pulled open the door, but Rye couldn't bring himself to step through the opening.
Then he thought of something else. "What about Emma's ex-boyfriend?"
Sam looked wary. "He's gonna walk, too."
"No. No way."
"It's part of the deal."
"You mean, if I walk, he walks, too?"
Sam nodded, his mouth stretched into a grim line.
"What about Emma? She's scared to death of the guy."
"She's already agreed to it."
"Shit. For me? She did this so that I can get out of here?"
"Yeah."
Rye threw back his head and wanted to scream. At her and his brother. The sheriff and the county attorney and the whole friggin' world. "You can't let them do this. She shouldn't have to put up with that bastard being loose on the streets."
"I'm not crazy about it, either, but that's the deal."
"Well, undo it."
"Look," Sam said. "The only reason the Jacobson kid isn't pressing for assault charges against you is because he wants to save his own butt."
"I'm sure he does, but I can't ask Emma to do this for me."
"You didn't. Joe, the county attorney, and the Jacobsons' attorney did."
"Well it's dead wrong," he said.
"Yeah, it is. But the truth is, Emma couldn't stand it if you went to prison for this. You said it yourself—she feels guilty about drawing you into this."
"It's not her fault. I told her that."
"So did I, but Rachel and I know her. There's nothing any of us could say to make her feel any differently," Sam argued. "It's who she is. She feels responsible for people, and she takes care of them. It started with her brother and sister, probably even before that with her own mother. She even tries to take care of Rachel and me. Now she thinks this mess with you and her ex-boyfriend is her fault. It would haunt her, every day you spent behind bars. She won't be able to let it go until you're free."
"But her crazy boyfriend will still be on the streets. I saw her when he was out. She was afraid to pick up the phone, afraid to open the front door."
"He'll stay away from her or he'll go to jail. There's a restraining order as part of the deal, and Joe will enforce it."
"She couldn't even sleep at night for dreaming about him coming to get her," he argued.
"R
obbie, she's my daughter. I'll take care of her now."
Robbie.
There it was again. It stopped him cold. He had to convince Sam that Robbie was gone, and he wasn't coming back.
But this wasn't about that lost kid. This was about Emma. Rye couldn't tell if Sam resented him because Emma, when she'd needed help, had turned to him, or if Sam was just mad because Rye had screwed up the situation so badly.
He still worried about her, even if he didn't have the right. Sam, the father, was clearly telling him that if Emma needed taking care of in the future, he would handle it. Rye barely stopped himself from telling Sam he'd damned well better handle it.
"Come on," Sam said. "You've spent enough time here. Let's go."
* * *
The sheriff and the county attorney outlined the deal for him. He was fine with everything, except that he had to stay here during his year's probation. Not that he was in a position to argue. They explained that there would be court papers to sign, and an appearance before a judge to finalize everything. But basically, they were letting him go.
"We'll need to know where you'll be staying," Joe said, as Rye stood up.
"He'll stay with Rachel and me," Sam said.
Rye just looked at him. He had no intention of doing that. Sam took a breath. His jaw went tight. Did he think they were going to be one big, happy family now?
"Didn't Tim Davison move in with Mollie Grainger a couple of weeks ago?" Joe asked.
"Yeah, I think I heard something about that," Sam said. "His ex sure wasn't happy about that."
"He was living in that room over Rick Stephenson's garage. Why don't you give him a call? It's not much, but..."
"It doesn't have to be," Rye said.
"Just let us know where you end up," Jim said. "You'll need a job, too."
"That's it?" Rye asked.
"Until we have a court date. We'll let you know."
Rye held out his hand to both the county attorney and the sheriff. "Thanks. For everything."
Joe said, "Just don't make us sorry about this."
"I won't."
He and Sam walked out the door together.
It was the middle of the afternoon, clear and cold, the sun glinting off the thin layer of snow on the ground. The air was crisp and cold. It stung his cheeks, burned a bit as he drew it deeply into his lungs.
