The last thing I saw before everything went black was his face in the rearview mirror, jaw tight, eyes scared, driving like our lives depended on it.
Maybe mine did.
47
PRIME
The suit cost three thousand dollars. It was Italian wool, navy blue, tailored to perfection. I looked like exactly what I was pretending to be, a high-powered attorney from one of those Innocence Project organizations that got wrongfully convicted men out of prison.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I signed in at the front desk using the fake credentials Quest had secured for me. Benjamin Wright, Esq. The guard barely glanced at my ID before waving me through. That was the thing about looking like money, doors opened. Questions didn’t get asked.
They led me to a private interrogation room, the kind reserved for attorney-client meetings. No cameras. No recording devices. Just a metal table, two chairs, and four concrete walls.
I sat down and waited.
Five minutes later, the door opened and they brought him in.
Dwight White. Dubz.
He was bigger than I expected. Broad shoulders, thick neck, hands like cinder blocks. Prison had aged him—gray in his beard, lines around his eyes—but he still moved like a man whoknew how to handle himself. The guards uncuffed him and left us alone.
He sat down across from me, sizing me up with flat, suspicious eyes.
“You ain’t my lawyer.”
“No, I’m not.” I folded my hands on the table, keeping my posture relaxed. Professional. “I’m from the Midwest Innocence Project. We’re reviewing cases of potentially wrongful convictions. Your name came up.”
He snorted. “Ain’t nothing wrongful about my conviction. I did that shit.”
“I know. But I’m not here about that case.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Wariness. “Then what you here for?”
I reached into my briefcase and pulled out my phone. Slid it across the table, screen up.
He looked down at the picture.
His whole body went rigid.
It was his daughter. Fourteen years old, braids spread across her pillow, sleeping peacefully in her bed. And standing over her, knife pressed to her throat, was me.
“What the FUCK—” He shot up from the chair, lunging toward the door. “GUARD! GUARD!”
“Aht aht.” I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t move. “Sit down, Dwight.”
“I’M CALLING THE?—”
I swiped to the next photo and held it up for him to see.
His grandmother. Eighty-three years old, asleep in her recliner, television still glowing in the background. And standing behind her with a gun to her temple was Quest.
Dubz froze.
“My brother has eyes on your grandmother’s house right now,” I said calmly. “So if I go down, if anything happens to mein this room, if you make any noise at all… it’s over for granny. You understand?”
He stood there, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. I watched the calculation happening behind his eyes. The rage warring with the fear. The understanding slowly dawning that he was completely and utterly fucked.
