Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,36

and discovered that biological specimens from the victim still existed. She filed a motion for DNA testing. The state objected. After a hearing, she prevailed. Testing was conducted and it showed conclusively that neither Darryl nor Lance had raped Janice.

Jenny died two days after Dani told her of the DNA results, comforted by the confirmation all these years later of her nephew’s innocence and reassured that an injustice would soon be rectified.

Dani expected that his story would have a happy ending. She filed a joint petition with the state of Florida to set aside the convictions of Darryl and Lance on the grounds of actual innocence. After fifteen years in prison, both would become free men. Before that happened, though, an inmate viciously beat Darryl and he suffered irreversible brain damage. He needed the constant care of a group home. Although freed from prison, his future, which once held so much promise, was gone forever.

When Jonah got older and Dani wanted to return to work, she sought out HIPP. Her view of the world had changed because of Darryl Coneston, and working at HIPP became her atonement for her earlier blindness and arrogance.

CHAPTER

12

Hunched over a small table at a Dunkin Donuts shop, Tommy brought the paper cup filled with hot coffee to his lips. Still too hot. He drank his coffee black, no cream, no sugar. Coffee should be hot, steaming hot, but damn, this coffee in his hand would scald his tongue and leave him with an annoying burn on the roof of his mouth that would pester him the rest of the day. Better to wait and let it cool off. No need to rush. A wild goose chase—that’s what he was on. Still, it was his job to follow the trail, no matter how far-fetched. He had to admit he’d been wrong before. Not often. Hardly ever, in fact. Dani seemed so sure this guy was innocent, but Tommy knew she was a marshmallow inside. Maybe outside, too. It took the kind of experience Tommy had to harden up and realize how perps lied so convincingly. He’d seen that plenty at the Bureau.

He tried his coffee again. “Mm,” he said out loud. “Just right.” He broke off a piece of his cinnamon Danish and dunked it into the coffee and then took a long sip of the rich brown liquid. His favorite breakfast: not eggs or bacon or pancakes, just a good cup of java and a Danish. Maybe sometimes a splurge with a bagel and cream cheese. He believed in keeping fit. Working out regularly at the gym and eating healthy—well, maybe the Danish wasn’t so good, but surely better than bacon—were part of his regular routine. Traveling broke that routine and put him out of sorts. When he’d miss more than two days at the gym, he thought it must be what withdrawal felt like. He’d done his share of traveling with the Bureau. Now he preferred settling in at home.

Tommy finished his breakfast and opened up a road map of Indiana. He had a straight ride east on Route 80, then Route 76, to Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, the Calhouns’ hometown. A six-hour drive if he didn’t hit any traffic. In his leather briefcase, his initials stamped on the front in gold—a gift from his wife when he’d taken the job with HIPP—were signed releases from Calhoun. With any luck, they’d be enough to get the hospital officials and the doctors to open their records to him. If there were any records left. After all, if Calhoun told the truth, the records would be almost twenty years old. Had there even been computers then? Tommy didn’t remember, it was so long ago.

After paying the bill, he sauntered to his rental car and began his drive. An unbroken expanse of prairie land lay ahead. During the summer, cornfields might line the roadway, he thought, but now the brown land was flat and dry. With nothing to distract him, he reached over to his briefcase on the passenger seat and pulled out a CD and popped it into the slot on the dashboard. When riding in a car, alone like this, he liked to listen to books on tape and always brought one along with him on forays into the field. Mysteries were his favorite—Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Robert Parker, pretty much anything by P.D. James.

Fiddling with audio controls while driving at seventy miles an hour was an art that Tommy had mastered long ago. Soon he heard