said earlier you wanted to talk about something that would change everything,” she said, then swallowed. Her throat was dry. Her mouth was sawdust. She had to do this though. She had to know. “Is the case being reopened?”
Her mom sat up straight, like a puppeteer had just pulled up her marionette strings. “Is it?”
Shannon sighed. “Mom, I don’t know. I thought that’s why you wanted to talk. You told Ryan on the phone, and you told me earlier today you had news that would change everything.” She placed her hands on the table, knowing her mom would take them, knowing the woman who gave her life would want to hold them. Her mom shot out her hands instantly, gripping Shannon’s. Inside, she cringed, not wanting that kind of connection to the woman. But she let her mom do it anyway. Because it was the compassionate thing to do. That was where she could be different from the woman in orange. “Tell me. Did someone find new evidence? I heard the DA was talking to Stefano. Is there something going on? Tell me, Mommy,” she said, hating to use that term, but it was the way to get her mom talking.
“I don’t know anything about Jerry,” she said, using the shooter’s first name.
“What did you see your lawyer about then?” Shannon squeezed her bony fingers, urging her to speak.
Her mom’s chest rose and fell. She breathed heavily. Then, faster. A lone, silent tear streaked from her eye. “It’s about Luke.”
Shannon flinched. She hadn’t heard that name in years. Hadn’t thought it much either. There had been no reason to. Luke Carlton was long gone. The local piano teacher her mother had had a brief affair with when Shannon was thirteen was ancient history. The police had questioned him, but it was perfunctory. He was never a suspect. He’d had no connection at all to the crime.
“What about Luke?” she asked carefully. She wasn’t wild about the man, not by any stretch, but there was a big difference between being a cheater and being a killer. There was no evidence to show her mother’s lover was involved in any way, except loving the wrong person at the wrong time. “The police cleared him, Mom. In just two days he was cleared of any knowledge.”
“I know. He didn’t do it. He’s not that kind of man. He’s a gentleman and a saint. He’s not the one who shot your daddy in the driveway. And it wasn’t me either. It was a robbery gone wrong,” she said, sticking chapter and verse to her age-old defense, as if the open wallet and stolen bills missing from it proved her innocence.
Shannon sighed deeply, her heart cratering as her mom toed her own party line. “Then why are you bringing up Luke?”
Her mom peered to the door, making sure it was shut, then back at Shannon. She lowered her voice to a feather of a whisper. “He said he’d wait for me. He promised he’d wait for me.”
“You’re in for life. He’s going to be waiting a long time.”
“Not if they find the real killer.”
“If they were going to, it would have happened already. It’s been eighteen years,” she said, reminding her mother that time was not on her side. She didn’t bother to bring up the powerful evidence that had put her there in the first place, including the shooter’s own testimony that Dora Prince had hired him. That didn’t need to be said, because it didn’t change this interaction.
“Oh, it’ll happen. They’ll realize.”
Shannon bit back all the things she wanted to say. All the truths she wanted to remind her mother of. She didn’t want to rehash the case. She didn’t want to play courtroom trial again. “What does this have to do with Luke?”
Her mom leaned across the table, coming as close to Shannon as she could, and said in a fast breath, “Because he promised to wait for me. He swore he would. And I just found out he’s remarried. One of my girlfriends on the outside told me. Baby, he married another woman. He was supposed to wait for me. For me, for me, for me. And now he’s with someone else, and I’m all alone.” She dropped her head to the table, tears spilling like summer rain from her eyes.
Shannon brushed a hand over her mother’s limp hair. “That’s what you talked to your lawyer about?”
Her mom nodded her head against the table as she sobbed. “Yes. Because it proves