Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Glass
"You planned that fight," Deputy Warden Mercer said.
He sat across from Lucie in a windowless interview room, his tie perfectly centered. A camera blinked over the door. Mercer placed a photograph between them. It showed Lucie at her brother's funeral, one hand gripping the arm of her nine-year-old daughter, Nora.
"You've got a beautiful child," he said.
"Keep her out of this."
"Stop turning my prison into a theater."
Lucie knew the look. The men who had testified against Thomas wore it whenever they thought the evidence had disappeared.
Three months earlier, Lucie had been convicted of stealing sealed financial records from a county courthouse. The records had appeared in her car after a traffic stop. Her public defender called it a hopeless case. Lucie called it a frame-up. Neither description had changed the verdict.
"Why is an administrator talking to me about a yard fight?" she asked.
Mercer tapped the picture. "Because your file says you're stubborn. I prefer practical people."
He turned off the tabletop recorder. "Your brother made practical people very uncomfortable."
Lucie's pulse jumped. "You knew Thomas?"
"Everybody knew Thomas by the end." Mercer leaned closer. "Your daughter lives with Rachel Hart on Bell Street. Yellow porch. Broken swing. You should be grateful she isn't here."
Lucie shoved back her chair. Two officers moved at the door.
Mercer switched the recorder on. "Inmate became agitated and threatened staff," he said evenly. "Recommend restricted communication privileges."
Raines escorted her down a narrow hall. His grip loosened only when they reached a blind spot near the laundry doors.
"Don't answer questions when he turns that recorder off," he muttered.
"Then why do you work for him?"
Raines wouldn't look at her. "Because I thought this was a job."
In her segregation cell, Lucie found a folded scrap under the mattress. Three words had been written in block letters.
May you like
THE CHAPEL. P-17.
Beneath them was a fresh drop of blood.
