Chapter 9: The Morning Hargrove Moved First
She woke to the sound of her cell door opening at 5 a.m.
Not a guard.
Two guards.
And behind them, Officer Strick.
"On your feet, Carver.
Warden's orders.
You're being moved to restricted housing pending a disciplinary review."
She sat up slowly.
"What's the charge?"
"Unauthorized access to a restricted area." Strick's voice was flat.
Professional.
He didn't look at her with satisfaction, which was worse than if he had.
"You have two minutes to collect personal items."
She stood.
She took her time.
She picked up the paperback from her shelf — the one with the folded photograph tucked inside the cover — and held it against her side.
They walked her through the corridor before the rest of the facility was awake.
Doors were still closed.
The fluorescent lights were on their dim morning setting.
The only sounds were their footsteps and the distant hum of the kitchen starting its first shift.
They passed the laundry room.
The door was open.
Two men in civilian clothes were inside, pulling mattresses from the storage rack.
Lexi kept walking.
She didn't slow down.
She didn't look twice.
The cylinder was gone.
Rosa had moved it.
She must have gone in during the night, after Brenda's warning.
Lexi hadn't asked her to.
Rosa had done it because she had spent four years waiting for this and she was not going to let it end in a storage room.
Restricted housing was a block of six cells at the far end of the facility.
Quieter.
Colder.
No yard access.
Meals delivered to the door.
They put her in the second cell and locked it.
Strick stood in the corridor for a moment after the other guards left.
"I know what you found," he said through the door.
She sat on the bunk and said nothing.
"I've been watching Hargrove for fourteen months," he said.
"Internal affairs.
I'm not his man.
I never was." A pause.
"I looked at your sleeves because I was trying to figure out if you were working with someone or alone."
She looked at the door.
"I'm alone," she said.
"Not anymore." His voice dropped lower.
"The woman — Rosa — she came to me at four this morning.
She had a cylinder.
Documents and a drive." Another pause.
"I've already made a copy.
The original is in an evidence locker that Hargrove cannot access.
My supervisor was contacted at six a.m."
Lexi was quiet for a moment.
"Why are you telling me this through a door?" she said.
"Because Hargrove is watching the cameras and I need him to believe this conversation didn't happen." She heard him shift his weight.
"The transfer order is being challenged through federal channels as of this morning.
You won't be moved Friday."
"And Hargrove?"
"He doesn't know yet." A pause.
"But he will.
Probably by noon."
She heard his footsteps move away down the corridor.
She leaned back against the wall.
Rosa.
Sixty-one years old, nine years inside, four years of carrying her daughter's d*ath like a stone in her chest — and she had walked to a guard's door at four in the morning with a waterproof cylinder and made the decision that changed everything.
Lexi pressed the paperback flat against her knee.
She thought about Dani's note.
*Find Thomas Carver.
He'll know what to do.*
Her father had known what to do.
He had sent her.
And she had found Rosa.
And Rosa had found Strick.
May you like
The chain had held.
Now they waited for noon.
