Chapter 9
The air in the sub-basement of the Ridgeview courthouse tasted thick and artificial, filtered through decades of industrial ductwork and chemical cleansers. Jax eased the bent iron hatch open the rest of the way, stepping up onto a concrete ledge that ran along the base of a massive, silent cast-iron boiler covered in peeling green paint. He turned and reached down, lifting Leo up by the armpits and setting him gently on the floor beside a stack of folded gray institutional wool blankets.
“Stay low,” Jax instructed, clicking off the flashlight and relying entirely on the dim, amber glow of emergency exit lights filtering through the wire-reinforced glass of the heavy fire doors across the room. “The night shift deputies usually do their rounds on the upper floors every hour, but sometimes the duty sergeant comes down here to check the water heaters around midnight.”
Leo nodded silently, his eyes wide as he looked around the cavernous boiler room. Massive steel pipes wrapped in crumbling fiberglass insulation stretched across the ceiling like the skeletal ribs of a colossal beast. Every sound—the distant slam of a heavy metal door three floors up, the hiss of a pressure valve somewhere in the walls—echoed sharply off the concrete floor.
Jax pulled the manila envelope and the folded ledger out from the inside pocket of his leather vest, checking to make sure the evidence hadn't suffered too much moisture damage during the descent through the drainage culvert. The papers were slightly damp at the edges, but the ink remained sharp and legible.
“Come on,” Jax whispered, motioning for the boy to follow as he slipped through a narrow service corridor marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
They navigated a maze of concrete hallways lined with gray metal lockers and discarded office furniture. The facility was quiet now, wrapped in that unnatural, heavy stillness that only government buildings possessed after midnight. Every few yards, security cameras mounted in the corners of the ceilings blinked with small red status lights, their lenses tracking mechanically back and forth across the corridors. Jax kept them hugging the shadows close to the walls, ducking beneath the sweep of the camera angles with the practiced ease of a man who had spent a portion of his youth learning how to avoid the attention of local law enforcement.
After turning down a final, narrow hallway lined with reinforced steel doors and small wire-glass observation windows, Jax stopped abruptly. He held up a gloved hand to signal Leo to freeze.
Through the thick glass of Cell 4, a single overhead fluorescent bulb cast a harsh, glaring white light across a narrow concrete cot and a small metal sink. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, with her head resting in her hands, was a woman with short, dark hair streaked with premature gray, wearing an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely over her slight frame.
Sarah.
Leo let out a soft, involuntary gasp, taking a half-step forward before Jax’s heavy hand closed gently around his shoulder, pulling him back into the shadow of the doorframe.
May you like
“Momma,” Leo whispered, the word escaping his lips like a breath of wind against winter glass.
Inside the cell, Sarah raised her head slowly at the faint sound. She looked toward the heavy metal door, her eyes hollow and dark-rimmed from exhaustion and sleepless nights, searching the empty corridor with the desperate hope of a ghost looking for the living.
