Renegade Path

What if she’d moved on?

She was stubborn, but I hadn’t answered any of her letters.

Stupid. At the time, pushing her away seemed like the right thing to do.

“All right.” Barry stood and motioned for me to do the same with a quick flick of his hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”

I latched onto those words like a starving dog who’d been thrown a bone. The rest of Barry’s instructions were drowned out by impatience. If I was really getting out, I wanted out now.

The guard returned to escort me into the courtroom. Apparently, Barry couldn’t be trusted to walk me ten feet.

“Good morning, Tony,” Barry brushed by me and offered his hand to the other attorney. They made small talk while I dropped into my seat and stared straight ahead. I didn’t have any faith this was going to work out the way Barry said it would. Freedom would be dangled in front of my face and then yanked away. That was my curse.

The judge took the bench and slammed his gavel down. “District Attorney Cain, I see you’ve decided to grace us with your presence this morning,” the judge said with a wry twist of his mouth. He was either amused or annoyed with the DA, I couldn’t tell.

As long as it didn’t delay my release, I didn’t care.

The DA stood and buttoned the top button of his suit jacket. His whole demeanor dripped with arrogance, but my inner foster kid recognized the hard exterior it probably took him years to cultivate. He wasn’t some soft trust-fund kid kind of lawyer, who’d lucked into his position using his family’s connections. No, he had the rough edges of someone who’d clawed his way to the top from the very bottom and had no intention of returning to his hellish roots. I could certainly relate to and respect that.

“Your Honor, we’ve agreed to drop all charges against the defendant,” Mr. Cain said.

“That’s it?” the judge prodded.

My entire body tensed. Was it possible the judge wouldn’t allow my case to be dismissed? Could he do that? I leaned over to ask my lawyer, but he shook his head. The guy seemed almost as on edge as I was.

“We’ve obtained new information that leads us to believe Mr. Hawkins was incorrectly identified as the suspect.”

Incorrectly identified? Bet the cop who’d arrested me enjoyed having to change his story.

All the reasons I should leave town as soon as I was set free started to stack up around me.

“We’d like the case dismissed with prejudice,” my lawyer added.

Tony cast a don't-get-carried-away look at our table.

“Request granted.” The judge scribbled down some notes, then glared at the DA. “Next time maybe be more thorough in your investigation before turning a young man’s life upside down.”

If the judge only knew this was one of many tornadoes that had upended my life over the years. Sure, it was more serious. My actual freedom was at stake, but it wasn’t really a surprise. The counselors, hell even teachers had joked my whole life about how foster care was just a stop on the way to prison.

I didn’t want that to be my life, but somehow I wasn’t doing a stellar job at staying out of trouble.

A few more things were said. I signed a stack of papers.

“Ms. Kendall, come on up,” the judge barked. We must’ve been taking too long to vacate the table. I wanted to shout at the judge, “Trust me, I’m trying!” but managed to stay cool.

A tall, pretty redhead pushed through the wooden gate. Her heels clicked softly over the wood floor as she approached the table and placed her briefcase on the chair the DA just vacated. There wasn’t much room between our two tables. Barry scooted over to her side with an eager expression stretched across his face.

“Good to see you, Hope. Are you finally dabbling in criminal work?”

“Gosh, no.” She laughed. “Although you make it look pretty easy.” She caught my eye and gave me a warm smile. “Congrats,” she whispered.

I blinked and stared. She didn’t look at me like I was a criminal who’d gotten lucky. Maybe she hadn’t been a lawyer for long.

“Come on.” The officer yanked me to my feet by my elbow.

“I’ll be downstairs to talk to you in a minute,” Barry said over his shoulder.

“Okay.”

The woman peered around Barry and caught my eye again. “Good luck.”

I nodded a thanks. Lady, you have no idea.

As I shuffled my way downstairs, I felt like the luckiest bastard in the world to skip away from the charges. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime get-out-of-jail-free—literally—card had fallen in my lap.

It wouldn’t happen twice. So, I needed to get my shit together and stay out of trouble for good.

After more “processing,” I was finally free.

How would I get home?

An even better question—where was my home now?