I froze for a moment, squinting against the unusually bright sun, my hand clutching the worn canvas bag that held my personal belongings. Inside that bag was all that remained of my former life. A small plastic evidence envelope contained a pair of tarnished earrings Alvin had given me once, a cracked compact mirror, and a faded photograph of Jasmine and me laughing on Folly Beach—the last summer before everything fell apart.
While a guard completed the final paperwork, I signed the release forms mechanically, trying not to notice the indifference in her eyes. To the system, I would always be a criminal. The one who stole nearly a million dollars from the company I once worked for. And they didn’t care that I was innocent.
“You’re free now, Harrove,” the guard said, dismissively handing me the envelope with my discharge papers. “Don’t come back.”
I nodded silently, my heart pounding too loudly in my chest. With each step outside the prison complex, my legs felt like jelly. Along the chain-link fence, I spotted an inconspicuous gray sedan. Behind the wheel sat Jasmine Overton, the only person who hadn’t turned away from me throughout these years.
Jasmine jumped out, her short hair glinting in the sun, and enveloped me in a tight embrace. I felt a lump rise in my throat, but I held back, resolved not to cry anymore. I had decided long ago that tears were for the weak.
“Let’s get out of here.” Jasmine glanced around nervously, as if the guards might change their minds. “Better not to attract attention.”
I climbed into the passenger seat, the smell of leather and old takeout welcoming me. The car pulled away, taking me from the place where I had spent seven years, two months, and eleven days of my life. Jasmine switched on the radio, trying to fill the awkward silence, then turned it off after a minute.
“You okay?” she asked, glancing at me.
“I’m alive.” I stared out the window at the passing landscape—strip malls, pawn shops, and a Waffle House. Memories flooded back suddenly, like a dam breaking. I could almost hear the laughter of my co-workers, smell the coffee from the break room, feel the familiar ache of a long day’s work.
Before the Fall
That day was forever etched in my mind, clear as if it were yesterday. A typical Monday morning at Excel Partners. I was deep into the quarterly report when two men in dark suits walked into my office. Their expressions were serious, and I felt a chill creep down my spine.
“Naomi Harrove? We’re with financial crimes. We need to ask you some questions about wire transfers to Blue Spectrum Consulting.”
At first, I didn’t understand what they were talking about. The words bounced off me, heavy and foreign. They took me to a conference room and showed me documents with my signature on them—documents I had never seen before. Payment orders for huge sums. Eight hundred seventy-two thousand dollars. Contracts with a company I had never heard of.
“This is some kind of mistake,” I repeated over and over, my voice rising in desperation.
By evening, the mistake had turned into an absolute nightmare. They found a program for unauthorized transfers on my work computer. On my home computer, they discovered search queries about offshore accounts. Then, they uncovered a Cayman Islands account in my name, where part of the stolen money had been routed. My heart sank as I realized I was being framed.
When they brought me home with a search warrant, I looked to Alvin for support. But his expression was cold, bewildered. “Naomi, what have you done? How could you?”
His words cut through me, sharp and unforgiving. I didn’t understand then. It wasn’t until the preliminary hearing that everything began to unravel. I spotted Alvin whispering to the district attorney, and my heart sank further. And there was Tiana Mosley, a former dancer Alvin had once defended. We had laughed over dinners, shared drinks, but in that courthouse hallway, she looked at me with barely concealed triumph.
Everything became painfully clear when Alvin refused to hire me a good lawyer, citing a conflict of interest. Instead, I got an inexperienced public defender who didn’t even challenge the obviously fabricated evidence. I was sentenced to seven years for large-scale financial fraud while Alvin sat in the front row, holding Tiana’s hand.
