Chapter 9 - The Man Behind the Glass
Blackwater State Prison was three hours from campus. I'd never been more afraid of a conversation.
Miriam arranged the visit. Daniel Price had spent almost twenty-two years inside, most of them refusing a plea deal that would require him to admit he started the fire. He was fifty-one now, with gray at his temples and shoulders bent by a life lived under fluorescent lights.
He sat across from me at the visiting-room table and studied my face.
"They said you were a lawyer," he said.
"Miriam is. I'm Emily."
"Emily Price. Your daughter."
His chair scraped back. "Don't do that."
I took out the hospital wristband. Beside it I placed Nora's photograph and the birth certificate. Daniel didn't touch any of them.
"They told me she died," he said.
"I know."
"No. You don't." His voice rose, then broke. "I buried a little pink blanket because there was no body for me to see. I buried my daughter in my head every day for twenty-two years."
I wanted to reach across the table. I was afraid he'd pull away.
"I didn't know you existed until I turned eighteen," I said. "I've spent four years making sure I wasn't wrong."
Daniel finally touched the photograph. "Nora used to sing to you whenever you cried. She sang badly. Loud, too." He gave a helpless laugh. "She named you after her grandmother. Emily Rose."
Nobody had ever told me my middle name had a reason.
We talked until the guard announced ten minutes. I told him about school, my tiny apartment, the river research that had led me back to Bennett Industrial. He asked whether I was safe. It was the first time anyone in my family had asked and really meant it.
"I left work early the night of the fire," Daniel said. "You had a fever. Nora went back for copies of the shipping records. I begged her not to go."
"Who locked the east door?"
He stared at the wall. "A security guard named Otis Bell told my attorney he'd heard Richard give an order over the radio. Otis was going to testify."
"What happened?"
"He disappeared the night before my trial."
May you like
The guard called time. Daniel stood, then turned back.
"If you find him," he said, "ask what Richard wanted burned."
