Blind Justice by Ethan Cross Page B

a hand to his cheek.
    “I miss him too. But now ’ s not the time to fall apart. He wouldn ’ t want that.”
    “It ’ s too much,” he whispered. “I ’ ve lost too much already. I can ’ t imagine going on without him.”
    “I ’ m not going to listen to you feel sorry for yourself. You ’ re better than this, stronger than this. Come on. Let ’ s get this mess cleaned up.”
    Raising his hand to her face, he traced the lines of her features and stroked her thick, wavy hair. The prominent cheek bones. The soft skin. The full lips.
    He had loved her for as long as he could remember. When they were growing up, Annabelle and Gerald had been his true brother and sister, much more so than his actual flesh and blood siblings. His emotions had felt strange and confusing at first. Then he had fought them out of respect for Gerald and the differences in age between Annabelle and himself. A three year gap had seemed like a lot when he was seventeen. He had moved on in college, found the love of his life, married, started a family. Beth had been his everything, but through it all, his love for Annabelle had never flickered out. Even though Beth had been gone for many years, he still felt guilty for the feelings he harbored toward his best friend ’ s sister. And now he couldn ’ t fight them any longer.
    He pulled her close and kissed her deeply and passionately. Her skin smelled like jasmine, and he tasted strawberries on her lips. The feel of her soft skin against his gave him strength and hope.
    Then it was gone. She shoved him away. He could hear the tears in her voice as she whispered, “Damn you.”
    She stood and moved to the door. “Damn you, Deacon. How dare you?”
    “Annabelle, I—”
    “Don ’ t. Do you have any idea how many years I ’ ve waited for you? And now you pull this.”
    “ I don’ t understand.”
    “You ’ re devastated and looking for something to hang on to, anything to make you forget. You ’ re looking for a port in the storm, an anchor, and I just happened to be here. But I ’ m not going to be your painkiller. I deserve better.”
    “It ’ s not like that. I—”
    She slammed the bathroom door and stormed off down the hall. He heard her angry footfalls moving down the stairs, his front door opening and slamming shut, and her car starting up. His hands ached from his stupid outburst, and his heart ached from her words and the pain and hurt he had heard within them. Sitting in the glass and drywall dust of the ruined bathroom, Deacon Munroe felt more alone than he ever had in his life.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Under normal circumstances, Jonas Black would have liked the private cell in the Administrative Segregation building better than the communal living of the general population dormitory. Unfortunately, the prisoner in the cell directly above his was a member of the Southern Brotherhood, and some kind of design flaw in the Ad Seg ventilation system allowed the man to piss into his vent and have it rain down right onto Black ’ s cot. He had moved his mattress to the floor, but the smell inside the tiny block-walled space was overwhelming. And the Alabama heat seemed to be multiplied by twenty inside the walls of Ad Seg. Complaining would do him little good and only announce to the white supremacist with the overactive bladder that his attacks had succeeded. Jonas refused to give him the satisfaction.
    A guard —petite, black, and female—knocked on the small glass window embedded in the cell door. Jonas couldn ’ t imagine the kind of things she had to put up with as a guard at Holman, and he respected her for that. “Black, you have a visitor.”
    “A visitor? Who?”
    As the female officer unlocked the chuck hole used to insert a food tray into the cell, she said, “Do I look like your butler? They told me you have a visitor and to come get you. That ’ s what I ’m doing. Let’ s get cuffed up.”
    He knew the drill. He turned around backwards and stuck his hands