Page 40 of Pulling Strings

“Knock yourself out.” I slid the tray to the big man.

“Farrow!” barked a guard, closing fast.

Any head not already turned my way tracked his approach until he arrived tableside.

“You’re with me,” the guard said.

I swung a leg over the bench seat and stood as he produced a pair of handcuffs and commanded, “Wrists.”

This procedure was old hat at only three days in. Restraints meant I’d be leaving the cell block but, since it wasn’t yesterday’s ankle chain, I was less certain of thereason for this field trip.

Clyde looked on as the guard marched me out of the room. When we reached the relative privacy of the hall, the guard explained, “Investigator’s here to see you.”

We wound our way through the rat maze to a new area. It was no less drab than the rest of the prison, and more closed in. Finally, he walked me into a windowless room furnished with only a table and two chairs. No Plexiglas or phones, but the table rail to which he chained my wrists felt equally demeaning.

Holland Lyle had told me to expect her, so it came as no surprise when she strode confidently into the room, toting a designer bag she set on the table across from me.

“Do you need anything else, Miss Lyle?” the guard asked.

“No, thank you,” she replied. “I appreciate it.”

The guard nodded and left the room, pulling the door shut in his wake.

I shifted in my chair. The nicotine patch I’d picked up this morning itched my arm, but I couldn’t scratch it with the table rail giving me scant inches to move my hands. After fiddling with the chain for a few seconds, I scooted forward and let it drop with a clatter onto the steel tabletop.

Holland sat. Her white hair was tied in a loose bun, and she wore the same sunglasses as before. It was unnerving to find my reflection where her eyes should have been. After three nights of restless sleep and only washing up in the cell sink, I looked like shit.

Judging by the way she cringed when she finally looked at me, the investigator must have agreed.

“Good to see you again.” Holland’s forced smile puckered a dimple in her left cheek. “I thought we couldcontinue our conversation from the other day.”

“Or we could not and say we did,” I muttered.

Unzipping her purse, she pulled out a waxed paper bag and held it aloft. “I brought you something.”

“Is it a bribe?” I asked. “Don’t try to shortchange me, Investigator. I know what I’m worth.”

She opened the bag and dumped out its contents. Colorful hard candies in clear wrappers scattered.

“Remember these?” she asked. “From when we were kids?”

There used to be—apparently, still was—a sweet shop downtown. The owner had culinary magic and specialized in sugar art. Her window displays were populated by living candy animals and cotton floss clouds that hung overhead. It was the first place I took Holland when we were old enough to go without adults. I spent all my allowance on candy, and we both ended up with stomachaches.

“I never meant to imply that you and I don’t have history,” Holland said. “That’s a large part of the reason I was able to convince Maximus to take a chance on you.”

My nose wrinkled. “You can just call him Dad. I’m pretty sure everyone knows.”

“Let’s see…” She picked through the candies until she found a swirled green one. “You like lime, right?”

With a flick, she slid it across the table for me to catch. Nostalgia aside, it was the most edible-looking thing I’d seen in days.

She unwrapped a candy and popped it in her mouth, and I hunched forward to follow suit.

The bright zing of citrus tingled the sides of my tongue as I cheeked it long enough to say, “So, this is how they get drugs into prisons.”

Holland swallowed so abruptly that she almost choked. “What? No, it’s—”

“Relax, Investigator,” I stopped her, smirking. “Everyone knows it’s the guards that bring the drugs in.”

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