Page 148 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘No. Please.’

Her last hope gone, taking with it all the time she had left in this world.

Lost.

Out the hole where her heart used to live.

‘Margaret Mason,’ he said, breathless. ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of second-degree arson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.’

30

A lightning flash, hiss and whirr of the camera.

Placard gripped in Jet’s left hand.

Name: Margaret Mason

Age: 27

Booking ID: 4669283

‘Stop looking down at the slate. Look over here at the camera, please.’

She did, blinded by the white light, erasing everything: the room, the booking officer, even Jet, leaving only that unending ache behind her eye.

‘Turn to the side.’

Another flash.

Time slipping, her mind skipping between snapshots, the ache taking up too much space.

Cuffed to a bench.

Another pat-down search.

‘Do you have any weapons on you?’

‘No,’ she said for the second time.

The bench again.

‘Place your hand on the glass scanner, fingers apart.’

Green light under the glass, a bright line moving up and down, Jet’s fingerprints appearing on the computer screen. Black ink, like four dark hooded figures seen from a distance, the crosshatch lines and swirls hidden in her skin.

‘Right hand.’

‘I can’t lift it.’

‘Right hand!’

Pushed into another chair: metal, small. Inside the interview room, the same one Jet had been in before, that digital clock hanging above her, ticking down, close to the end now. Red flickering numbers, the color of blood, a slow trickle through her brain, the color of fire, roaring at her heels.

Jet was cuffed again, the metal imprinting in her wrists. Her working arm tied to her dead arm, dragging both up, elbows on the table.

‘Stop looking at the clock, look at me,’ said the chief, sitting across from her, Sergeant Jack Finney beside him. A dance they’d all danced before, except Jet couldn’t leave this time, locks and chains.

‘I already told you, I did not fucking burn down Mason Construction,’ she growled, her voice strange and flat, now the hope was all gone. ‘It wasn’t me.’

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