Chapter 38 · Locked from the Inside

The cops dragged Helen out at six-forty in the morning.

She stopped on the front steps, cuffed wrists high, just to smooth the front of her cardigan. Like she was heading into Sunday service instead of a county holding cell.

I couldn't stand up. My knees shook too hard, so I stayed planted on the third riser, clutching Owen’s brass key so tight the edges cut into my skin. He’d torn it off his neck eleven hours ago and shoved it into my palm. I hadn't opened my fingers once since.

Blood pooled on the foyer marble. Not mine, for a change.

Two guys in blue windbreakers crouched by the balustrade snapping flash photos. A third slipped an evidence bag over the knife I'd been holding four hours ago.

"Ms. Pell."

A federal agent with a bad buzz cut flipped open a manila folder. "Five minutes."

"You get four," I croaked. "My kid's upstairs."

"The stolen fentanyl was logged through a dispensary terminal decommissioned back in June. Six months before the first ampule vanished from your inventory." He flipped a page. "Your ex-partner gave a full sworn statement in Boston at four this morning. No bail."

Three years.