He didn’t answer, but he finally looked straight at me. There was dread in his eyes, and I felt a chill creep through me.

“They’re not Mafia,” I said. “It’s not like they could put out a hit on me in here.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “In here.”

THAT NIGHT AFTER lights-out, I replayed the conversation in my mind while Bulan prattled on in the bunk above me. The only point of the motion for the return of my briefcase was to spur the prosecution to take a peek inside. I hadn’t figured on Barrett taking an interest, too. It had never occurred to me that he’d be watching the court docket. It was a serious blunder on my part, and I wondered if I’d overplayed my hand.

And then there was Lester’s cryptic remark—in here. It was as baffling as my PD’s comment that there was a lot of sympathy for me out there. Because there was no out there for me so long as the murder charge remained. I would be in here until I was exonerated. Barrett couldn’t do anything to me after that, so what was Lester alluding to?

Bulan was still droning on about her ordeal. It made me long for a cellie who repressed her traumatic memories like PTSD sufferers were supposed to. Tonight she wasn’t even talking about her own trauma. This time it was about a big shipment of girls who arrived last fall. They were new to the life, very young, and terrified. Their only prior work experience had been in a sewing factory.

I sat up and listened to every word, and when it was more than I could remember, I got out of bed and took notes by the faint glow of moonlight through the narrow window.

THE NEXT MORNING the sun shone so bright through the cell window that the bars laid shadow stripes over the concrete floor. I couldn’t wait for yard time. The old patches of snow would be gone. The daffodils would be up another inch. Till now their blooms had been held tight inside their little fistlike buds, but today they might start to relax. They might unfurl and dot the yard with pops of sunny yellow.

I was shuffling along, twenty feet from the door again, when the same CO called my name. I refused to turn around. I was desperate to get outside. “Whoever it is, tell them I’m not interested!” I shouted.

She pulled me out of line with a hard squeeze on my bicep.

I went a little crazy then. It was just like in the elevator. I felt such a swell of hatred in that moment that my heart started to thump, my head grew hot, my vision swam. I turned on her, hands up, claws out, ready to kill her if I had to.

“It’s not a visitor, asshole,” she snarled. “You made bail.”

I backed off with a scowl. This was her idea of a sick joke. April Fool’s. “Ha,” I sneered. But when she only gave me a slow blink, I realized she wasn’t joking. “I—what?” I said.