Chapter 26
ROGERS
It would be nice to have a week off, where he doesn’t have to worry about sneaking around behind anyone’s back. Where he can finish his shift as it should be done. By the books. No sketchy anything. No laws broken.
Seeing a certain inmate striding up the corridor towards him dampens his hopes of leaving work intact of dirt. He has so much dirt under his nails he could build a hill to live on. He could bury the town’s dead under it.
Sinn'ous stops a few steps short of being in Rogers’s personal space, a box tucked under his arm. “I need you to delete K-Wings video feed for the last four hours.” He passes the box over to Rogers, “and destroy this.”
Rogers accepts the box, sparing it only a brief glance, and cuts right past all the tiptoeing around the subject. “What did you do?” There is only one reason Sinn'ous would want that footage gone.
He’s killed someone.
Again.
“Nothing.”
Sceptical doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling racing into his bloodstream and tingling every joint in his body.
He could push for an explanation, a name of the dead someone—or someones’.
It’s not worth it though, let him go a few more minutes without knowing, until the alarms blare and he’s given the name over radio with the rest of the officers.
A little peace before the inevitable storm of dreadfully suppressed guilt.
He never thought he would be here in his life. Covering up murders. But here he is.
“Sure.” Let’s get this over with.
Good thing he’s already in K-Wing, the walk to his locker is a quick trip to stuff the box inside his bag and lock it away.
He can deal with whatever is in there later.
The walk to the monitoring room is likewise a short one, cut up by each check point through various locked doors.
At least they keep the monitoring system out of the inmates hands.
Not that it matters, not when he’s doing the inmate’s bidding.
It’s also not at all surprising to enter the room and find no one monitoring it. Half the time the shift commander in charge of rosters completely overlooks placing someone on the cameras. It could be that, or the officer in charge for the day has stepped out for a smoke break or something.
Either way, it works in Rogers’s favour.
No excuse needed to weasel his way in. The footage is at his disposal and that’s exactly what he does.
Disposes it. He’s erased so much footage over the year, it’s second nature to him now.
It takes but a moment to delete the last four hours of footage.
Dozens of cameras wiped clean in a few well-placed clicks.
And he has no temptation to rewind the footage to see what Sinn'ous is having him destroy, a bit of plausible deniability. It’s also better for his conscience to not see what he’s covering up.
Better for his sleep too. No nightmares showcasing murder scenes in graphic detail.
He has enough of that from his near death in the laundry room, he politely declines more nightmare fuel.