Chapter 17 - The Fire Alarm
“Put the photograph down.” My voice shook, but I stayed by the open door.
Colson smiled. “You care more about a piece of paper than your own safety.”
“I care about the person in it.”
He touched the lighter to one corner. The photograph curled brown. My father, laughing in our backyard, disappeared behind smoke.
I lunged forward, then stopped. Colson wanted me to strike him. One shove and he could write another assault report, give me another sentence, bury me behind another door.
I walked backward into the tier instead. “Officer Colson is burning my personal property,” I shouted. “He's inside my cell. Somebody call a supervisor.”
Doors rattled. Women yelled. Brandi banged her plastic cup against the bars. Across the aisle, two inmates shouted their names and said what they were seeing.
Colson stepped out and grabbed my shoulder. An alarm began to ring. Ward had pulled the fire handle at the far end of the corridor, and the blinking camera over our tier door began recording an evacuation.
“Step away from her, Lieutenant,” he ordered.
Colson looked at him with naked hatred. “You think your testimony protects you?”
“No,” Ward said. “I think the people hearing this might.”
For a moment I thought Colson would hit him. Instead he dropped the lighter. Ward ordered everyone to stay back and called the shift captain. There were too many witnesses for an accident to explain.
Later, Amara cleaned a small burn on my thumb from grabbing the edge of the photograph. She didn't promise everything would be fine. She said she'd been interviewed by Sloan and had turned over the phone found behind the red door. Its files showed transfers ordered without physicians, including the night my father disappeared.
“Did they get to Cedar House?” I whispered.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled. “Because someone tipped the contractor off.”
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The clinic television, tuned to the local news, showed a line of dark vehicles speeding along a county road.
A reporter said Cedar House had gone dark less than an hour before investigators arrived.
