“Did you know LaReigne was in love with Barnwell?”

“No,” I said. “But even if she is, that doesn’t mean she helped him escape. Because maybe he tricked her. It doesn’t mean she’s not in danger. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her.”

I couldn’t bring myself to say, It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her.

“It certainly makes her look a little less innocent, though, doesn’t it?” Mansur said. “If she was letting an inmate romance her. But then, that runs in your family.”

“You know, not everybody thinks people in prison are scum.”

“So white supremacist murderers? Not scum in your book?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I hated how he’d backed me around and gotten me to say something he could use like that. My hands were in fists under the table, and I forced myself to relax them. I couldn’t have another temper tantrum. I laid my hands on the table and laced my fingers together.

“So, tell me about this Asatru business,” Mansur said. “How did your sister get involved with them?”

“She’s not Asatru! She’s Wiccan.”

“But Barnwell is Asatru, if I understand my pagan denominations.”

“I don’t care what he is. There’s only one pagan ministry at the prison, so all the guys are in it, no matter what they believe. LaReigne is not a white supremacist.”

“What about your father?” Mansur said. “When he was at El Dorado Correctional Facility, he was a member of the White Circle, wasn’t he? That’s a known white supremacist gang. Run by his friend Craig Van Eck. And your mother stood by your father after he killed that bank guard. To me, it looks like your family doesn’t have a problem with white supremacists or murderers.”

I’d been feeling a little calmer, but the way he said it made me so angry I couldn’t even talk. I sat there staring at Mansur. He stared back, waiting. For me to break? For me to cry? I stretched my leg out under the table, trying to loosen up my hip, but it didn’t work. I was going to have to stand up soon or I wouldn’t be able to. Slowly, I worked my way back out of that rage. I figured out what I wanted to say, what I wanted Mansur to hear.

“When my father went to prison, I was eight. LaReigne was twelve. After he left, my mother fell down in this hole. Look around you. Seriously, fucking look around. This is the hole she fell into, and she never got back out. It was like we lost both our parents. Like we’d been abandoned. All we had was each other, and we survived it together. LaReigne would never abandon her son. She would never do to him what was done to us. You can show me all the love letters in the world, but I will never believe that. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.” Mansur closed the file folder and set his pen down. “I spoke to the medical examiner in Nebraska just before we had to call the ambulance for your mother.”

He paused, I think, just to watch me suffer. He’d had news this whole time and kept it to himself. This was LaReigne’s life, and he was playing games.

“They’ve identified the body in Nebraska,” he said. “It’s Molly Verbansky. Not LaReigne.”

I wanted to be the tough bitch LaReigne always said I was, but I laid my head down on that dirty table and cried. Because she wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t safe. I opened my purse and got out a tissue, while Mansur watched me.

We were sitting there not talking when Smith came back.

“Debbie Jackson and Marcus Jackson. Left from Newton on Tuesday morning. Had return tickets to Newton on Wednesday evening,” Smith said. “I imagine we’ll be able to find some Amtrak employees who remember you. That hair’s pretty memorable. How much marijuana do you think a person could bring back on the train like that?”

“A couple suitcases, I imagine,” Mansur said. “Enough for federal charges.”

“I went to visit a friend. Do you not have any friends?” I said. “Did you interrogate Molly’s husband like this? Did you search his house?”

“What makes you say that? What do you know about Peter Verbansky?” Mansur said. He and Smith exchanged a look.

“Nothing, except that apparently his wife is dead, because these assholes murdered her. My sister is still in danger, and you’re here making jokes about drug smuggling.”

Mansur made a few notes before he looked at me. Like he was giving me an old-fashioned stare-down lie-detector test.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” he said.

“I can’t think of anything.”

I stood up, and a long, hot wire of pain ran from my foot up to my hip. I’d just wanted some relief, but Mansur didn’t seem concerned, so I knew it was over.

I picked up my purse.

“Now hold on,” Smith said.

“Am I under arrest?” I said. “I would like to go see my mother now. So unless you arrest me, I’m going to the hospital.”

“Let me get you that escort,” Mansur said.

If I’d left five minutes sooner, I could have walked out of my mother’s house. Instead I got to limp out while Mansur and Smith watched me.

CHAPTER 16

Charlene

   Bill and I had worked hard to build our family so that Gentry would feel like an insider. He had enough of being an outsider at school. Over the years, he’d made some friends through the SCA, people who were willing to expand their world enough to welcome him, but I knew at work he ate his lunch alone.

So it was strange to see him with Zee in the hospital waiting room. She was sitting with her hands squeezed between her knees, staring off into space. Gentry was sitting next to her, protectively, like a buffer between her and everyone else. A circle for two. Seeing that, I felt this motherly twinge, proud but a little nervous. He was growing up.

“Have either of you eaten since breakfast?” I said. “It’s only sandwiches and chips, but you need to eat.”

“I thank thee.” Gentry stood up and bowed to me.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Zee said.

“I don’t think you should eat hospital vending machine sandwiches if you have any other option.” Chivalrous as ever, Gentry pulled up a chair for me in their little corner and unpacked the food I’d brought. “Double-check yours, Zee. It should be turkey and bacon. His is some horrid thing with rare roast beef and cream cheese and pickled peppers. I don’t know who taught him to eat that, but it wasn’t me.”

“I shall fetch us a drink,” he said, after he laid out the food on a little side table.