Page 74

SEVENTY-THREE

ONE MONTH LATER

Josie reached under the metal table and set her hand on Erica’s knee. It had been bobbing furiously for the last five minutes. “You don’t need to be nervous. We’re here to deliver good news.”

From Erica’s other side, Eva Owens laughed. “Oh, I think if you’re not nervous visiting a prison then you need a reality check.”

Erica snorted. “She’s not wrong.”

“You know what I meant,” said Josie.

It had taken a lot for them to convince the superintendent to let the three of them visit Roe together with no glass partition between them, but ever since Josie had met with her privately to tell her about Tilly Phelan’s confession, Roe had been, in the super’s words, “remarkably docile.”

They were sending her in with two guards just in case.

Erica drew in a shaky breath as the door to the private room swung open. Roe loped inside, her bright blue eyes catching on each one of them, lingering on her granddaughter.

The knee bobbing began again in earnest. “Oh God,” Erica mumbled. “This is crazy. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

The guards flanked Roe as she shuffled over and sat down across the table. Her cuffs clinked against the table as her right hand twitched.

Before Josie or Eva could speak, Erica blurted out, “I’m your granddaughter.”

Roe’s eyes went saucer-wide and a moment later, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. She clasped her hands together and held them to her heart. “Roe,” she said softly. “Roe.”

“I don’t understand why I can’t hug her,” Erica whispered into Josie’s ear.

“Because she used to give people concussions just for looking at her,” Eva said quietly, her smile never faltering. “I think she’s past all that now, but the protocols will be in place as long as she’s here.”

Frenetic energy rolled off Erica’s body in waves, filling the entire room. It was obvious how badly she wanted to get on with this, but Josie had a couple more questions she needed answered—for herself. So did Eva. They’d discussed the matter several times.

“Roe,” she said. “Remember when we first met and you told me that Lila was bad like you?”

A nod. Yes.

Eva sat up straighter in her chair. “Remember all the times that you indicated that you killed the babies?”

Yes.

“Why?” Eva blurted out. “Why would you…let people believe that?”

“Yes or no questions, only,” Josie murmured. She had her own theory as to why Roe had accepted responsibility for the deaths of her children. “Roe, you thought you were guilty because you couldn’t protect them. Is that right?”

An emphatic yes this time.

“Bad because of what your father and Clint did to you?” Josie asked.

She looked at the table and nodded slowly.

Erica said, “That’s bullshit. It’s not your fault that they hurt you.”

Roe’s head snapped up. Her mouth hung open.

“It’s true.” Erica pushed her hands across the table, as close to Roe’s as she could reach. “But I want to talk about the real reason we came to see you. We’re breaking you out of here, Grandma.”

Roe’s eyelashes fluttered. She looked to Eva for an explanation.

“You’ve been exonerated. The judge will be handing down an order for your release in the new year. In a couple of weeks. You’ll have to be moved to a skilled nursing facility that has a behavioral health unit, but Josie and I are working on it.”

Roe sobbed, mournful and primal all at the same time. Decades of pain encapsulated in that singular sound. Instantly, it brought tears to Josie’s eyes. She blinked them back because someone in this room had to hold it together.

Eva and Erica cried quietly for a few minutes, both of them staring at Roe. Josie knew they wanted to embrace her. One day they would. Very soon.

“There’s one more thing,” Josie said. “Your name.”

Roe shook her head. “Roe, Roe.”

“It’s true,” said Eva.

“I want to say it,” Erica whispered. “Let me say it.”

Her whisper wasn’t quiet. Roe stilled when she heard the words and then, a huge smile broke across her face. Eva gasped. The transformation was breathtaking. For a brief moment, Josie saw the ethereal beauty that Tilly had described, and her heart broke at the realization that Roe probably hadn’t smiled in six decades.

Erica grinned back at her grandmother and there, there was the resemblance.

Clearing her throat, Erica squared her shoulders and announced the words like she was casting a spell. “Miranda Lawson.”

Roe nodded and patted the table. The fingers of her right hand jerked. The smile never left her face, no matter how many tears she shed.

The rest of the visit was mostly Erica blurting out random things in a very high-pitched voice. Roe hung on every word. When the guards told her their time was up, she stood without protest, and, with a quavering hand, blew a kiss at the three of them.

For the love of God. Josie was going to have to have a Big Cry in the car on her way home.

Roe was almost to the door when Erica leapt from her seat and flew around the table. Before any of them could stop her, she threw her arms around Roe’s neck in an awkward side hug that only lasted long enough for Roe to pat her arm before the guards pried them apart.

Josie looked back and forth between Erica and Eva, noticing the way their faces glowed with excitement and joy and she thought maybe, just maybe, something good had come from Lila Jensen’s legacy after all.