The judge called Karl’s abuse of Helen a mitigating circumstance, reducing Andreus’ sentence from twenty years to fifteen. The bottom line was that Karl had ended up mutilated and very much dead, and Andreus had spent almost half of his life in a cage. One thing he remembered saying at his own trial was that faced with the same circumstances, he would do it again. He still felt the same.
“See ya tomorrow, Frank.” Jaci stuck her head in her supervisor’s office.
Frank Avinger looked up from his computer. Most of the other employees were either on vacation or they were just there to catch up on some last minute business before the weekend.
“You leaving me too, Jaci?” He looked at the time on his computer screen. “It’s not even eleven yet.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t able to find anybody else brave enough to sponsor one of the “Outreach” clients, so I’m going to pick him up now. He’s getting out at noon. Oh, and he and I have the same birthday. Same date and year. What are the chances of that?”
“That is interesting. Was he born here too?”
“No, it didn’t say where he was born. Just said he committed the crime here in Alabama.”
Frank narrowed his eyes, and she knew he was about to say something she didn’t want to hear.
“You sure you’re up to managing the project and being one of the sponsors too?”
“Well, I don’t have much choice. The Department of Corrections was so late sending me the award letter that all of the participants were about to be released when I got it.”
“Thought you already had all the sponsors lined up.”
“I did, but the last couple backed out when I sent them the bio and they saw how the victim was killed–not that I’d really call him a victim from what I read. Doesn’t matter how somebody like that was killed as far as I’m concerned. It just means the child, and he was only a child at the time, was strong. Plus, he did it to protect someone he loved, and unlike some of the others, he has no priors. I think he deserves credit for that. The bastard he killed beat the woman with a blunt object, then knocked her down and started kicking her, all because she cooked something he didn’t like. Honestly, I think his killer deserves a medal.”
Her boss frowned, concern in his eyes. “So who exactly was his victim, or not victim as you say, and how was he killed?”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep the details between me and my client for now. I don’t want to betray his trust. It’s bad enough the couple that backed out on him know. Let’s just say he had to be extremely strong, extremely angry, or both, but he was only sixteen. He definitely deserves another chance, and right now it’s either me or a halfway house, and I get the feeling he wouldn’t do well there.”
He just looked at her for a few moments before breaking the silence.
“Jaci, you sure you’re not getting too involved? I mean, I agree with what you’re saying and all, but you’ve gotta keep in mind that he’s been in prison for fifteen years. He’s a grown man now, and probably hardened from…”
Jaci stared at him, grateful when he trailed off and stopped trying to tell her how much to care about her clients. After a few more seconds, Frank threw up his hands, letting the topic go.
“Thanks for all your hard work getting that grant approved, by the way. Not many people even think about that sort of thing. You know Cynthia and I would sponsor another one, but with Chloe graduating this year, we’re gonna have our hands full just keeping up with all of her last minute needs and sponsoring the one I picked up already.”
Following another brief pause, he added, nearly whispering this time, “But, Jaci, please be careful. I know how much you want this to work, and I know you care what happens to this man, but if this gets to be too much for you, don’t hesitate to—”
The mention of graduation was a painful trigger, as was his allusion to her not being able to handle things. She stared at the carpet, reminded of the fact that she would never see her Jathany graduate from high school. She didn’t want to put a damper on Frank’s excitement, and the last thing she wanted was to pull him into her personal hell, but she was not about to be told to play bureaucrat when a man’s future was in her hands.
She kept her face averted. “Now, Frank, you know me. I’ll make it work.”
Before he could respond, she threw up her hand as she turned and headed toward the elevator. She couldn’t let him see her crying.
Despite her recent antisocial behavior, she enjoyed learning about people and getting to know them better. That was the main reason she’d chosen social work as a career. She wasn’t sure why, but she had always been interested in people who had been thrown away by society.
Jaci considered it her calling to be their crusader. In order to gain more experience and insight, she had completed her practicums and internships in prison settings, written her dissertation on felony offenses, sentencing, and rehabilitation, and worked in the system since college.
She decided against returning to her apartment, fearful that her cold feet would plant themselves in Mobile and she’d never make it to the prison in Atmore. Her car was parked just across from the elevators, so she filled two plastic bags with ice from the machine at the office, then opened the back door and dropped them in the traveling cooler she always kept with her during summer months.
Next, she hoisted the cooler onto the passenger seat for easy access to her chilled lemonade, her go-to drink since the ugly reports about drinking too much coffee making people nervous had started to get to her. Atmore was only a few miles from Mobile, so she drove the distance in silence, mulling over the information she had read in Andreus’ file.
Instinctively, Jaci placed her hand over her heart, her mind vacillating between caution over the way Andreus had killed his adoptive mother’s boyfriend, and admiration because he had done it to protect her. With the exception of a trained killer, Shannon’s method of killing his adoptive mother’s boyfriend would have given anyone pause.
He had force fed Karl Pugh the dinner the man had thrown in his adoptive mother’s face, stuffed his nose with table napkins, then broke his back with his bare hands. The amount of force it took to break a man’s back without the use of a weapon was substantial, and although Andreus’ bio listed his height as 6’3” with a weight of 200 pounds, she still marveled over the fact that he had only been sixteen when the crime was committed.
On the other hand, Andreus Shannon was the only parolee out of her five initial outreach clients who had not been protecting or avenging himself. Instead, he had done it to protect his adoptive mother, who had testified on his behalf before later dying of a heart attack.
The closer she got to the prison, the more jangled her nerves became. Tears flooded her eyes, making tracks down her cheeks. She was back in the car on the interstate, trapped and helpless to save Jathany, James’ inert body crumpled over the steering wheel and tilted at an impossible angle, blood flowing freely from his temple.
Jaci’s hands started shaking so badly, tears flooding her eyes non-stop, that she had to pull over to the side of the road. Suppose I really can’t handle this. My life is such a mess right now. I’m such a mess. I can’t take care of my own life, let alone help someone who’s been in prison for fifteen years get his life together. I couldn’t even take care of my own child. I can’t do this.
Andreus stood leaning against the prison gate. His curly, blue-black hair and rich tan skin were offset by piercing emerald green eyes. He knew all too well what was behind him, so he looked straight ahead, glancing periodically down the road in hopes of seeing a car coming for him. All of his belongings were contained in a brown duffel bag at his side.