Page 75 of Hard Heart

“I can’t,” Sera said.

“It was Ruby’s. She doesn’t need it anymore.”

Footsteps approached, and Levi flipped the pad closed, then slid it across the table.

“Promise me you’ll stay safe,” he said.

“I promise.”

But they had it all wrong. By now, they should have learned that this case was smoke and mirrors, that nothing was as it seemed. Even as Levi was losing his heart, the danger was lurking in a different direction.

CHAPTER 23

SERAFINA

“Don’t you usually come on the weekends, ma’am?” the girl at the motel desk asked with a cheerful smile, and my stomach clenched as I checked behind me. Thank goodness Raelene had gone to get a Dr Pepper from the vending machine.

“Yes, but I had to switch things around this week.”

She gave me a conspiratorial look. “We have one deluxe room left—I’ll give you that one.”

“Uh, thanks,” I replied, but what I was really thinking was, How do I explain this to Raelene?

“I hope you and your friend have a wonderful stay.”

I quickly swapped the keys as we went to get our luggage from the car—that seemed like the simplest solution. Raelene had offered to drive again. She said she didn’t mind, and it gave me a few extra hours of revision time.

Visiting Redding’s Hill today should have been a joyful experience, but we weren’t here to see Sykes. Elias Jones was waiting for us in Unit Eight, and we had good news. The DNA results had come back, and the semen found on the rape victim’s underwear didn’t belong to him. He’d spent over thirty years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. We were going to get him out.

“I need you to take a breath, okay?” Raelene said to him. “What I’m about to tell you is good. Really good.”

“You look like you’re gonna tell me my mama won the lottery.”

“Not quite. But maybe the next best thing. The lab finished testing the traces found on Shirley’s underwear, and the DNA? It isn’t yours.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be. They know whose it is?”

“It matches a man named Tyrone Keynes. He’s serving time in North Carolina for a similar offence.”

“Never met him. Goldarn, I’ve been sittin’ in this place for thirty-one years.”

I took notes as Raelene spoke, and it wasn’t joy on Elias’s face. It was relief. Relief that he wouldn’t die in this hellhole. I wanted to see that expression on Levi. For him to walk out of this place wearing something other than orange. For him to move back to the home he loved and hang his paintings on the wall.

“That’s why we’re moving fast. We’ve already filed a motion for a new trial and a petition for actual innocence. The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office is reviewing the results.”

“So… What happens now?”

“Best-case scenario? The prosecutor agrees the conviction can’t stand, and the judge vacates it. Worst case, they fight it, and we go to an evidentiary hearing. Either way, the truth is finally on paper—not just in your word.”

Elias leaned forward, his voice shaking. “You really…you really think I’m getting out?”

“I do. I can’t promise when, or how messy the road will be, but yes—I believe you’re going home.”

“I don’t even know what I’d do first.”

“Start making a list. You’re going to need it.”

“A beer. I want an ice-cold beer, and I want to drink it in my mama’s yard.”