Chapter 4 - Dead Cameras
Ana did not sleep that night.
Every sound in the unit seemed sharper—the toilets flushing, distant keys striking metal, somebody crying into a pillow three cells down.
Renee begged her to throw the note away.
“If an officer finds it, they’ll ask questions.”
“That’s the point.”
“No. The point is to survive.”
Ana stared at the paper.
“I thought surviving meant getting through the day.”
“In here, it does.”
“That’s how she wins.”
Renee turned her back.
“Then let her win.”
Ana folded the note and slid it into an envelope addressed to Denise.
Two days later, Warden Keller summoned her.
Keller was a thin woman in her late fifties with silver hair and a voice that made people sit straighter without realizing it.
Denise joined by video.
A second woman introduced herself as Investigator Helen Shaw from the Department of Corrections Office of Internal Affairs.
Shaw placed a folder on the table.
“Your attorney filed a confidential complaint.”
Ana nodded.
“We inspected the surveillance system,” Shaw said. “Seven cameras listed as awaiting repair were functioning poorly or not at all.”
“Seven?”
“More troubling, someone accessed internal maintenance schedules repeatedly from a staff terminal.”
Keller’s jaw tightened.
“One of those cameras is in the dining hall,” Shaw continued. “Table Seven sits almost directly beneath it.”
Ana leaned forward. “Can you see who used the terminal?”
“Not yet.”
“Can Lucia?”
Keller answered. “She shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t isn’t the same as can’t.”
Shaw studied Ana for a moment. “You’re observant.”
“I’m in prison because I wasn’t observant enough.”
Nobody spoke for a second.
Then Shaw said, “Do not provoke Vega.”
“I won’t.”
“If she behaves normally, we document it. If she doesn’t, we document that. You are not an investigator.”
Ana nodded.
She meant it.
But prison had a cruel way of turning ordinary choices into confrontations.
That night, Lucia sat across from Ana in the dayroom without asking.
“You wrote somebody.”
Ana kept reading.
Lucia leaned closer. “I know when mail leaves this unit.”
Ana looked up.
“How?”
Lucia smiled.
“Same way I know which camera can see us right now.”
Ana’s stomach tightened.
Lucia pointed toward the ceiling.
“That one works.”
Then she pointed down the corridor.
“That one doesn’t.”
She stood.
“And tomorrow night, the one by the showers goes dark at eight-fifteen.”
Ana forced herself not to react.
Lucia walked away.
May you like
At 8:14 the next night, the shower camera was still on.
At 8:15, its indicator light went black.
