“Ellis,” I said, keeping my voice low. “If you let Hoyt walk me out to that van, you are an accessory to murder. You think Hoyt is protecting you? You’re the only witness who saw my badge on that desk. You’re the one who typed my intake into the terminal using your login credentials. ”
Ellis stared at the glowing monitor. His screen name—D. Ellis, Badge 414—sat in bright green letters right above Thomas Vance’s resurrected case number.
“He told me to use my terminal because his password was locked out,” Ellis stammered, panic rising into his throat. “He said he’d sign the hard copy in the morning. ”
“He won't sign anything,” I said. “He’ll tell state investigators that you made a clerical error while booking a vagrant, and when my body turns up in the Blackwood River, the digital audit trail will lead straight to your keyboard. ”
Ellis snatched the pink tow slip, his knuckles white. “I can void the record. ”
“Don't void it,” I snapped. “Hoyt will see the deletion log the second he walks back through that door. Flatten that carbon out and kick it over here. ”
Ellis hesitated, his chest heaving under his stiff uniform. Then, with a hurried scrape of his boot, he dropped the pink slip to the linoleum and kicked it across the yellow safety line.
Moving smoothly so the chain wouldn't clink against the iron anchor ring, I slid my right sole over the slip, pinning the crumpled carbon under the heavy rubber tread of my service boot.
Behind the frosted glass of the corridor, heavy boots thudded against concrete. Ellis scrambled behind the desk just as Hoyt filled the doorway, transport chains swinging from his thick fist.
“Van’s idling in the bay,” Hoyt said, dropping the heavy irons onto my lap and unlocking the floor shackle. “On your feet, Vance. Time to move. ”
As I stood, I dragged the pink slip into the gusset of my boot, wedging the carbon against my ankle. Hoyt shoved me into the concrete tunnel of the sally port. There was no cavalry coming down the interstate, and no honest supervisor waiting in Atlanta to correct a mistake. Donald Miller had signed my execution order, and the only weapon I had left was folded inside my boot.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
Idling over the central drainage trench was a faded white commercial step-van with reinforced wire mesh welded across the rear glass and the lettering of a local commercial carrier roughly sanded off the side panels. Through the vibration of the idling engine, the cab door creaked open, and a man in oil-stained canvas coveralls stepped down into the pool of light. He had Hoyt’s heavy jaw, the same rounded shoulders, and an unlit cigar wedged between his teeth.
“You’re late, Ray,” the driver said, his voice flat as gravel sliding into an empty hopper. “The night shift on the primary shredder knocks off at four-thirty. If we don’t drop the chassis into the pit before the day foreman clocks his cards, it sits on the scales until noon. ”
“We’re on time, Wade,” Hoyt said, shoving me toward the rear bumper until my knees struck the rusted pintle hook. “Unlock the cage. This one doesn't get a transfer receipt. ”
Wade’s eyes flicked over my bare wrists, the steel cuffs, and the blue poplin of my field shirt. He reached into his canvas pocket for a set of brass padlocks, but before the tumblers turned, the pneumatic latch on the upper sally port entrance clattered against its steel strike plate.
The fire door flew back, echoing like a rifle crack through the concrete vault.
Deputy Ellis stumbled onto the landing, his service hat gone and his radio antenna whipping violently against his shoulder strap. In his right hand he gripped a heavy red-tabbed manifest binder, its metal rings gaping open, spilling fresh continuous-feed teletype sheets across his forearm.
“Sergeant! ” Ellis shouted, his voice cracking against the corrugated metal rafters. “Hold up the transfer! You have to see this! ”
Hoyt froze, his knuckles whitening around the iron chain in his fist. He turned with deliberate, vicious slowness, glaring up the ramp as if the younger deputy were an animal that had wandered onto a rifle range.
“I gave you an order to scrub the intake terminal and lock the front desk, Ellis,” Hoyt said, the tone dropping into a deadly, quiet register. “You don't leave the desk unattended. ”
Ellis didn't stop until he reached the bottom of the incline, his breath tearing in ragged, shallow gasps. The kid looked physically ill; the skin beneath his eyes was bruised with exhaustion, and the paper in his shaking hand trembled so violently the perforations hissed against the binder clips.
“The regional audit flag didn't come from Atlanta dispatch,” Ellis panted, holding the red folder between himself and Hoyt like an unpinned grenade. “I pulled the incoming teletype queue from the backup server in the utility closet. The transmission routed through the state emergency management exchange in Savannah, but the billing account on the header belongs to Mercer Timber Holdings. It’s drawn on the flood relief escrow account. ”