Atlanta
1
Will Trent shifted his six-four frame, trying to find a comfortable angle for his legs inside his partnerâs Mini. The top of his head fit nicely into the sunroof area, but the childâs car seat in the back was severely limiting his room in the front. He had to grip his knees together so he didnât accidentally bump the gear into neutral. He probably looked like a contortionist, but Will thought of himself more as a swimmer dipping in and out of the conversation Faith Mitchell seemed to be having with herself. Instead of stroke-stroke-breathe, it was zone out-zone out-say what now?
âSo, there I am at three in the morning posting a scathing one-star review about this clearly defective spatula.â Faith took both hands off the steering wheel to pantomime typing. âAnd then I realize Iâd put a Tide pod in the dishwasher, which is crazy because the laundry room is upstairs, and then ten minutes later Iâm staring out the window thinking, is mayonnaise really a musical instrument?â
Will had heard her voice go up at the end, but he couldnât tell whether or not she wanted a response. He tried to rewind the conversation in his head. The exercise did not bring clarity. They had been in the car for nearly an hour and Faith had already touched on, in no particular order, the exorbitant price of glue sticks, the Chuck E. Cheese Industrial Birthday Complex, and what she called the torture porn of parents posting photos of their kids going back to school while her toddler was still at home.
He tilted his head, dipping back into the conversation.
âThen we get to the part where Mufasa plunges to his death.â Faith was apparently talking about a movie now. âEmma starts flat-out bawling the same way Jeremy did when he was her age, and I realized that I somehow ended up giving birth to two different kids exactly two Lion Kings apart.â
Will dipped back out of the conversation. Heâd felt his gut clench at Emmaâs name. Guilt scattered like buckshot into his chest.
He had almost killed Faithâs two-year-old daughter.
This was how it happened: Will and his girlfriend were babysitting Emma. Sara was doing paperwork in the kitchen. Will was sitting on the living room floor with Emma. He was showing the toddler how to replace the tiny button battery in a Hex Bug. The toy was disassembled on the coffee table. Will had balanced the breath-mint-sized battery on the tip of his finger so that Emma could see. He was explaining that they should be extra careful not to leave it lying around because Betty, his dog, might accidentally eat it when, suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, Emma had leaned over and sucked the battery into her mouth.
Will was an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He had been in real-world emergencies where life and death hung in the balance and the only thing that had tipped the scales was his ability to act quickly.
But when that battery disappeared, Will had been paralyzed.
His bare finger pointed helplessly into the open air. His heart folded like a bike around a telephone pole. He could only watch in slow motion as Emma sat back, a smirk on her cherubic face, and prepared to swallow.
That was when Sara had saved them all. Just as quickly as Emma had snorked up the battery, Sara had swooped down like a bird of prey, hooked her finger into Emmaâs mouth and scooped out the battery.
âAnyway, Iâm looking over this girlâs shoulder at the checkout line, and sheâs texting the shit out of her boyfriend.â Faith had moved on to another story. âThen she leaves, and Iâm stuck forever wondering whether or not her boyfriend really did hook up with her sister.â
Willâs shoulder drilled into the window as the Mini banked a sharp turn. They were almost at the state prison. Sara would be there, which fact edged Willâs guilt over Emma into trepidation about Sara.
He shifted again in the seat. The back of his shirt peeled away from the leather. For once, Will was not sweating from the heat. He was sweating his relationship with Sara.
Things were going great, but somehow, they were also going really, really badly.
On the outside, nothing had changed. They were still spending more nights together than not. Over the weekend, they had shared her favorite meal, Sunday naked breakfast, and his favorite meal, Sunday naked second breakfast. Sara kissed him the same way. It felt like she loved him the same way. She was still dropping her dirty clothes two inches from the laundry basket, still ordering a salad but eating half of his fries, but something was horribly wrong.
The woman who had practically beaten Will over the head for the last two years, forcing him to talk about things he did not want to talk about, was suddenly declaring that one topic of conversation was off limits.
This was how it happened: Six weeks ago, Will had come home from doing chores. Sara was sitting at his kitchen table. Suddenly, she had started talking about remodeling his house. Not just remodeling it, but demolishing it so there was more room for her, which was kind of a sideways way of telling Will that they should move in together, so Will had decided to go into a sideways proposal, saying that they should get married in a church because it would make her mother happy.
And then heâd heard a cracking sound as the earth froze under his feet and ice enveloped every surface and Saraâs breath came out in a puff when instead of saying, âYes, my love, I would be thrilled to marry you,â sheâd said in a voice colder than the icicles stabbing down from the ceiling, âWhat the fuck does my mother have to do with anything?â
They had argued, a tough position for Will since he hadnât known precisely what they were arguing about. He had gotten in a few jabs about his house not being good enough for her, which had turned into an argument about money, which had put him on better footing because Will was a poor government worker and Saraâwell, Sara was currently a poor government worker but before that, she had been a rich doctor.
