Chapter 7
They brought Derek to the DA's office three days later.
He was in shackles—handcuffs around his wrists, a chain around his waist, leg irons around his ankles. Two U.S. Marshals flanked him, big, impassive men who didn't look like they were impressed by anything.
I sat at one end of the conference table. Benjamin sat next to me. The DA and Detective Marquez sat on the other side. Derek was led to a chair in the middle, facing me.
He looked terrible. He'd lost weight in jail. His hair was cut too short. There was a bruise on his left cheekbone—someone had gotten to him in general population before they moved him to solitary. But his eyes were still the same. Cold. Dead. Hateful.
The DA slid the plea agreement across the table.
"Read it, Mr. Lawson," she said. "Then sign it. Or don't. It makes no difference to us. We'll win at trial either way. You'll get the needle. This is your only chance to live out your days in a cell instead of the death chamber."
Derek didn't look at the papers. He looked at me.
"You think you've won, don't you?" he said. His voice was rough, gravelly from disuse. "You think you've beaten me."
"I haven't beaten you, Derek," I said quietly. "Allison beat you. From the grave. Every step of the way. You never stood a chance. You were always too stupid, too greedy, too full of yourself to see that she was three moves ahead of you."
His face twisted with rage. He lunged forward across the table, but the Marshals pulled him back, the chains rattling.
"Watch it, Lawson," one of them said.
Derek settled back in his chair, breathing hard. He stared at the plea agreement for a long time. Then he picked up the pen.
"Vanessa gets life too?" he asked.
"Life without parole," the DA said. "In a women's facility in Florida. You'll never see her again. You'll never speak to her again. For all you know, she'll be dead in a year. Prison's hard on women like her."
Derek smiled. It was a terrible, ugly smile. "Good. She was always a gold-digging bitch anyway. She's the one who talked me into it. She said Allison would never suspect. She said the money would be easy."
"Sign the papers, Derek," I said. "Stop talking."
He signed. Page after page. His handwriting was shaky, but legible. When he was done, he pushed the papers back across the table to the DA.
"There," he said. "I'm yours. Colorado supermax. Twenty-three and one. For the rest of my natural life. No phone. No visitors. Just me and four walls. You happy now, Evelyn? You got what you wanted."
"I got justice for my daughter," I said. "That's all I ever wanted."
I stood up to leave. I was halfway to the door when Derek spoke again.
"Evelyn?"
I turned around.
"Tell Chloe something for me, will you? When she's old enough to understand. Tell her her father wasn't always a monster. Tell her there was a time, before the money and the lies and Vanessa, when I really did love her mother. Tell her I'm sorry. For everything."
I looked at him for a long time. At the man who had married my daughter, who had held my granddaughter when she was born, who had sat at our Thanksgiving table and laughed at my bad jokes and eaten my turkey and pretended to be a human being.
"No," I said finally. "I won't tell her that. Because it's a lie. You were never a good man, Derek. You were never a good husband. You were never a good father. You were just a weak, greedy, selfish coward who destroyed the best thing that ever happened to you because you wanted something easier. Something you didn't have to work for. Chloe will never know your name. She will never hear your voice. She will never be told that you loved her, because you didn't. You loved what she represented. Money. Status. Control. That's all you ever loved. And you lost it all. Every last bit of it."
I walked out the door and didn't look back.
Outside, the sun was shining. Chloe was waiting for me in the back seat of the car, with Officer Ruiz—who was now off the force and working as our full-time nanny and bodyguard—holding a cone of vanilla ice cream.
"Grammy!" Chloe yelled when she saw me. "Look! Ice cream!"
I got in the car and kissed her sticky cheek. "I see, baby. Did you save me a bite?"
She held the cone up to my mouth. I took a tiny lick. Cold. Sweet. Perfect.
"Where to now, Mrs. Hale?" Officer Ruiz asked, starting the engine.
May you like
I looked back at the DA's office. At the building where Derek Lawson had just signed his life away. At the city where my daughter had lived and loved and died.
"Home," I said. "We're going home."
