6. Glass
Glass
Nadine
The glass is scratched from a thousand hands pressing against it with things a monitored phone couldn't carry.
I put my palm flat on it before I pick up the receiver.
One second of pretending there's not an inch of the world I can't get through.
The visiting room smells of disinfectant and old fear. Six booths line the wall. A woman at the far end sings a nursery rhyme into her phone while a toddler pounds both fists on the glass. In the booth beside mine, an older man holds the receiver without speaking. His son does the same.
Every person here has learned that presence can be a conversation.
Then Eddie walks in.
County orange washes the color out of him. He's the same height, same shoulders, same impossible amount of restless energy contained under skin. But quiet has taken something from his face. He sits across from me and stares at my hand.
I pick up the phone.
He picks up his.
"You look terrible," I say.
His mouth almost remembers how to smile. "You drove forty minutes to tell me that?"
The old rhythm catches us. For one breath, we're in a hospital hallway arguing over parking.
Then the breath ends.
"They served me," I say. "Four years of notes."
He goes still. Not Crow's stillness. Eddie's costs him visible effort, like every word is pushing against his teeth.
"Don't give them anything."
"My attorney is moving to quash and for a protective order. If that fails, a judge can compel production. The board can investigate regardless."
"Don't."
"I could lose my license."
"I know."
Anger flashes hot enough to feel clean. "That's my whole life, Eddie."
"I know that too."
No joke. No promise that the club will fix it. No little boy's certainty that wanting something makes it possible.
Just a man behind glass who understands the exact price and asks anyway.
I want to hate him for it.
I don't.
"I started a file on Tillery," I say.
His eyebrows lift.
"Public records. Dates. Meetings. Corporate registrations. The process server uses a return address connected to a consulting company organized by a Paul Tillery. I saw Neal Tillery talking to Sisk personnel in our lobby before any subpoenas arrived."
I don't tell him Celia Vernon's name. I don't know what he knows, and the line is monitored. But he hears Sisk and everything easy goes out of his face.
"Did you tell Vale?" he asks.
"This morning. She told me not to investigate beyond public sources and ordinary observation."
"You gonna listen?"
"Within a clinically acceptable margin."
For one heartbeat, the old grin appears.
"Nadine, be careful."
"I'm always careful."
He leans closer to the glass. "No. You're always competent. Those aren't the same thing."
The sentence lands in a place nobody has been allowed to name.
"You think I don't know danger?"
"I think you know exactly how much blood a body can lose and still live, and sometimes that makes you forget bleeding is bad."
I grip the phone harder. "You have been silent for one day and become insufferably wise."
"Temporary side effect."
There he is. Small and flickering, but there.
"Did they hurt you?"
"Only my feelings. County soap is a hate crime."
"Your wrists."
He turns one hand. A red line circles the skin. No swelling. Good capillary color. I assess without touching because that's the cruelty of glass.
"They offered to make the gun problem smaller if I explained the Prewitt money," he says. "I waited for Vale."
Every word can be heard. He knows. I know.
"Good."
"That all I get?"
"Would you like a sticker?"
"Green one."
"For not committing a felony before lunch?"
"For personal growth."
The guard calls five minutes.
I place my hand on the glass again.
This time Eddie raises his.
His palm meets mine with an inch between them. Fingers spread. He adjusts until each one matches.
I call him Eddie because Whistler belongs to the room with the cuts and the locked door, and this man is stripped down to the name his mother gave him.
"I won't hand them over," I say softly. "Not willingly. We fight the subpoena all the way."
His eyes close once.
"Don't lose yourself for us."
"You don't get to decide what part of me this is."
"I'm not asking you to be brave."
"Good. I dislike assignments."
"I'm asking you to come out the other side still you."
My throat closes around an answer.
For years, people have admired my competence because it keeps them from asking what it costs. Eddie, who jokes through his own blood, is the first person to separate what I can do from what can hurt me.
"Then you do the same," I say.
He presses his hand harder to the glass. "Deal."
It's not a promise either of us can control.
"Tell me about the baby," he says.
"Not born yet. Georgia is contracting and denying it."
"Crow know?"
"Crow knows Georgia is pregnant. Beyond that, his access to information is conditional on his behavior."
"You two terrify me."
"Good. Fear indicates intact judgment."
"What if it's a girl?"
"Then Beau will be outnumbered."
"He's already outnumbered. Dot counts as six."
I laugh before I can stop myself. The sound feels wrong in the visiting room and necessary.
His palm stays matched to mine.
"There," he says softly. "Needed that."
I understand he was afraid I wouldn't laugh again. The knowledge is too tender to answer.
The guard calls time.
The phone cord is six inches from its cradle. Neither of us moves.
Finally, I hang up. My fingers come away from the glass steady.
In the parking lot, I sit behind the wheel for four minutes.
My phone buzzes.
Georgia: Water hasn't broken. Contractions are getting closer. Don't come to the hospital yet. Come when I call.
I type back that she should call Dr. Mercer now. I tell her to time everything. I tell her not to let Crow drive.
Then I open the Tillery notebook and write down every word Eddie said about the offer.