Chapter 12 - Three Missing Pieces
Sol's checkers board was older than Owen. Its red paint had rubbed off at the corners, and it had three missing pieces that nobody bothered replacing. Marcus carried it from the recreation room when the sheriff's deputies asked where Sol kept his personal property.
"Why are you helping?" Deputy Kim asked.
Marcus gave a humorless laugh. "I saw what the warden put in that kid's eyes. I've done plenty of ugly things. I never thought I'd see a boy in our cafeteria."
Kim took the board without promising him anything.
Sol watched as an evidence technician lifted the board's backing. Underneath were dates and initials scratched in straight lines. On the final row was the date Andrew had disappeared.
"Eight men," Sol said. "Eight who were supposed to leave for medical appointments. None came back through the front gate."
"And Finch?"
"He counted the meals after the kitchen stopped sending them to the north wing. Somebody was still eating down there. He wanted to know who."
Harper Doyle came forward with the folded medical glove. Inside was Sol's message, written while she had risked her job to slip it past the guards. She also brought copies of medication requests for men whose official files said they no longer lived at Greywater.
The evidence did not prove everyone was alive. It proved the records couldn't all be true.
Grant returned to Sol's bedside. "Were these men transferred to work somewhere?"
"Andrew thought so. He found invoices for cleanup crews, but our men never got wages, never signed contracts, never got doctors who worked for them."
"Where was the cleanup?"
Sol looked at the scratches on the board. "There's another mark. Andrew made it just before they took him."
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The technician angled a light across the wood. Beside the last date was a single word, pressed so deeply the grain had split.
PIERCE.
