The Reckless Oath We Made

He clicked PLAY and the video switched to two people standing at a chain-link fence. A woman, so probably Molly, and a man with something in his hand.

“That’s Conrad Ligett, using a pair of wire cutters that Molly Verbansky smuggled in—we’re not really sure how.”

“Is this for real a prison?” I said. “I’m not kidding, my nephew’s grade school is more secure than this.”

“Normally, the alarm would have been raised by now, but we believe the riot in the main building was part of a diversionary tactic. And the corrections officer who would have raised the alarm about the situation in the education building had just been killed.” Mansur paused the video to give me a minute to feel like shit for joking about a situation where two people ended up murdered.

“Notice that Ligett is cutting a hole in a fence next to the parking lot, while your sister stands at this door.” He went back to the video of LaReigne and clicked PLAY. “Conrad Ligett and Molly Verbansky are on the south side of the education building. Barnwell is in the building, about to kill the second guard. What is LaReigne doing?”

“She doesn’t know what to do,” I said. I hated myself for trying to defend her, but she was looking back and forth in two directions, like she was confused. And if my story was that I didn’t know anything, then I had to pretend I still believed LaReigne was innocent.

“But it’s obvious what she should be doing. What any sane person would do in this situation is run across the yard to the main building. She could have gotten there easily, but she didn’t. Why not?”

“Maybe she was scared.”

“So scared, she stayed there instead of running to get help?”

“Wasn’t there a riot in the main building?” I said.

“In one of the cell blocks. Not at the entrance nearest LaReigne. When I look at this, I see LaReigne waiting for Barnwell. Because she was in on their plan. That’s the only reason she wouldn’t have run away. You know what else she did that night?”

“No.”

“She left everything in her car. Why would she leave her purse, her phone, even her car keys in her unlocked car in the parking lot of a prison?”

“It wasn’t unlocked,” I said. “Her car has one of those keypad locks on the door. She always puts her keys and her purse in the trunk.”

Mansur frowned and then went on like I hadn’t said anything. That’s what they would do in court, too.

“She knew she was going to need those things later, and she knew she wouldn’t be going back through the security checkpoint when they left the prison. Your sister parked her car on the other side of the fence of the education building, on the opposite end of the parking lot from where she entered the prison. But once Ligett cut the hole in the fence, her car was right there and the keys were in it.”

“Yeah, except that—”

“And here she is, running toward that hole in the fence, holding hands with Barnwell.”

Maybe that’s what the video showed. Or maybe it showed Tague holding her by the wrist and pulling her after him. Or I wanted it to show that. I wanted her to look like she was trying to get away from him, but no matter how much I squinted, she was still running toward the fence with Tague. She wasn’t trying to get away. She wasn’t fighting him. Not the way she fought me. Maybe she hadn’t planned to go with him, but she went with him, and in the end, she stayed with him.

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” I said.

“Because we didn’t have all this information yet, and we were still very much in the middle of a manhunt. Would seeing this have changed something for you?”

I couldn’t answer him, because if I talked too much I was going to cry. And if I cried, I was going to lose control. I’d gotten Edrard killed and Gentry arrested, because I’d trusted LaReigne to be better than me. My whole life looked like a mistake now.

“Is that all you want?” I said, when I was sure I was calm enough. “For me to admit I was wrong about my sister?”

“Oh, I’m just curious how it all fits together, and I think you can help me figure that out. For example, the young man who was at your mother’s house with you, the one you insisted didn’t know anything, he managed to locate two fugitives the U.S. Marshals Service couldn’t find. I wonder how he came by his information.”

“Not from me.”

“He says the same thing. He says, and I’m quoting—” Mansur opened a file folder and looked at a sheet of paper. “I may not tell thee whence I learned the place the lady LaReigne was kept by these knaves. He really said knaves.”

“That’s how he talks.”

“However he talks, he’s been charged with a whole raft of things, including obstruction of justice and three counts of murder.”

My chest felt so tight, I couldn’t take a breath. I pushed back from the table, trying to get some air. I sucked in enough to say, “Murder? For those assholes?”

Mansur pulled a photo out of the file folder and slid it over to me. Someone wearing blue plastic gloves was reaching from off camera to force Gentry’s chin up for his mug shot. He had a welt on his forehead, a black eye, and smear of blood across his cheek. I assumed the cops had done that to him.

“He’s an odd kid,” Mansur said. “But considering what he did to Barnwell and this other man—Paul Scanlon—he’s not a lightweight. Not sure how he’ll fare in the Arkansas penal system, having killed two local white brotherhood types. Probably won’t be easy for him.”

“You think that’s funny? I bet you’re the kind of creep who laughs at prison rape jokes.” In the last week, I’d chewed my nails down to the quick. The only thing left to chew on was my cuticles.

“I’m going to be very blunt with you, Miss Trego. I believe you know exactly where his information came from, because you’re the one who gave it to him. What I would like to know is how you—”

“You think I knew where my sister was, but instead of going to see her, I sent Gentry to fight these Nazi assholes to get her back, even though you also think I knew she helped them escape? How does that make any sense? If I knew she helped them escape, why would I think she needed rescuing?”

“I admit it doesn’t entirely add up, but you knew something, didn’t you? Because you went to Missouri with Gentry Frank.”

“I went to Missouri to visit my uncle, and Gentry went with me,” I said.

“Your uncle, Alva Trego, who has a connection to Craig Van Eck, the ringleader of the White Circle at El Dorado?”

“Had a connection. My uncle hasn’t had any contact with those people since he was paroled. He’s a law-abiding citizen.”