Family Ties (Flesh & Blood Trilogy Book 2) Read Free Page A

Libby. It wasn’t my place. Please don’t be mad at me.”
    I let out a sigh. “Of course I’m not mad at you, Mom.”
    “Well? What else did he say?”
    “I told him about my PI license. That’s when he told me that he’s innocent. He asked me to help prove it and get him out of prison.”
    Mom leaned back against her chair. “Wow. That’s a lot to think about. Are you going to help him?”
    “Well, that’s what I was just getting ready to tell you. I thought about it long and hard and I’ve decided I’ll help.”
    Mom clapped her hands together and bounced in her seat, looking too much like a school girl who just learned her favorite crush likes her back.
    “Mom, stop.”
    “Sorry, Libby. I’m just so relieved that you’re willing to help. I was hoping you would agree.”
    “So, wait, how long have you known? When did he tell you?”
    A look of regret washed over Mom’s face. Her smile disappeared and frown lines appeared at the corner of her downturned mouth.
    “Mom?”
    “I’m sorry, Libby. He begged me never to tell you. He didn’t want to get your hopes up. After all, there never seemed there was any hope of ever proving his innocence. I guess after what happened with you and when he learned you are going to be a private investigator, he actually thought there might be hope.”
    She was ignoring my question. “Mom…when did he tell you?”
    She said it so quietly I barely heard her. “About two years ago.”
    I stood up from my chair and threw my napkin down on the table. “Two years ago? You mean to tell me that for two years he’s been telling you that he’s innocent? And not a word to me about it?”
    “Libby, you wouldn’t even talk to him. You didn’t go see him or speak to him for twenty years, for God’s sake.”
    She had a point. I sat back down on the padded chair which she had reupholstered, again thanks to tips from DIY bloggers. “So I guess you believe him?”
    “How can I not, Libby? He’s my… was my husband for nearly twenty years. I’ve known the man since we were twelve years old. I never really believed he was guilty in the first place.”
    It was true. They had only divorced at his insistence, to protect her. Also at his insistence, Mom and I had taken her maiden name, Barrett, after the divorce, so people wouldn’t put two and two together and figure out we were the wife and daughter of a notorious serial killer. But Mom had never turned her back on Randy. She visited him in prison a few times a year and took his call every time. I always just assumed she was trying to be a good Christian woman, but it was becoming more and more apparent she had never given up hope. She still loved him.
    “Do you believe him?” she asked, bursting my thought bubble.
    “I dunno, Mom. I mean, I want to believe it’s true. I always wished it wasn’t. But eventually I grew up and had to face reality. He confessed, Mom. He confessed! Why on earth would he do that if he was innocent?”
    “People do it all the time,” Mom said as she picked up her ivy-patterned plate and headed to the kitchen. She scraped it into the garbage bin, rinsed it off, and gently laid it in the sink. She walked back over to the table and held her hand out for my plate. I handed it to her. “You’ve seen it on TV…on those real crime shows on Discovery ID you like so much. People can be coerced into false confessions. It’s a real thing.”
    “Yeah, that’s true, but that’s not what happened with Randy.”
    Back in 1996, two days after Randy had called to tell us he’d been arrested, Mom and I had hired and met with B. Cecil Hayes. His office was on the top floor of a Victorian-era house in downtown Lexington, where he both lived and worked. He was too old for this, he’d told us as we followed behind him up the spiral staircase to his office, but he just couldn’t walk away from Lady Justice—she made for such an interesting bedfellow. When we made it to his office, there were files