Chapter 3

On my first night in the detention center, they put me in a single cell. It wasn't special treatment.

At two in the morning, the door opened and three women walked in. They were dressed like inmates, but the tattoos on their necks and the calluses on their hands made it obvious they weren't ordinary detainees.

The woman in front crouched down in front of me and pried open my palm to look at it. "Soft hand. A writer's hand, huh?"

Before I could answer, she stood up and stomped on my right index finger. The sound of bone cracking was thin and sharp, and in the quiet cell it was painfully clear.

My whole body curled up like a shrimp.

"What are you screaming for?" She pressed down harder and ground her heel. "Mr. Ford told me to pass this along. This is just the interest."

The second finger. My middle finger. She tilted her head as she stepped on it, like she was studying something entertaining. "Once you're convicted..."

The third finger. My ring finger. "He said he'd make your life a living hell."

I bit down on my sleeve and swallowed the salty metallic taste in my mouth. Sweat soaked through my prison clothes, and my back stuck to the concrete bed.

Before they left, they poured out the only bottle of water in the cell. "If you're thirsty, lick it off the floor yourself."

The lock clicked shut with a dull sound. I cradled my right hand against my chest. Three fingers were bent at unnatural angles, and even the slightest touch sent stabbing pain through me.

The next morning during yard time, I asked a guard to let me see a doctor. "Which hand? Hold it out."

I stuck out my right hand. Three fingers were swollen purple.

He looked at it for two seconds, then shut the door. "Faking it, are you? Your hand looked fine when you came in."

Charles came at noon. With iron bars between us, he sat across from me in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, turning a fountain pen in his hand. "I heard you cried all night."

I hadn't. A few tears had fallen from the pain, that's all. But I didn't explain. There was no point.

"The police are still investigating your aunt's case. The physical evidence doesn't add up." My voice was so hoarse it barely sounded human, and there was a wet rasp in my throat.

"It doesn't need to." He tossed the pen onto the table. "Your parents' testimony. Your sister's testimony. The neighbors' statements. Your psychiatric file. And my aunt's autopsy report: a cement bucket falling from the eighteenth floor. That's enough."

"That building doesn't have an eighteenth floor."

"It will in court." He stood and adjusted his cuff. "Your defense lawyer has already been let go. None of the top twenty law firms in this city will take your case. I made sure of it."

My nails dug into my palm. The three broken fingers couldn't bend, so only my thumb and pinky managed to curl inward. "Charles."

He stopped.

I continued, "Are you really that sure I killed her? Won't you investigate? Won't you go look at that building yourself?"

He didn't turn around. "Why would I? My aunt is already dead. Someone has to pay for it. Your family says that someone is you, so it's you." Then he left.

His dress shoes clicked farther and farther away, and the iron door at the end of the corridor opened and shut.

At dinner, there was suddenly a small mirror in my cell. I didn't know who'd slipped it in. I picked it up and looked once.

The scabbed wound on my forehead was crooked like a centipede. My right hand was swollen like a bun, and the three broken fingers jutted outward at grotesque angles.

I flipped the mirror over and set it facedown on the bed. Then I heard a guard yell from the far end of the hall, "Hey, Inmate 1037, you've got a visitor tomorrow." "Who?" "Your sister."