“What?” Jimmy pressed, his stomach twisting up in dread.
“I want you to give up appealing the case,” David said slowly, his words precise as if he had been practicing them. “If you still want to be a lawyer, that’s fine. I hope you have a great career. But you’ve got to let me go, son.”
“Wha...” Jimmy stared at his father in shock, his chest heaving as he struggled to take a breath. “No. No, I’m not doing that.”
“Son,” David said firmly, “it’s been almost twenty years.”
“I’m not giving up on you,” Jimmy tearfully insisted, his fingers clenching around the phone. “I know you didn’t kill Mom. I know what I saw, and I’m never going to stop.”
“And just how long is this going to go on for?” David asked softly. He sounded tired, defeated. “I love you, but we both know you’re not really in school right now. I have no idea what you’re doing for money, but I know it’s not at that law firm.”
Jimmy gulped, gaping like a fish out of water. So much for that cleverly constructed ruse.
“You’re an awful liar, slugger,” David said, offering a small smile. “I don’t want you to keep putting your life on hold because of me.”
“But Dad,” Jimmy said firmly, “you are my life. You’re the only family I have left. I love Maury, but he’s not you. You’re... you’re everything to me. I don’t care what you say. I’m getting things figured out, I am, I promise. I’m super sorry for lying to you, but I’m not going to give up on you. I love you.”
David’s eyes were wet with tears, struggling to maintain his composure. “I love you, too,” he murmured, lip trembling and resolve crumbling. “I love you so very much.”
Jimmy put his hand back on the glass, nodding frantically. “Just an inch, remember? That’s it.”
David took a deep breath, smiling weakly as he put his hand up to join his son’s. “Just an inch.”
The buzzer sounded, notifying them that their time was up. Jimmy groaned in frustration, his eyes pleading with his father. “I love you, Dad. I’m going to get you out of there, I swear.”
“I love you, too,” David repeated quietly. “I love you so much. No matter what, I am so proud of you and grateful for everything you’ve tried to do. But please remember, son. Only one of us is actually in a prison, okay?”
Jimmy frowned, not understanding what he meant. But before he could ask, the guard was already there to escort his father away. Jimmy stood, waving and watching his father for as long as he could until he disappeared back into the depths of the prison.
He shuffled outside to wait for another cab, miserably depressed. He had literally spent all his life trying to free his father. He had given everything he had, and a lot that he didn’t, in an effort to prove his innocence. He knew his father didn’t do it.
He knew the Man in White was real.
It had been so long that he only saw him in dreams now, but if he concentrated he could recall bits and pieces. The bright white coat, the sneer on his twisted face, his mother’s cries, the blood...
Jimmy squeezed his eyes closed, forcing the memories back when it became too hard to breathe. There were benches set up outside the prison gates, and he sat down as he tried to calm down. He wasn’t crazy. The Man in White was real, and one day, somehow, Jimmy was going to find him. He was going to find him and free his father.
But at what cost, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind. He’d lost the entire Duplin family, his college education, his potential career, and he was currently pimping himself out to Boss Cold to pay off his massive debt. Not to mention, it was a debt that had gotten him no closer to freeing his father.
With the money he’d spent in legal fees, he could have finished law school and been representing his father himself by now. He tried to tell himself there was still time. Once he had this mess straight with Cold, he could finish his degree. It was possible. He didn’t have to give up, he just couldn’t. He had to keep hope alive. Not just for his father, but for himself, too.
The taxi arrived to carry him home. Rowena Legrand would be by soon to take him shopping. Jimmy took a long shower, shaved, sorted more laundry, and thumbed through the little bit of cash he had left. Twelve dollars and nineteen cents.
Nineteen cents.
Jimmy spread the pennies and nickel and dime out on his kitchen counter. That number seemed inescapable and meaningless all at the same time. Nothing really had meaning now unless it was being whispered in his ear in a velvety tone.
Cold.
God, that voice was going to be the death of him. Jimmy’s own father had told him to find happiness, and nothing had ever brought him the same gratification as being a willing slave to Cold’s drawling demands.
But what he had with Cold was just business, it wasn’t personal. He didn’t get some dumb love-struck look on his face when he thought about Cold. It definitely didn’t make his heart flutter to think about the brief moments he had been able to touch him. It was just a deal, just a financial agreement.
Right?
Jimmy’s head snapped up when he heard a knock at his door. He stared at the clock on his stove. It was four-thirty. Rowena apparently did not have the same appreciation for punctuality as her brother.
When he opened the door, Rowena was propped seductively against the frame with a brown paper grocery bag in her arms and a ridiculously giant purse over her shoulder, grinning slyly like a cat.
