The Most Feared Woman in Prison Tried to Humiliate a Quiet New Inmate—Until She Whispered One Name That Changed Everything

Mara kept her hands flat on the table. "I filed payroll records. I was twenty-one. I never met Thomas. I left after three weeks because they asked me to change a driver's mileage logs."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't connect the company to your case until I saw the payment. I should've asked more questions. You can fire me."

Lucie wanted an easy villain. Mara's shame looked too much like Rosa's and Valérie's: people who saw a corner of something wrong and tried not to look at the rest.

"Don't ask me to trust you," Lucie said. "Show me what you can prove."

Mara nodded. "Keene kept an audio recording Thomas made the night before the fire. He wants to submit it under oath, but the original file is missing. Your brother said there would be a second copy inside Briar Creek."

"What did he say about the money?"

"That he took it." Mara swallowed. "He helped approve two transports before he discovered the women never reached their listed destinations. The eighty thousand was his payment to keep quiet. He kept it long enough to trace the account, then turned it over to Keene."

Lucie's eyes burned. She remembered calling Thomas a hero to Nora. Heroes weren't supposed to have invoices for other people's suffering.

"He knew he was guilty," Mara said. "That's why he recorded everything. He was trying to bring them home."

Lucie returned to her cell with a harder purpose. Truth would not bring Thomas back, but it could stop her from making him into somebody he'd never been.

Valérie listened as she repeated what Mara had said. Then the older woman sat very still.

"Thomas told me something before the fire," she whispered. "He said, 'If they give you one name, look for the person who signs twice.'"

Lucie spread her memory of the transport pages across her mind. Mercer signed the departures. Someone else approved the invoices and the supposed releases. Two signatures, same handwriting.

She turned toward Valérie. "Who runs Vale Transit now?"

"Gideon Vale," she answered. "He's the man you saw behind the tower glass."