I was confident I’d have an easy enough time proving to the court that I was not who they thought I was, that I had stolen the real suspect's identity. I had the documents back in Perth. The prosecutor said she believed me and would therefore recommend at the bail hearing that I be set free on my own recognizance—no need to set bail.
However, that did come with the understanding that I would plead guilty to charges surrounding the identity theft, and that usually came with a minimum sentence of two years - twenty months with good behavior.
“I’d only just turned eighteen when I did it,” I said. “Couldn’t you try me as a juvenile?”
“But you weren’t a juvenile,” the Prosecutor countered.
“Mentally,” I said, down to my last desperate plea.
“My client would be willing to plead guilty to criminal possession of an identification document.”
The Prosecutor looked at my lawyer with a furrowed brow. “You think you’re going from first-degree murder down to a misdemeanor in one day?”
“The murder charge will never stick, and you know it,” said my lawyer. “You wouldn’t even have a case for theft if it weren’t for my client’s confession, which he is within his rights to retract. He was only eighteen at the time and just released from the custody of the State, custody I will point out that was negligent and criminal. He was kept at the Mercy Center for Boys and Girls in Perth, Montana.”
The Prosecutor made a face as if she’d no idea what that meant.
“Are you familiar with the case against Mr. Ted Greyson who ran the orphanage?”
The Prosecutor shook her head no.
“I will prepare a brief for you,” said my lawyer. “My client had no trouble with the law prior to this incident, and he’s had no trouble since. He’ll plead guilty to criminal possession, but not for theft.”
The Prosecutor looked at me. “You have a good lawyer.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “She was retained by my friends.”
The Prosecutor raised an eyebrow. “Well then, Mr. Moore, you have good friends.”
“I certainly do, ma’am. I certainly do.”
23
Greta
Faces all swirling in wisps of gray then nothing but pitch black. That was the last memory, the last image I had to try and make sense of the haze I was now experiencing. It was as if I was looking through a glass of milky water. Everything around me was blurred in a dirty white film, interrupted by regular vertical black lines. My head was throbbing, and my stomach felt as if I had been kicked in the gut. I remembered the wine, but this was unlike any hangover I’d had before.
“Hey! What the fuck?” It was Gabriel’s voice I heard nearby, off to the side.
I turned my head, which only made the throbbing worse, and I had to shut my eyes as the light seemed to be aggravating things even more.
“Gabriel, are you there?” It was Dalton I heard now.
“Dalton?” It was Cameron’s voice now coming from the other side of me.
I covered my ears because the sounds hurt, and I curled up in the fetal position on what felt like a cold cement floor.
I woke up in a cage.
To my right, Gabriel, too, was in a cage. Dalton and Austin were in a cage on my left. Further down from them, Matty and Erik, caged. Further still, Cameron was on his knees clutching at the bars of his cage.
My eyelids were heavy, but I managed to keep them open long enough to take in my surroundings. I recognized the room—it was the kitchen of the cabin in Kaletoni Woods.
“What’s happening?” I uttered. The words felt like sand mixed with shards of glass scratching my parched throat.
I heard footsteps approaching from the adjacent room then saw Betty enter the kitchen.
“Finally awake, I see,” she said. “You slept much longer than I expected.”
Austin rattled the bars of his cage. “Let us out of here!”
“I must have gotten carried away with the potion,” said Betty, waving her hands in the air. “Or maybe it was the wine. I hadn’t counted on you drinking so much wine. You do like your wine.” She laughed gayly.
“You’re crazy!” Matty said.
Betty made an exaggerated frown. “Oh, really?” She got on her haunches in front of Matty’s cage, looked at him, and said, “What gave it away?”
“Please, Betty,” I rasped.
She pivoted and looked at me surprised. “Greta, dear, I have you to thank for”—she stood and made a sweeping gesture with her hands motioning to the cages—“for all of this.”
She clasped her hands together and brought them to her chest. “I thought it would be just you and your brother, but this goes far beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you, Greta. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
“I swear,” said Matty angrily, “if you hurt her…”
Betty spun around to face his cage. “What? If I hurt her, what?”