“Fear,” I said. “People are afraid that if they take their chances with a trial they’ll end up serving more time.”

“And do you know the percentage of people who plead out but are really innocent of the crime?”

To plead guilty or not guilty has little to do with whether or not you committed the crime and more to do with how you want to be treated by the judicial system in regard to the crime. Someone who pleads guilty will almost always receive a lighter sentence than someone who pleads not guilty but is found to be guilty.

“It should be zero,” I said, “but some studies put the number at eight to fifteen percent.”

“It’s tragic when the innocent are so afraid of a miscarriage of justice that they admit to crimes they didn’t commit and then end up in prison. Sometimes for a decade or more.”

Where is he going with all this?

“You mentioned the Selzucaine,” I said. “Do you know where Jon obtained it from?”

“Follow it back to the source.”

“What does that mean?”

He was quiet.

“Why are you so faithful to Blake?” I asked him. “What does he have on you?”

Mannie’s gaze shifted to the video camera and then back to me. “Do you have any idea what he has planned?”

“Tell me.”

He pointed at the legal pad and I handed it, along with the pen, to him.

“Mannie, do you know who Jon was speaking to when he said, ‘This is for you’?”

“His father.”

“How do you know that?”

“Let’s just say the walls have ears.”

He began to draw on the paper—a combination of dots, some within boxes, others with partial boxes drawn around them. It might have been a form of Morse code or Braille, but I didn’t recognize it. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

“This may take a few minutes,” he said softly.

“Take your time.”

20

Tessa hated reading books on e-readers or on her phone—for some reason she just liked the feel of an actual book book in her hands.

She usually kept one in the satchel she used as a purse just in case she got stuck somewhere and needed to read, but today she hadn’t bothered since they were just supposed to be going to church.

Which only left her phone.

Not gonna happen.

A sign near the door to the elevators announced that anyone from the public needed to leave behind their PEDs. With advances in technology, personal electronic devices can be nearly anywhere and can record nearly anything.

It listed restrictions on smart watches, smart shoes, phones, any recording devices, even portable USB thumb drives.

Smart shoes?

Whatever.