ducked under her arm, and she didn’t try to stop me.
“They think you killed your ex?” the woman from the floor said. “I would like to kill my ex. He was a tool.”
I blinked and looked away. “Maybe that’s not something you should say when you’re in jail and there are most likely cameras on us recording everything we say. Right?”
She shrugged. “I’m a druggie. They don’t believe us when we tell them the truth. And if we get hurt? We just got what was coming to us for being like this.” She waved a hand over her body. My eyes tracked the movement and found a path of bruises across her pale skin. Some were shaped like fingers and hands from where she’d been grabbed and squeezed.
A sharp pain spiked through my heart and my throat tightened. I was not the only one in trouble here. “I’m sorry they don’t believe you. I’m sorry they think you deserve to be hurt. You don’t.”
She rolled onto her belly and put her chin on her hands, for all the world like we were having a sleepover and were about to play a game of Truth or Dare. “Did you kill him?”
I cleared my throat and shook my head. “No, I did not.”
A sigh from the other side of the room. “I hit my ex in the head with a frying pan. It made a rather satisfying thud, both when I hit him and when he hit the floor. A double whammy, if you will.”
I turned to see the fluffy-haired old granny smiling at us, showing a perfect set of teeth that caught me off guard. I’d have guessed she was missing at least one tooth if you’d asked me to make a bet on it. She crinkled up her face and went on. “A drunk he was. And liked to use his fists on me. I beat him within an inch of his life with a frying pan. Course, the judge said I was in the wrong. My lawyer told them I was crazy. I got no time, but I was sent out into the world with nothing after the lawyer took his fees. Don’t matter, though, ’cause ain’t nobody going to tell me now what to do.”
Fancy Pants snorted lightly and rubbed at her nose. “Except here you are, locked up like the rest of us. And like they say in that movie about the guy and his friend in jail with the tree at the end, everybody in here is innocent. Course, you didn’t kill your husband. Just like I didn’t crash my car while driving drunk—” she pointed at the woman on the floor, “—and she didn’t break into a house to use the facilities while still higher than a kite from using drugs on the street corner after prostituting herself. All of us is clean, baby. All of us don’t deserve this place.”
I frowned. “Shawshank Redemption is the movie.”
“That’s all you got to say?” Fancy Pants shook her head. “They say you killed your ex-husband, and you think you’re getting out?” She broke into a fit of giggles that was picked up by the woman on the floor, who laughed until she was shrieking. The sounds faded when the intercom crackled to life.
“Shut your filthy mouths!”
Fancy Pants slapped a hand over her mouth, and the sounds of laughter faded quickly.
She stumbled toward me, pointing a shaking finger at me until she pressed it against the middle of my chest, her whole hand trembling with the DTs. “That’s not how it works, not for you, not for me, or any of us in here. You got a lawyer or something? No money, I’d bet, because money is what makes this place tick-tock-tick-tock.” She waggled her finger back and forth for good measure.
I tried not to breathe deeply with her in my face. I might stink, but so did she. Like a sour drunk. “No, but I have friends. I’m sure they are trying to figure out what’s going on.” I took a step back to put distance between us. The smell of alcohol was still strong on her breath and it curdled my own stomach, which was already twisted in knots.
I was holding it together on the outside—staying calm, not freaking out—but I was slowly losing my mind. I’d been in here for twelve hours with only these women as company, and I wouldn’t much call them company, and my own thoughts. Not even Officer Burke had come