“Correct. At the time, I considered those guys to be my family. They were like me, they understood me.”
She could imagine how much they’d meant to the kid who’d left his biological family behind. “So, after your arrest, they had your back and ensured you had a good lawyer?”
He stopped panning. “No.”
“No?”
“When I got out on bail, I went to see them. They’d cleared out the shop. There wasn’t even a wrench left. They’d moved out of their homes. I couldn’t reach them on their phones.”
“But they knew where you lived. Did they get in touch with you?”
“I never saw or heard from a single one of them again.”
“They let you take the fall? Without any support or communication or anything?”
He shrugged, but she could sense the betrayal. When he’d been facing a trial and jail time at the age of twenty-six, they’d abandoned him.
“I’d like to—to go find Kyle,” she said, “and spend some time shouting in his face.”
He gave her a bona fide grin. Crooked and weathered and glorious.
Her chest flooded with adoration. The shell-shocked boy had been to hell and back and emerged a man.
“I thought you were a pacifist,” he said.
“I have my limits!” She captured her wind-tossed hair, twisting it into a coil as she drew it forward over one shoulder. “Did you use a public defender?”
“No. I made a lot of money during my years at the shop. I had a good attorney. It’s just that every jury member could see that I was guilty. Which I was.”
“Did you spend all your savings on your attorney?”
“No. I spent some of it on my legal fees and invested the rest.”
“Oh. So . . . that money continued to appreciate while you served your sentence?”
“I have plenty,” he said evasively.
“Define plenty.”
“No.”
“You’re saying that your ill-gotten gains have grown in value?” she asked, trying not to let the horror show on her face.
“That’s usually how investments work.”
“You shouldn’t keep ill-gotten gains!”
“Watch me.”
Green and red gems sparkled as she captured them in her pan. “How did prison change you?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’d really like to know,” she added.
“How did it change me for the better or for the worse?”
“Start with for the worse.”
