Page 47 of Anarchy Missing

“OK,” I manage to whisper back. “I’ll do that.”

“Great,” Case says. “See you later.”

I end the call and all three men are looking at me. But before they can say anything, the door bursts open and a woman prison guard is standing there, barking out a status report.

“Power’s out, water’s out, phones are out. We’re on back-up generators. There’s a riot breaking out in Cell Block H, all the rest of the prisoners are in lockdown.”

“Randy,” Dick Cage says. “I’ve gotta handle this. Take your time in here and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The warden disappears, closing the door behind him and drowning out the building commotion.

“I want to be kept in solitary confinement until my transfer,” O’Neil says, picking up like this interruption never happened. “And I need to be the fuck out of this place by the end of the week. Those are my terms. This,” he says, nodding his head up, like he’s referencing the lack of power, “is him. You can bet on it.”

“Who?” Randy asks, eager for a name.

“Wade. Lincoln Wade is most definitely the one behind all this bullshit. And I can prove it. Pull my collar back,” O’Neil says. “Look at my neck.”

Randy walks over to the chief and pulls down the collar of his bright red jumpsuit. There is an ugly scar on his throat. Like a… burn. Almost like a… handprint.

“He did that to me,” the former chief says.

“Who?” Randy and I ask at the same time.

“Wade. He did that to me with his hands. They burned me. Through his gloves. He came in my office last winter to threaten me about the way I was talking to his girlfriend, Detective Masters. And he choked me. His hands lit up red,” he says. “My neck blistered in a matter of seconds. When I went to the hospital, they said second-degree burns. From his hands.”

I suddenly have a vision of Case’s hands on my body last night. The unnatural heat coming from them, even through his gloves.

His gloves.

Just the way O’Neil describes Wade.

“There’s something really wrong with this city,” O’Neil says, echoing my thoughts the other morning. “And it begins and ends with Lincoln Wade, Case Reider, and Thomas Brooks. They’re the bad guys here, not me. I want my transfer, Randy. And I want it now, or I’m not saying another word and I’ll deny everything I just told you. You’re gonna look crazy as fuck if you try to sell this story to a judge and jury without my support.”