Chapter 10 - The Pills Under the Mattress
Ana spent the night in temporary holding.
Concrete bench. Steel toilet. No clock.
She replayed the search until every second hurt.
Phelps had gone directly to her mattress.
He had not checked the frame first.
He had not run his hand along the seam.
He had reached beneath the same corner where the pills were found.
In the morning, Investigator Shaw came in with Warden Keller.
Ana stood.
“They were planted.”
Keller nodded. “That is being investigated.”
“No. Listen to me. Phelps knew exactly where they were.”
Shaw placed a legal pad on the table. “Tell me everything in order.”
Ana did.
Then she remembered something.
“Renee.”
“What about her?”
“She was awake. She saw where he reached.”
Keller’s face tightened.
“Renee Cole was moved to medical observation at six this morning.”
Ana’s stomach dropped. “Why?”
“Panic attack.”
“Or fear.”
Shaw did not argue.
They checked the unit camera.
The search itself had been recorded.
But the angle did not show Phelps’s hand under the mattress.
The body camera he was required to activate during the search had malfunctioned.
Of course it had.
Denise joined the disciplinary meeting by video.
“This is contamination,” she said. “My client is a cooperating witness in an internal investigation, and the officer she identified as suspicious somehow becomes the person who discovers contraband in her bed?”
The hearing officer postponed the charge.
Ana was returned to the unit.
Renee’s bunk was empty.
On Ana’s pillow sat a folded prison towel.
Inside was one half of Renee’s daughter’s photograph.
Nothing else.
Ana found Grant during afternoon movement.
“Where is she?”
He kept his eyes forward. “Medical.”
“Can I see her?”
“No.”
“Is she okay?”
Grant’s jaw moved.
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened Ana more than anything else he could have said.
At dinner, Lucia’s usual chair at Table Seven remained empty.
But nobody sat there.
Not yet.
After lights-out, a whisper came from the bunk across the aisle.
“Ana.”
It was Miss D.
She slid a folded commissary receipt across the floor.
On the back were four numbers and one name.
PHELPS - 2147.
Ana looked at her.
Miss D whispered, “That’s not a badge number.”
May you like
“What is it?”
“A locker.”
