Sarah turned in the direction of the voice. Far down at the end of the corridor, looking like a trick of perspective, Alice through the looking glass, Jolie was sitting in a chair. She was staring at the wall in front of her, not looking over.

“Jolie?” Sarah said. “What’s—”

“Look at the camera.”

“Where’s Mike?”

“Look at the camera.”

Sarah’s first thought was a surveillance camera, but then she saw the little silver camera sitting on the counter in front of her in a ring of blood. She rested Eli on the counter, away from the blood, keeping one arm draped on his waist and allowing his deep-sleeping weight to rest against her as she picked up the camera.

“Did something happen?” she asked. “Is Snow making you do this?”

Jolie just kept staring at the wall. Sarah found the blood-encrusted power button, tapped it on. Images lit the screen and she clicked through them, photos of empty hallways, vacant doorways and hospital walls, shadows that made no sense. Was there a story here?

Click: an open space surrounded in chain-link fence.

Click: an orange jumpsuit blazing faster than the shutter could capture it.

Click: Jolie’s face blown up in a silent scream.

Click: even closer, just half her mouth and one open eye.

Click, click, click.

“What’s he showing me?” Sarah asked. “What am I supposed to—”

Click.

She stared at the last image on the screen. It was a blurry close-up of two bodies twisted around each other, the pornographic equivalent of a crime-scene photo. She saw flesh, knees, body hair, little else. Sex? Only by the most generous of standards. A dead man’s heart had more passion in it than this.

“Who is this?”

Jolie, in her chair, didn’t answer.

“Who are these people?”

She was still looking at the picture when the man rose up from behind the desk with his hand around Eli’s throat. It was the security guard, Calhoun. His face was full of broken clockwork, voice an atonal buzz.

“You’re coming with me.”

Sarah looked for the pistol where she’d laid it on the counter. It was already gone. The gun was in Calhoun’s hand. He rested the barrel against Eli’s temple, just below the swollen knot in the boy’s forehead.

“Now.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trading your son for my keys.”

“What?”

“My deal, the one he offered me.” Calhoun pulled something from his pocket, a balled-up note, flicked it past her off the counter, where it fell to the floor. Sarah never took her eyes off Eli.