LINKED (The Bening Files Book 1) by Trautmiller Rachel

Author:Trautmiller, Rachel [Trautmiller, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: RT-Miller Publishers
Published: 2014-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A long time ago, wrist and ankle shackles would have humiliated Matthew.

Back then, he had always been the one administering the cold, offending metal while reading the Miranda Rights. He’d been the one staring into the face of crime, daring it to make one wrong move.

He’d tried his hardest to make this world a safer place. To protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Before Cassidy, his job had been his life. Not because of what he could get out of it, but what he could give back.

He was somebody. Doing something important.

For the last ten years, he’d been exactly the opposite. Just a guy who killed the woman he loved and couldn’t prove otherwise. A guy who didn’t care about anything, surrounded by a lot of the same.

At first he’d been numb, trying to grieve for Cassidy in a halfway house surrounded by people, some trying to do the same, others just biding their time. It hadn’t taken long for the numbness to turn into boiling rage. He supposed he’d turned it on Cassidy first because she was dead and unable to defend herself against his recriminations.

If she’d been honest with him… How many times had that thought run through his mind?

He rotted away six months of his life in that halfway house. During the day, he wore himself out physically and at night mentally, thinking of ways he could have changed the outcome of that April day.

By the time the trial went to court, he didn’t have much hope that the judicial system, in which he had served faithfully, would prevail in court. Maybe he’d harbored a small sliver of faith anyway, but it had died as he’d heard the jurors give their indictment.

“We the jurors, on December fifteenth, nineteen-ninety, find Matthew Bryan Blaney guilty of second degree murder of Cassidy Riley Bening.”

“All right, Blaney.” Aaronson checked each cuff at his ankle, followed by the chain that led up and around his waist, then connected to his wrist shackles. “Let’s go.”

Another prison guard, one Matthew had never see before today, opened the door of the blue van they’d ridden in. Rain pelted his face and body as he exited. Both guards flanked him on either side once he reached the pavement.

They were doing their job. Making sure this routine visit to the Oral Surgeon stayed that way. So far, he couldn’t see any way to change that. Every scenario he’d imagined since they’d hauled him into the van over an hour ago had too many variables.

They all required planning. Or sheer luck. That had run out when they pulled the bars of his cell shut for the very first time.

The guards led him into a smaller, white building. Warm, dry air hit his face upon entering. The waiting room was empty. A short woman with brown hair held open a door that Matthew assumed separated the waiting area from the surgical area. She smiled at the guards, then at him.

It didn’t reach her eyes. How many times had

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