Chapter 7: The Release
The governor signed the full pardon twelve days later.
The evidence was overwhelming. New DNA from the crime scene, re-examined with modern methods, belonged to an unknown male. The paid witness recanted. Lila’s confession sealed the case. Gavin Cole walked out of the Huntsville Unit a free man at 10:17 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
The sunlight hurt his eyes. The air smelled different. Reporters shouted questions from behind barriers. He ignored them all and walked straight to the car where Chloe and his parents waited.
Chloe threw herself into his arms the moment he opened the door. She buried her face in his neck and cried the way she hadn’t allowed herself to cry in the visitation room.
“I knew you didn’t do it,” she whispered. “I knew.”
Gavin held her until the shaking stopped.
The drive home was quiet. No one knew what to say to a man who had spent five years waiting to die. Gavin stared out the window at fields he had not seen in half a decade and tried to remember how to be a person instead of a number.
May you like
That night he sat on the edge of Chloe’s bed while she slept and whispered the same promise he had repeated to himself in the cell.
“I’m here now. I’m not leaving again.”
