Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,84
gray shaded lobby. Showed proper ID, then checked my purse into an available locker. I went through the tasks on autopilot, a ritual I’d performed too often lately. If my sister was the one who had committed the crime, then why did I feel like the one who was spending all of her time in prison?
Superintendent McKinnon was already waiting for me. She escorted me through security, down a back hall, her low-slung black heels clicking briskly.
“No BPD?” she asked.
“The day is young. How is Shana?”
“Same old, same old. That reporter, Charlie Sgarzi . . . Paper says his mother was murdered last night. Latest victim of the Rose Killer.”
“So I’m told.”
“You think Shana’s involved, don’t you?” The superintendent stopped walking, turning abruptly, arms crossed over her chest. Dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit, hair pulled tight, high, sculpted cheekbones pronounced, her intimidating look worked well for her. “I called an emergency meeting of my COs yesterday. Demanded to know if any of them had caught so much as a whiff of Shana communicating with anyone inside or outside of the prison. According to them, there’s no way, no how. Least they haven’t suspected a thing.”
I kept my voice neutral. “Not the kind of thing the guilty party would admit to, though. As you mentioned yesterday, if a corrections officer is the one serving as the messenger, it would be for a price.”
“Except no price is high enough to help your sister. She’s killed two of our own. Behind these walls, that kind of thing is taken personally.”
“Are you sure? Those killings happened a long time ago, before many of your current COs started working here. For that matter, before you came here.”
McKinnon stared at me, gaze hard. “What are you getting at, Adeline?”
“Shana hasn’t had any new visitors. And according to you, she definitely hasn’t been engaging in any outside communication. Which makes me wonder if that simply means she doesn’t have to: Her new friend isn’t from outside these walls. Her new friend is already on the inside. Inmate. Corrections officer. Staff.”
McKinnon didn’t speak right away. When she did, her words were clipped. “You suspect me in that list? I fall under staff? Because to be fair, I have to include you in that list. You’re not a new visitor, and yet you’re here often enough. The kind of regular all of us are so used to seeing, sometimes I bet we don’t even notice you.”
“Why are you letting Shana and me talk?” I asked. “We’re way over our monthly allotment. Yet she made the request and you allowed it.”
The superintendent frowned, appearing troubled again. “I want to know what’s going on,” she said. “Yesterday . . . Shana convinced me. I don’t know how, but in some way, she’s connected to these murders. The question remains: Is Shana some criminal mastermind, ordering murders from the solitude of her cell? Or is she simply laughing at our expense, creating a macabre game where now I suspect you and you suspect me, and the BPD probably suspects both of us. I need to know what’s going on, Adeline. As the superintendent of this prison, hell, as a supposedly intelligent woman who used to sleep at night, I want to know what’s really happening in my facility. Now, I expect the Boston detectives will visit again soon enough to press the matter. But, all suspicions aside, my money’s on you. If anyone gets the truth out of Shana, it’s going to be you.”
We resumed walking, not toward the visiting room Shana and I usually shared, but toward the interview room used last time by the Boston detectives. Apparently, Superintendent McKinnon planned on listening in. All part of her pursuit of truth? Or to make sure Shana didn’t reveal too much?
And me? What did I want, think, feel about all of this?
McKinnon was right. We were all twisted up. Jumping at shadows, suspecting everyone, frightened of everything.
I thought of what Charlie Sgarzi had said just the other day. I couldn’t feel pain, meaning what did I have to fear?
I remembered my disposal project yesterday. The way I had flushed strings of human flesh down a public toilet. The way three had floated back to the top, mocking me.
And I realized, for the first time in my life, I had never been so afraid.
Once again, Shana was already waiting inside the room, shackled hands resting on the edge of the table. She glanced up as I walked in, dark eyes lasering