Chapter 7 - The Leak
The camera stayed dark for six minutes.
When it came back, Investigator Shaw was furious.
“Somebody accessed the control panel from inside the staff corridor,” she told Keller.
Ana sat across from them in a cramped interview room.
“Can you identify who?”
“Three officers had access during that window.”
“Phelps?”
Keller’s expression answered before her mouth did.
“Yes.”
Shaw tapped the table. “But suspicion is not proof.”
Ana almost laughed.
“Story of this place.”
Shaw ignored that. “Lucia has been careful for years. If Phelps is feeding her information, he’s careful too. We need them to act normally.”
“Normally means people keep getting robbed.”
“I know.”
“No, you document it.”
Shaw’s face hardened.
Ana regretted the sentence immediately, but she did not take it back.
Keller leaned forward. “Ana, if you do anything on your own, I will move you to protective housing.”
“Protective housing is twenty-three hours alone.”
“It is also alive.”
Ana left angry.
That night, Lucia found her near the library carts.
“You like cameras,” Lucia said.
Ana kept walking.
Lucia stepped in front of her.
“You like writing letters.”
Ana looked past her toward an officer at the far desk.
Lucia smiled. “He can’t hear us.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to understand something. People think power means hitting somebody. That’s stupid.”
Lucia leaned closer.
“Power is knowing who will look away.”
Ana felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning.
“Is that what Phelps does?”
Lucia’s smile disappeared.
There.
A tiny reaction.
Not proof.
But real.
Ana said, “Tell him the camera came back on.”
Lucia’s eyes sharpened.
“You think you’re brave?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Lucia stepped aside.
“Because brave women bleed too.”
Ana walked away without turning around.
When she reached her bunk, Renee was standing beside it, staring at the mattress.
A sharpened piece of plastic lay on Ana’s pillow.
Beneath it was a strip of paper.
Tomorrow. Table Seven. Sit somewhere else.
Renee whispered, “Please listen.”
Ana read the note again.
Then she looked at the clock.
May you like
Tomorrow was Thursday.
The day Investigator Shaw had scheduled the dining hall observation.
