thing had happened in the hallway upstairs? Did he think they could just pretend it hadn’t?
Could she do that? The idea wasn’t horrid, allowing, as it did, the opportunity to avoid the difficult and awkward conversation she’d envisioned when she’d come down.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Randall Bowe’s wife. I think I’ve found the connection between you and the other people who were recipients of his manipulation.” He told her about his theory of Bowe supporting those who’d been victims of infidelity and punishing those who’d seemingly committed adultery. “He just got it wrong with you, that’s all—since you were faithful and Fritz wasn’t. His wife may be able to give us some insight as to his obsession. The police questioned her when he first went missing, but she was too upset to give them much of anything. Troy is hunting Bowe and I offered to follow up on this end.”
“You want me to go with you to question the wife of the man who put me in prison?”
His gaze pointed, he didn’t back off at all. “I want you to have the opportunity to be involved, if you want to be.”
What type of man was Clarke? Seeming to be able to look inside her, see what she most needed, and then be willing to give it to her?
If she wasn’t standing there living and breathing it, she wouldn’t believe the past forty-eight hours had even happened. It had been easier to comprehend her butt in a prison cell than to wrap her mind around Clarke Colton.
“You know I want to be,” she answered him quietly. “Thank you.”
He nodded. Told her they’d leave at nine thirty, turned as though to head back to his office, and she said, “Gram’s sick.”
Swinging back immediately, he asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
She shrugged. “Probably just a cold. I’ll know more when I see her for myself. But...it scares me...her being there, her age, all those germs...”
“She needs for her attorney to approach the DA for a plea agreement,” he said. And her ire rose again, instantly, as it had the last time they’d been on the topic. Astounding, the depths of emotion she experienced around him. Passion and its shadow side, frustration, like never before. “Or to consider the option if it’s already been offered.”
“She’d rather take her chance with a jury,” she reiterated. In truth, Everleigh didn’t know that waiting for a trial would be good for her grandmother. But the woman was of perfectly sound mind and had made her decision. “If the jury is made up of people from Grave Gulch, she probably has a good chance of getting off.” The Free Granny crusade was ongoing, and growing, according to the news report she’d read the night before when she couldn’t get to sleep.
He frowned, turned to go and turned back. “I don’t want to piss you off, but...will you please just listen for a second with an open mind?”
She prided herself on her ability to see both sides of situations, nodded.
“Once members of the jury are sworn in, they no longer get to make choices based on what they think should happen or what they’d like to see happen. They become representatives of the court and are under legal obligation to make decisions based only on fact and law. And Michigan law MCLS 750.349 states that the offense of kidnapping happens if one knowingly and willfully seizes another with the intent to hold that person for ransom. She seized a toddler. And she sent a ransom demand. That’s all the prosecutor has to prove, which they will within minutes, and the jury will have to make a determination based on that evidence.
“The mitigating factors will come in during the sentencing stage, so she likely wouldn’t get the maximum sentence, which is life in prison. But she could get any other number of years based on other case sentencings of toddler abductions for ransom. And...there’s an off chance that she could get off with time served and a fifty-thousand-dollar fine. Regardless, she’ll be in prison for months, at the very least, preparing for trial.”
She could cover the fine. So, there was hope. There was hope! Her trial had been considered speedy and she’d been in prison two months. Gram was sick. But there was hope.
And she stared at him. “You have Michigan law memorized?”
“No,” he told her straight on. “I looked it up the first night you were here. And talked to a lawyer friend.”
He had her back. Standing there with him, knowing that, she almost started to cry.
“But if, on the other hand, you leave this to DA Parks, she could be out of prison immediately, and maybe never have to go back. If that’s stipulated in the plea agreement.”
She stiffened. “How would that work?”
“If she pled guilty and the DA recommends house arrest while awaiting sentencing, she could be released almost immediately. The DA has discretion, and the ability to make recommendations to the judge, without a trial. It would mean that Hannah would have a felony charge against her, because she’d be admitting guilt. But with the DA not presenting all of their evidence, but rather recommending that the crime only warrants certain punishment, the judge could be more lenient.”
She shook her head. “You said she could potentially not have to go back to prison.”
“The judge can sentence her to home confinement. And if that’s what the DA agrees to, chances are good that’s what she’d get.”
Seriously. Not an option she’d had on her list. People from her walk of life didn’t generally get the DA’s ear. “You talked to your lawyer friend about this?”
“I did.”
“And this is a real possibility?”