I looked at him.
I looked at the liver spots on Beatrice’s throat, at the stolen emerald resting against her chest, at Khloe’s smug, empty smile.
I did not scream. I did not cry.
I slowly, deliberately lowered the black plastic receiver back onto its metal cradle.
I stood up from the stool.
I leaned down to the intercom grille at the bottom of the glass, looked straight into my husband’s laughing eyes, and spoke five words:
“Thank you for the map, Silas.”
Chapter 4: The Shattered Glass
The following morning at 9:55 AM, the observation holding wing of the Metropolitan Detention Center was bathed in the harsh, clinical light of six high-output halide floodlamps.
I stood in the center of the intake vestibule, dressed in a standard orange corrections jumpsuit, my wrists and ankles secured by high-tensile transport chains connected to a heavy steel belly-chain around my waist.