Chapter 14 - The Cell, the Sentence, and the Silence
One year after the trial, I received an official request from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Reid Kessler had filed five formal petitions requesting a non-contact visitation with me at the Coffield Maximum Security Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas.
Against Nolan’s advice, I agreed to go.
Not out of lingering attachment. Not out of spite.
I went because I wanted to close the final chapter of my past with my own hands.
The prison visiting room was cold, smelling of bleach and rusted iron. A thick panel of reinforced bulletproof glass separated the visitors from the inmates.
I sat down on the metal stool, wearing a crisp white blazer and gold watch.
A heavy steel door opened on the inmate side, and Reid was escorted in by two armed guards.
The change in him was absolute.
His formerly thick, styled hair had been shaved to the scalp. He had lost thirty pounds. A jagged scar ran across his left cheekbone from a prison yard altercation. His hands shook continuously as he sat down on the bolted metal stool and picked up the black plastic telephone receiver.
I picked up the receiver on my side and held it to my ear.
“Audrey,” Reid whispered, his voice trembling so hard he could barely pronounce the syllables. Tears immediately spilled down his hollow cheeks. “You... you actually came.”
“I have five minutes, Reid,” I said calmly. “Say what you wanted to say.”
Reid pressed his cuffed hands against the thick glass, his knuckles white.
“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, his chest heaving under the rough white prison uniform. “Every single night when I close my eyes in that concrete cell, I hear your bones breaking on the marble. I see the check. I see how stupid, how blind, how arrogant I was.”
I listened in silence, my heart rate steady, my expression unchanged.
“Tessa played me from day one,” Reid continued desperately. “She made me believe you were trying to ruin me. But it was all her! Audrey, I still love you. I never stopped loving you! If you talk to the governor—if your father calls the pardon board—they will reduce my sentence! I can work for Bellamy Enterprises! I can sweep your floors! I can do anything! Just get me out of here!”
I looked into the eyes of the man I had once thought was my entire future.
I didn't feel hatred. I didn't feel anger.
I felt absolutely nothing.
“Reid,” I said, my voice gentle and definitive.
He leaned closer to the glass, hope flaring wildly in his red-rimmed eyes. “Yes? Yes, Audrey?”
“Do you remember what you told me in Dallas Memorial?” I asked.
He blinked, confusion replacing the desperation.
“You said: ‘That should be enough to keep you quiet.’”
Reid’s face drained of what little color remained.
“You thought forty million dollars could buy my silence,” I continued softly. “You thought human beings could be broken, paid off, and discarded into the dark.”
I slowly reached up and took the telephone receiver away from my ear.
“Audrey! No! Audrey, please!” Reid screamed through the glass, his muffled cries barely penetrating the bulletproof barrier as he banged his fists against the partition.
I placed the telephone securely back on its metal hook.
May you like
I stood up, smoothed the fabric of my white blazer, and turned my back on him.
I walked through the heavy steel exit doors into the bright Texas sunshine, leaving Reid Kessler behind in the cage he had built with his own hands.
