The woman’s nails rattle against the counter and I push the cash forward. She counts out the money, blue nails fanning through the air like rainbows. “Eighteen dollars,” she announces. “I’ll put it under your name; when you get transferred it’ll go in your canteen account.” Eighteen dollars sounds like a small amount. What will I be able to buy in prison with eighteen dollars? From her expression, not a lot. She stacks the bills and puts them into an envelope. “Next time you get a visitor, have them put more in your account.” She says the words matter-of-factly, like my stream of visitors will be frequent and may start any minute. I chew on my bottom lip, the fat muscle thick between my teeth, and say nothing. I will have no visitors. Of that, I’m certain.

CHAPTER 61

Present

I DON’T LIKE it.” Detective Brenda Boles sucks a sip of coffee between her teeth, the wet sound of it conjuring up an image of brown-stained dental diagrams. She sets down the cup. Damn her dentist and his posters, cheerfully tacked up on walls, like anyone really wants to stare at gingivitis when getting their incisors scraped.

“Don’t say that.” David leans back in his chair, the front foot of it lifting up.

“You agree. You know you do.” He better. Otherwise their whole camaraderie, the connection between them formed when two individuals share the same air for a decade, would be reduced to shit. Hell, a rookie could figure out right now that something smells wrong, the girl folding over so easily. Something changed in her eyes during the last hour, a glaze settling in at times, her mind taking her somewhere that was not the room, was not the questioning. Where had she gone? And what had she seen, in that place, to cause her to open her mouth and spew out that bullshit confession?

David’s phone rings and he shifts, reaching a hand into the front pocket. “Reuber,” he barks. She listens, his grunts and mutters the type that traditionally lead to answers.

When he hangs up, she pounces. “What?”

“Jeremy Pacer’s house exploded six months ago. He was supposed to still be in it. Barely escaped alive.”

“How are we just now finding out about this?”

“The house was in his grandmother’s name, over in Prestwick. He was looked at as more of a tenant; the case was determined, after speaking to Pacer, to be a home invasion gone wrong. They broke in, found nothing, and torched the place in retribution.”

“Home invasions hitting Prestwick now?” Brenda asks skeptically.

He shrugs. “Blanchard and Jones took it.” And that is all he needs to say. Two cops months from retirement. They probably didn’t even ride out to the scene. She stands.

“Wanting to talk to Tom now?” He looks at the clock.

“Might as well. Could be a second attempted murder tacked onto Madden.”

“Could be a coincidence.” He holds the door open for her and she pauses, looking into his face.

“It’s not a coincidence.”

“Then why are you scowling?”

“Because something is wrong. I just don’t know what it is.”

“You know that three hours ago you were gunning for this girl with everything you had, right?”

She steps into the hall and moves toward the DA’s office with purpose. “Yeah, well. Then she confessed.”

CHAPTER 62

Present

I AM PUT in a cell with four others. They are spread out over a room with six beds, two of them clearly unused, both top bunks. I guess there is a point in life when you quit fighting over the top bunk, and prison age seems to be it. I step inside the door, am asked to turn, provide my wrists, and they unlock my cuffs. Freedom. I rub my wrists and watch the door behind me slide shut. Not free. I put my hand on the metal and stare through the window. On the other side, the guard’s impassive face looks away, calls something to the other guard, and laughs. I take a step back and turn to the room.

All four faces stare at me, slack and expressionless, as if the prison walls have sucked out their souls.

I smile. No one returns the gesture.

My lack of interaction with the outside world has spoiled me to how annoying others are. Here, in a cell in booking, we are all waiting for our arraignment, or bail to post, or for a transport. A marathon before us of nothingness, no books, no magazines, no TV to break up the monotony. I lay in a top bunk against the wall and listen to things that annoy me.

The woman below me cracks her knuckles.

The woman standing paces, each step of her tennis shoes making a sucking sound that reminds me exactly how dirty this floor must be.

The woman in a chair, seated by the door, talks to anyone who will listen. She is here because some sumbitch at work jacked her wallet and got what he deserved. That confuses me, since in an earlier piece of the monologue, she rattled out that she works at her neighbor’s house and takes care of a bunch of asshole kids. I close my eyes and picture the scenario. Kids. Sumbitches. Getting what is deserved.

No one, other than the sumbitch-getting woman by the door, has said anything to me. Which is a good thing, since I am too brittle right now. I feel as if my life has worn through my skin, like the skin has gotten thin and deteriorated, my elbows and hips beginning to poke through, the entire experience of the last two days a pressure cooker on my body, the air getting hotter and hotter, Jeremy getting farther and farther, the skin cooking like bacon under the heat, those worn edges curling up, the surface one hard push away from breaking open, my soul easing out like red-hot lava. If you poke, I will break. If I break, hell will pour out and I will not be able to get it back in.

I am just four hours in and I hate this place. Which feels familiar. Which feels right.

“Here’s the key. Dumpster downstairs empties on Thursdays, and is normally filled by Tuesday, so get your trash down early. Mailman comes in the afternoon, if you got anything to go out, have it in the box by noon.” He rubbed at his nose, and a line of snot got smeared. I looked away. Trash? I hadn’t even thought about that. Mail? Would I need to mail something? How would I do that?

“The utilities are already hooked up?” I was beginning to panic, I could feel the push of anxious blood, moving to my head and starting a mosh pit there.

“Yeah. You know…” He smiled and I saw a piece of pepper stuck in his teeth. “I’m right downstairs. If you need anything, you just swing by.”

I nodded. I will not be swinging by. I will have to learn to not need anything. He had no idea, but this is the last time I intended on speaking to him.

He reached for the door and palmed the steel for a minute, testing it. When he turned back, he and the piece of pepper smiled at me again. “It was smart, getting a new door. You know I’ve been here three years and you’re the only one who’s had the door replaced? First off, I mean. Doors get broken all the time, need replacing. But no one ever uses a door like this.” He knocked on the surface. “This thing is serious. Who you trying to keep out?”