“You’re bailed, idiot. You’re free to go.”

I didn’t understand. Someone must have posted my bail. But I didn’t have a single friend who could do such a thing. What I did have was an enemy. Finally I understood Lester’s warning. I jerked my arm loose. “No. I don’t want to go.”

“You don’t got a choice!”

The other inmates caught wind of our argument, and they circled around me, catcalling slurs. Retard. Fucking moron. They were right. Only an idiot would refuse to be bailed. And the CO was right. I couldn’t refuse. Valhalla wasn’t a hotel. I couldn’t call the front desk and extend my stay. Even if I told them my life was in danger, even if they believed me, they wouldn’t care. I was no longer the responsibility of the Westchester County Jail.

OUTGO WAS THE reverse of intake. A clerk peck-typed my discharge forms, then a CO stripped me out of my prison scrubs and tossed me a plastic bag holding the clothes I’d worn the day I arrived. I got dressed and laced up my running shoes. My wedding ring was there, and I slipped it in my jeans pocket.

A CO escorted me to the front gate. A buzzer sounded, a lock sprang open, and I walked out into the glare of the sun.

No one waited at the gate to claim me. I looked back at the CO. He shrugged. Not his problem anymore. He closed the gate, and an electronic bolt fell with a clang that echoed up and down the street.

The parking lot was in front of me, and rows of cars were lined up with their grilles facing the gate like they didn’t dare turn their backs on the criminals inside. Beyond the parking lot was a two-lane highway, and beyond that a patch of woods. I visored my hand over my eyes and scanned the parked cars. There were a lot of older sedans, a few SUVs, and to my left, one sad rusted-out Chevy driven by an old woman with a passel of kids in the back.

None of the cars looked like the CDMI limo, but of course Barrett wouldn’t have come himself. He would’ve sent Culligan to post my bail, and even Culligan would have taken off after that was accomplished. They’d farm out their dirty work to someone else. Wet work, they called it. I had to learn the lingo. What did a hit man drive? I wondered, and then I wondered—hoped—that maybe he wasn’t here yet. Maybe I’d been processed out too fast.

I had twenty-two dollars in my jeans pocket, the remaining balance of my prison earnings. I could hail a cab if one came by, or I could take a bus. The jail was on a bus route—I knew because I’d mapped it out for David in one of my letters—but I didn’t know the schedule, and I didn’t know what time it was now. I could walk, but I didn’t have a coat and wasn’t sure how long I’d last, especially after the sun went down. And there was still the question of where to go. I no longer had either an apartment or an office. Jingjing would take me in, for a little while anyway, but she was in Cape May, New Jersey, which was more than twenty-two dollars away. I decided to find my way to the nearest pawnshop. I’d sell my ring. That plus twenty-two dollars should get me somewhere.