The argument had rocked on until it was time to meet Saraâs parents for brunch. And then she had put a moratorium on discussing marriage or moving in together for the next three hours, and those three hours had stretched into the rest of the day, then the rest of the week, and now it was a month and a half later and Will was basically living with a really hot roommate who kept wanting to have sex with him but only ever wanted to talk about what to order for dinner, her little sisterâs determination to screw up her life, and how easy it was to learn the twenty algorithms that solved a Rubikâs Cube.
Faith pulled into the prison parking lot, saying, âOf course, because this is me, that exact moment is when I finally started my period.â
She went silent as she coasted into a space. Her last sentence had no sense of finality to it. Was she expecting an answer? She was definitely expecting an answer.
Will settled on, âThat sucks.â
Faith looked startled, like sheâd just realized he was in the car. âWhat sucks?â
He could see clearly now that she had not been expecting an answer.
âJesus, Will.â She angrily bumped the gear into park. âWhy donât you warn me the next time that youâre actually listening?â
Faith got out of the car and stomped off toward the employee entrance. Her back was to Will, but he imagined she was grumbling with every step. She flashed her ID at the camera outside the gate. Will rubbed his face. He breathed the hot air inside the car. Were all of the women in his life insane or was he an idiot?
Only an idiot would ask that question.
He opened the door and managed to pry himself out of the Mini. Sweat prickled at his scalp. They were in the last week of October and the heat outside the car wasnât much better than inside. Will adjusted the gun on his belt. He found his suit jacket between Emmaâs car seat and a bag of stale Goldfish crackers. He Homer Simpsoned the entire bag, eyeballing a prison transport bus that was pulling out onto the road. The bus careened into a pothole. Behind the barred windows, the inmatesâ faces were all various shades of misery.
Will tossed the empty Goldfish bag into the backseat. Then he got it back out and took it with him as he walked toward the employee entrance. He looked up at the low-slung, depressing building. Phillips State Prison was a medium-security facility located in Buford, about an hour outside of Atlanta. Nearly one thousand men were housed in ten living units that contained two dormitories each. Seven of the units had two-man cells. The rest were combinations of singles, doubles and isolation cells housing MH/SM inmates. MH stood for inmates diagnosed with mental health issues. SM stood for special management, or protective custody, which meant cops and pedophiles, the two most reviled classes of inmates in any prison.
There was a reason MH and SM were tied together. To an outsider, a single person cell sounded like a luxury. To an inmate in isolation, a single person cell meant twenty hours a day of solitary confinement in a windowless, seven-by-thirteen concrete box. And this was after a ground-breaking lawsuit that had found Georgiaâs previous solitary confinement rules inhumane.
Four years ago, Phillips, along with nine other Georgia State prisons, was hit by an FBI sting that took down forty-seven corrupt corrections officers. All the remaining COs were shuffled around the system. The new warden didnât put up with much bullshit, which was good and bad, depending on how you looked at the inherent dangers of warehousing angry, isolated men. The prison was currently in lockdown after two days of rioting. Six COs and three inmates had been badly injured. Another inmate had been brutally murdered in the cafeteria.
The murder was what had brought them here.
By state law, the GBI was charged with investigating all deaths that happened in custody. The inmates leaving on the transport bus wouldnât be directly implicated in the murder, but they wouldâve played some part in the riot. They were receiving what was called Diesel Therapy. The warden was bussing out the big mouths, the shit-stirrers, the pawns in gang rivalries. Getting rid of trouble-makers was good for the health of the prison, but not so great for the men who were being sent away. They were losing the only place they could call home, heading to a new facility that was far more dangerous than the one they were leaving. It was like starting a new school, but instead of mean girls and bullies, there were rapists and murders.
A metal sign was strapped to the entrance gate. GDOC, Georgia Department of Corrections. Will tossed the empty Goldfish bag into the trashcan by the door. He wiped his hands on his pants to get rid of the yellow dust. Then he swiped at the cheddar palmprints until they looked less indecent.
The camera was two inches from the top of Willâs head. He had to step back to show his credentials. A loud buzz and a click later, he was inside the building. He stored his gun in a locker and pocketed the key. Then he had to take the key out of his pocket along with everything else so he could go through the security line. He was ushered through the sally port by a silent corrections officer who used his chin to communicate: âSup bro, your partnerâs down the hall, follow me.
The CO shuffled instead of walking, a habit that came with the job. No need to hurry when the place you were going to looked exactly like the place you were leaving.
The prison sounded like a prison. Inmates were screaming, banging their bars, protesting the lockdown and/or the general injustices of humanity. Will loosened his tie as they went deeper into the bowels of the facility. Sweat rolled down his neck. Prisons were by design difficult to cool and heat. The wide, long hallways and sharp corners. The cinderblock walls and linoleum floors. The fact that every cell had an open sewer for a toilet and every man inside was generating enough flop sweat to turn the gentle flow of the Chattahoochee River into level six rapids.
Faith was waiting for him outside a closed door. Her head was down as she scribbled in her notebook. Her chattiness made her very good at her job. Sheâd been busy gathering information while Will was cheddaring his pants.
She nodded to the silent CO, who took his place on the other side of the...
