Chapter 2 - A VISITOR WITH NO NAME
The next visitor arrived without appearing on my schedule.
He wore a gray suit and carried an identification card that he showed too quickly for me to read.
The correctional officer introduced him as an investigator assigned to financial crimes.
He sat opposite me and placed a photograph on the table.
The picture showed my father entering a parking garage beside a woman in a red coat.
Her face was half hidden, but I recognized the distinctive scar at her wrist from photographs Harrison had recovered.
Clara Thorne.
The timestamp was dated three weeks before her official disappearance.
“Your father met her,” the man said.
“Clearly.”
“Why did you conceal their relationship?”
“I didn't know about it.”
He watched me without blinking.
“Your husband says otherwise.”
“Then ask my husband why he never told me his first wife had met my father.”
The man smiled without amusement.
“We already did.”
He slid another photograph forward.
This one showed my missing backup phone beside a plastic bag labeled with my name.
My stomach tightened.
“Where was that found?”
“In a storage unit leased by Harrison Hayes.”
I refused to touch the photograph.
Harrison had spent ninety-two days keeping me from surrendering.
He had risked his reputation by presenting evidence against Silas.
Now the stranger wanted me to believe my attorney had planted the phone that helped convict me.
“Who are you?”
He folded his hands.
“Someone offering you a way out.”
The offer was brutally simple.
I could sign a sworn declaration accusing Harrison of fabricating the Clara evidence, and the state would consider a recommendation to reduce my sentence.
“Consider?” I repeated.
“You could be home sooner than you think.”
“Home with whom?”
He did not answer.
I pushed the document away.
“Tell Silas I don't negotiate with people who bury their wives.”
The man's expression hardened.
He stood, gathered the photographs, and walked out.
Only after the door closed did I notice the corner of a business card beneath my chair.
It bore no printed name.
On the back were four words written in blue ink.
‘Ask about Mara Bell.’
I showed it to the officer, who called her supervisor.
They examined the visitors' log together.
There was no record of the gray-suited man entering the facility.
The officer looked genuinely frightened.
“Mrs. Vance, the security footage of this room has been deleted.”
Before nightfall, Harrison was arrested on suspicion of evidence tampering.
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And I was assigned a new attorney who had never once spoken to me.
