Stella

It’s worse than I thought, the weekly inspection. So much worse. Starkey leaves nothing untouched. He checks the mattress and box-spring for slits and hidey-holes. Runs his fingers along the carpet’s edge, in search of loose staples. He shakes out my clothes and flips through my books—including the ones in the bathroom. My blood runs cold: only at the last second did it occur to me to wait. I could’ve scribbled everything in there.

I’m numb as I hand over my purse. Starkey rummages like a ferret, pulling the lining out to check for tears. He finds a butterscotch in the inner pocket.

“Mind if I have this?”

I huff and shrug—fine! Go ahead! He pops it into his mouth.

It wouldn’t be hard to poison him, if I truly bore him any malice. Or slip him laxative chocolates. Candy-coated grasshoppers.

Old soldier. Doing his job. It’s getting harder and harder to keep that in mind as he thumbs through my phone. There’s not much to find, but I’ve been texting Alicia a lot. He actually snickers, reading our chat log. Probably the part about how she spent her entire first day making Erik’s staff rearrange his furniture. Like ‘The Sims’ IRL, she said.

He goes through my laptop, too. I watch him rifle through my e-mails, my blog drafts, my trash. He finds my book, mutters something like “too long,” and e-mails it to himself for later. The fucking gall! He even opens a blank Word file and hits Command-V—in case I’m hiding my dastardly plan in my clipboard, I guess. Because that’s a thing people do.

He’s thorough, that’s for sure. But he doesn’t inspect my person. I could...what? Stuff the book down my pants? No—roll up a couple of pages and slide them into the underwire compartments of my bra? I’ve heard of women sneaking things into prisons that way: letters, cigarettes...blades pried out of disposable razors.

Ridiculous.

I glance around when he’s gone, peering into every corner. There has to be somewhere he didn’t look. He got the toilet tank, the window seat cushions, the underside of every drawer. He went through the birdcage, changing the food, the water, the papers. Every lamp, every vase, every....

The sink. He didn’t check the pipes under either of the sinks, or the shower drain. I could probably stuff a Baggie of paper down there, and fish it back up easily enough. The rest of the week, I could keep it with me. And pray there’s no such thing as a surprise cell toss in this prison drama.

There’s a 7-11 bag in my fridge, with two iced coffees still in it. I grab one of the coffees and the receipt, stuffing it into my pocket. I can save that to write on, without anyone wondering where it went. If I can’t... If I can’t, I was finished before I started.

I crack open the coffee and flop down on the bed like I haven’t a care in the world.

* * *

Jack picks me up for dinner at eight. By that time, I’ve scribbled everything I’ve learned on the back of my receipt. It isn’t much: I’ve still got an inch of space left, and I only bought five things. Still, it’s a start, and there’s plenty of time.

I sneak the receipt into my purse at the restaurant, while Jack’s telling me about his childhood dream of being a farmer.

“Why a farmer?” I shift in my seat to cover the sound of my purse clicking shut.

“I liked the smell of cornfields.”

“Just that?”

“Pretty much—I was five. What do you expect?”

“I wanted to be the first female Pope.”

He muffles a laugh behind his dinner roll. “You even Catholic?”

“Not really.” I could tell him how I grew up on the skirts of the Vatican, dreaming of the glittering wealth just that side of the Castel Sant’Angelo—and resenting it just as much. But he’s clearly done a background check. Probably Google Earthed my childhood home. He can put two and two together for himself.

“Oh—almost forgot! Got you these.” Jack digs in his pocket and comes up with a bag of butterscotch candy. “Saw Starkey snatch yours—I’ll talk to him.”

“No need. He’s, uh....” Special? Unique? A fucking kleptomaniac?

“Ha—no need to tell me. He was my CO, back at Blakemoor. He’d sit across from you in the mess tent, and before he’d even started his dinner, he’d be picking on yours.”

“I know, eh? What is that?”

“Magnus thinks—.” His face falls a little—at the thought of Magnus? I file that away: another thread to pick at. “Magnus thinks it’s because he’s the youngest of eight. Had to fight for every scrap.”

“What I don’t get is how he’s so skinny.” I take a bite of avocado. “He must have the metabolism of a hummingbird.”

“I’ll tell him that next time he eats my fries. He’ll love being compared to a tiny, angry bird.”

We share a laugh over that. I let a comfortable lull settle in for a while before changing the subject. “So the three of you—you, Erik, and Magnus—you known each other all your lives?”

Jack’s brows draw together. I’ll have to tread carefully. “Not all our lives, no.” He twirls some pasta around his fork. It falls off. For a moment, I think he’s said all he’s going to, but he takes a long drink of water and picks up the thread. “Erik and Magnus knew each other from school—from pretty early, I think. But the three of us didn’t hook up till summer camp. Which you already knew.”

“It was in your GQ interview.” I look down at my plate, as if to hide a blush. “I read the whole thing. It didn’t say, though—how’d all three of you end up at Blakemoor?”

He slices his knife through his noodles till they’re short enough to scoop up like Kraft Dinner. “It’s not what you’re probably thinking. It wasn’t like...something we all discussed. Erik got recruited. He was kind of a star in the air force. Magnus followed him. And when I got out of the marines, well, we’d all kept in touch over Facebook. It was always in the back of my mind. For if nothing else worked out.”

“Nothing else did?”

Jack gives me a narrow look. “Going back to civilian life’s...not what you think it’s going to be.” He flags down a waiter. Points at his glass. “Could I get a top-up?” The waiter nods and glides off. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Well, I’m an asshole. Moving on....

Jack laughs at my too-hot-for-BeeBee stories, and even tells a couple of his own, but the easy companionship’s gone. There’s a charge to the atmosphere, a black tension between us. He looks at me from under lowered brows, and I’m not sure if he’s thinking of fucking me over the table or stabbing me under it. When he feeds me a bite of tiramisu, his fork pricks my tongue—not painfully, but deliberately.

This could be another game. Maybe I’m supposed to dig my nails into the back of his hand, tread on his toe under the table. And then we’ll go home, and he’ll “punish” me in the way I’ve been wishing he would. But I don’t know him well enough to risk finding out. If I’m wrong....

He leans forward abruptly, hand covering mine. “You’re nervous. No: afraid.”

I could deny it, but there’s no way he can’t feel the pounding of my pulse. I’m quaking like a Chihuahua, all the way to my fingertips. “You’ve got stormclouds over your head.”

Jack glances up, as though I meant it literally.

“I shouldn’t have....” I’m not sure what to apologize for: mentioning his service at all? Implying he’d somehow failed upon his return? Stirring up memories that might be more than painful? I drop my gaze, embarrassed.

He taps on my knuckles to get my attention. I look up to find him smirking. “You have no idea how to apologize.”

“And you do?”

“More than you.” His knee jogs mine under the table, and it’s back—that teasing, slightly competitive edge. He takes my hand in both of his and looks me straight in the eye. “Sorry I rattled your cage. There’s something about you that makes it easy to forget we’ve just met.” His smile is warm and sincere. I start to relax.

“Well, I—”

That smile widens into a triumphant grin. “See? That’s how it’s done.”

“Oh, my God!” I kick him hard, aiming straight for his ankle. He keeps laughing, undeterred.

For the first time, it occurs to me there are things I might miss about him when this is done.