I lay on the bottom bunk, staring at the mesh wiring and torn mattress of the bunk above me, one thought running through my mind.
I’m not like him. I have to trust Shiloh. I’m not like him.
But I wasbehind bars. After going through the humiliating process to get here, those words were flimsy and weak.
I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.
That afternoon, a guard came to tell me my public defender was here. I was handcuffed and taken to the visitors’ room where a tallguy—maybe forty—with a receding hairline and glasses was sitting at a table with a file in front of him.
“Mr. Wentz? I’m Forrest Perry, your court-appointed defender.”
I sat across from him, my handcuffed hands in my lap. Just like my dad had once.
Perry shuffled through the papers. “To be perfectly frank with you, this doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t touch Dowd,” I said. “I found him at this place he hangs out, and I warned him to leave Shiloh alone. That’s it.”
“Because you think it was him who trashed her place.”
“I know it was him.”
“How?”
“He all but told me a few weeks back, before graduation. And the security footage—”
“Shows a guy covered head to toe in black. No prints. No DNA.”
“It was him. And when I confronted him, he confessed and said he was sorry.”
Perry’s brows rose above his glasses. “So you admit to confronting Dowd that night? He’s currently at UCSC Medical in intensive care and said it was you who put him there.”
“He’s lying. That night, I told him to lay off, and I walked away.”
“If that’s true, who beat the hell out of him?”
“Don’t know.”
Perry met my gaze for a minute, then waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s not our job to prove who did, only that you didn’t. But I’m going to be honest, Mr. Wentz, this is an uphill battle. Looking at your files…your history with Dowd…”
Your father’s bloody crime…
“I didn’t do it,” I said. “That should count for something.”
The words sounded stupid and weak in my own ears.
Perry rapped his fingers on the file. “You want to fight this? Enter a not-guilty plea at your arraignment? Because I can talk to the DA and see about cutting a deal. Otherwise, you could be looking at twenty-fiveyears behind bars. Maybe more if the charges stick and the judge decides you intended to kill Frankie.”
The possibility of a life spent in prison made my chest so tight I could hardly breathe. But I had Shiloh. I had tenants who needed me. For the first time, I had something to fight for. The system had ruined my mother. Maybe this time would be different.
“No deal.”
Perry studied my face for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay. Tell me what happened.”
***
My arraignment was the following afternoon. I was bused to the courthouse and marched into a hallway with a dozen other inmates there for the same reason. Shiloh had tried to contact me at County, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of her seeing me there. Or at the hearing, which I knew she and Bibi would show up for. The orange jumpsuit was a uniform of humiliation and degradation. They had called me a criminal at Central High School, and now that was what I was, guilty or not. Less than human. A kind of animal that had to be restrained, caged, and guarded. The cuffs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.