Part 3
Garrison looked through the glass without blinking.
“You’re in no position to bargain.”
“Then go back upstairs.”
His gloved hand tightened against the edge of the opening. The leather creaked.
Mara stepped closer. “You came down here after dark because something I said frightened you. That gives me one thing your office didn’t.”
“What?”
“Your attention.”
The pain in his face sharpened. He glanced toward the officers’ station, perhaps checking whether anyone could hear.
“I was twenty-eight,” he said. “A deputy following a court order.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I was twelve.”
His eyes shifted.
Mara had not planned to tell him. The memory had lived inside her as broken pieces: her mother’s hand crushing hers, frost silvering the weeds, men shouting beside trucks, and Rose kneeling to fasten a cloth pouch beneath Mara’s coat.
Don’t let anyone take this from you.
Then smoke. A flare arcing through darkness. Rose turning back.
“You wore a tan jacket,” Mara said. “Not a uniform coat. There was mud on your left knee. My grandmother saw the flare in your hand and called you Tommy because that was what your badge said.”
Garrison’s lips parted.
“She called you son after that,” Mara continued. “Not because you deserved kindness. Because she wanted to give you one last chance to behave like someone’s child.”
The warden withdrew from the window as if she had struck him.
Mara heard his breathing, fast and uneven.
“Open the door,” she said.
Instead, he closed the viewing panel.
His footsteps retreated down the corridor. The outer gate clanged, and Della’s voice returned through the vent.
“Well?”
“He remembered.”
“You going to help him?”
Mara sat on the bunk. “I don’t know.”
“That means yes, eventually.”
“It means I don’t know.”
Della gave a dry laugh. “I killed a man who hurt my son and another who spent eleven years hurting me. I’ve had plenty of time to study the difference between punishment and relief. People who want punishment speak quickly. People who want relief take their time.”
Mara lay down with the blanket pulled to her chin. “Go to sleep, Della.”
“Can’t. Toilet’s leaking.”
Three days later, the disciplinary charge disappeared from the computer system. A lieutenant told Mara the electrical failure had been attributed to an overloaded circuit and escorted her back to C-Unit without explanation.
Kline walked behind them.
His right hand was bandaged.
Ruth stood when Mara entered the dorm, but this time she did not approach like an executioner. She pointed to an empty bunk near the window.
“We moved Jasmine up top.”
Mara glanced toward the young woman, who nodded. “I don’t mind.”
“You gave me the bed by the bathroom.”
“I gave you the only open bed,” Ruth said. “This one’s open now.”
Mara placed her folded blanket on the mattress. A cup of warm water waited on the shelf beside it, along with two tea bags and a clean pair of socks.
“Who died?” she asked.
Ruth almost smiled. “Nobody today.”
After evening count, she sat beside Mara.
“Kline did offer me something,” Ruth said. “He said if I made you afraid enough to request protective custody, he’d write a favorable note for my parole board.”
“Why did he want me isolated?”
“Didn’t say.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed he wanted it badly enough to pay.”
Ruth looked at her hands. The bluebird tattoo had faded into a blur of wings.
“I was wrong.”
“You changed your mind.”
“After I had a blade in my hand.”
“That still counts.”
Ruth studied her. “You don’t want an apology?”
“I want to know who told Kline to do it.”
“You think it came from Garrison?”
“I think officers like Kline rarely invent work.”
The following morning, Mara reported to the prison sewing shop. Red Creek held a state contract for industrial laundry bags, and women worked beneath bright fluorescent lights feeding gray canvas through old machines. The air smelled of dust, oil, and hot thread.
Kline supervised the floor with his bandaged hand tucked against his chest. Whenever he passed Mara’s station, he found a reason to stop.
“Your seam’s crooked.”
“It’s within the guide.”
“You arguing?”
“I’m measuring.”
At lunch, he ordered her to remain behind for a locker search. Lieutenant Evan Shaw joined him, carrying a clear evidence bag.
Ruth, assigned to the next row, paused at the door.
“Keep moving, Daley,” Kline said.
Ruth went into the corridor but stopped where the glass panel allowed her to see inside.
Mara stood beside her open locker while Shaw removed her soap, spare uniform, and folded letters. Kline searched the pockets of the coat hanging from the hook. His left hand moved inside one pocket and stayed there too long.
Mara watched his elbow.
“What are you putting in?”
He turned. “Excuse me?”
“Take your hand out slowly.”
Kline’s expression became almost cheerful. “Sounds like somebody’s nervous.”
His fingers emerged holding a plastic packet of white powder.
Shaw reached for his radio. “Possible contraband.”
Kline’s bandaged hand suddenly convulsed.
He gasped. The packet slipped from his other fingers and struck the floor, splitting at one corner. Powder scattered across his boot.
“Get it off,” he said.
Shaw stared. “What?”
“My hand.”
Kline tore at the bandage. Beneath it, the bruises had deepened into five dark impressions around his wrist. The skin above them was swollen and glossy.
He stumbled against the locker. His shoulder struck the door, and a second unopened packet fell from inside his own jacket.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Ruth saw it through the glass.
So did the ceiling camera.
Shaw looked from the packet at Mara’s feet to the one beside Kline’s boot.
“Captain,” he said carefully, “why do you have another bag?”
Kline’s face had gone gray. “Secure the inmate.”
“I haven’t touched her.”
“That’s an order.”
Shaw did not move. “The camera’s recording.”
Kline looked up.
The small red light above them was steady.
Mara picked up neither packet. “You should call medical.”
He left the shop clutching his arm. By dinner, every unit at Red Creek knew that a guard had tried to plant contraband on the new woman from Kentucky and dropped his own supply when his hand stopped working.
Nobody used the word curse in front of an officer.
They used it everywhere else.
That night, a laundry worker brought Ruth a folded washcloth. Inside was an old newspaper clipping wrapped in plastic. Della had sent it through the network of kitchen carts, infirmary linens, and women who had learned to carry messages without appearing to notice one another.
Ruth spread the clipping on Mara’s mattress.
The photograph had faded, but the caption remained readable:
DEPUTIES ASSIST WITH COURT-ORDERED CLEARANCE AT MILLSTONE HOLLOW
Behind the reporter stood three county deputies and two men in private-security jackets. A row of trailers burned in the distance. The youngest deputy held a road flare in his right hand. Thomas Garrison was smiling…
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