The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,122

it down the line, to push danger away for a few more minutes. It was the way, Tean intuited, you might live if you had always faced danger day to day. A few more minutes were what mattered, not the big picture, definitely not the distant future.

And then Tean understood something else. The baggie of stolen clomiphene. Sievers watching the sows. He keyed the ignition, crammed the last of the burrito in his mouth, and headed south and east. The Salt Lake County Jail was located about ten minutes from Tean’s office in the Division of Wildlife Resources. Both the jail and the sheriff’s department, which shared a lot, could have passed for commercial office buildings. The sheriff’s building was pale stone and glass that was blue with the reflected sky. The jail lacked windows, but it otherwise followed the same design. Tean found a parking space and jogged up to the building.

He hadn’t been sure if Hannah’s unit—pod, as they were called at the county jail—would have visiting hours that day, but he was in luck. He showed his ID, stowed his belongings in a locker, passed through a metal inspector, and then endured a pat-down because his glasses had triggered the alarm.

After that, he had to wait almost half an hour, his butt going numb on the hard bench. Voices echoed against the cement, making the space seem vast, and the air smelled like disinfectant and metal. When a corrections officer opened a door and said, “Teancum Leon,” he shot up from the bench, winced, and limped toward the opening.

They led him into a narrow room like the ones he’d seen on the bad movies Jem made him watch: a row of seats with stainless-steel partitions, and a glass barrier separating the inmates from the visitors. Instead of phones, the glass was perforated in places to allow voices to carry. Signs taped to each partition reminded visitors and inmates alike that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THIS ROOM – PLEASE KEEP THE VOLUME DOWN! – PRIVACY IS NOT GUARANTEED. The CO directed Tean to one of the partitions, and Tean sat on a padded stool. The bad movies had gotten some of it right, but not the human element. Not the way every exhalation sounded trapped and echoing between the partitions and the glass. Not the smudges on the stainless steel. Not the tiny rip in the stool’s upholstery, right where the vinyl met the chrome banding, where who knew how many people had picked at it restlessly during visits. Even the tape on the sign had been worried and peeled away in places.

Then Hannah came into view on the other side of the glass. She still looked like Hannah, with her mop of chestnut-colored hair, her intelligent eyes, all the familiar freckles and sunspots. She wore a loose blue shirt and blue trousers, both of them faintly resembling scrubs, although both were printed with SALT LAKE COUNTY JAIL. She smiled, a nervous twisting of her lips, as she dropped onto the seat.

“I wasn’t sure I should talk to you.”

“I should have come sooner.”

She shook her head. “If you had, I definitely wouldn’t have talked to you. My lawyer said she didn’t want me talking to anyone except Caleb.”

“What changed?”

“Well, she ought to spend a few days in here herself. Most of the women are in here for drugs, a few for fraud, only a couple for anything close to violence. I think they robbed a gas station with a pair of water pistols. I’m the badass of the bunch. The crazy hatchet lady.”

“You’ve always been a badass.” Tean leaned closer. “Are you ok?”

She shook her head and a tear escaped, but she said, “Yeah. I am. I don’t even feel unsafe, if you can believe that. I just don’t want to be here. I can’t figure out how it came to this. I can’t figure out how I got here. My brain—something’s wrong with my brain, Tean. I can’t even think straight anymore.”

“I couldn’t ever think straight.”

A real smile flickered in and out.

“You’re under a lot of stress,” Tean said, “and your brain is coping, trying to protect you. Once we’ve got you out of here, you’ll be back to normal. Jem would say something about how you’ll be kissing June suckers, I think.”

Another of those lightning-flash smiles. Then Hannah said, “And I can tell by your face that you screwed everything up with him again, didn’t you? Friends my butt. How long did you