Chapter 3 - A Debt in the Dark
The woman in the next segregation cell had a cough that sounded like a door tearing off its hinges.
"You the one who dropped Valérie?" she called through the vent.
"Who's asking?"
"June Carter. Twenty-six months for driving the getaway car while my boyfriend robbed a pharmacy. I didn't know about the gun. Judge didn't care."
Lucie pressed her back against the cold wall. "You know what P-17 means?"
The coughing stopped.
"Where'd you hear that?" June whispered.
"Somebody left me a note."
"Then somebody wants you buried. P-17 isn't a cell. It's a box in the chapel storage inventory. And every woman who asks about it gets transferred."
"Transferred where?"
"That's the problem. Nobody knows."
At count, an officer slid dinner through the slot. June made a sharp choking sound next door, followed by a thud. Lucie called for medical help until her throat burned. The guard kept walking.
"She's not faking," Lucie shouted. "Check her!"
The guard stopped. "Quit making noise, Navarro."
Lucie pulled a metal cup against the bars in a deafening rhythm. Women down the tier joined her. By the time Raines arrived with a nurse, twenty cells were rattling.
Nurse Rosa Alvarez knelt beside June with an emergency inhaler. Her expression tightened when she saw June's empty prescription packet. "Who discontinued this?"
"Administrative order," the guard muttered.
Rosa looked through Lucie's slot. "You did the right thing."
"Then tell me who stopped her medication."
Rosa's eyes flicked toward the ceiling camera. "Ask me in the chapel."
An hour later, June spoke through the vent, her voice raw but alive. "I owe you."
"Just tell me the truth."
"The truth?" June gave a bitter laugh. "Last month I watched a woman walk through the chapel door with two officers. Her name was Denise Bell. Three days later, her bed was empty. They told us she went home."
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"And?"
"Denise was serving life."
