After hours of questioning—a whole day practically—they lead Nancy out of the room in handcuffs. She is hungry and tired. Her skin is clammy with sweat. She wishes she could go home, take a warm bath, and curl up in bed and sleep for about twelve hours.
Instead, they lead her down a narrow corridor to a series of jail cells. Once she’s inside, they have her turn her back toward the bars so they can unlock her handcuffs.
“I want to see my son,” she says, rubbing her wrists. “He needs his mother.”
The agent with glasses glares at her.
“I’m sure Stephen Small wants to see his sons too,” the agent says. “I’m sure his boys need their father.”
With that, he turns and leaves. A female police officer in uniform remains standing outside the cell.
Nancy can’t imagine why they think they need a guard posted outside her jail cell. She isn’t a dangerous criminal. She isn’t going to escape. But then she understands why the officer is there. They want someone nearby in case she decides to tell them something important.
She can’t imagine what they think she might know.
There is a bed in the room, nothing more than a cot really, and a metal toilet with no seat. The cinder-block walls are painted a drab yellow. The room stinks like its last occupant didn’t know what a shower was.
Nancy doesn’t particularly want to touch the mattress—who knows who has slept on it?—but it’s the only place to sit besides the floor, and she figures that must be even more gross.
She lies down. The thin mattress provides very little comfort. The wire springs press against her back.
She tries to ignore the discomfort and stares at the ceiling, thinking. This is the first opportunity she’s had to really let her thoughts catch up with what’s been happening. The FBI agents bombarded her with questions for hours. The only time they left her alone, she assumes, was when they were down the hall doing the same to Danny.
She thinks she stuck to her story, but they kept catching her in inconsistencies. She didn’t want to tell them about picking Danny up at three o’clock in the morning or about any phone calls he made that night. But at first she told them she was sleeping and later said she was watching a movie.
It doesn’t matter, she thinks. Once they find Stephen Small and all of this gets sorted out, then I’ll be free to go.
She didn’t do anything wrong. So this nightmare can’t go on much longer. Can it?
She thinks of Danny, wherever he is. He must be scared too. She wishes she could comfort him.
But then she stops herself. It seems more and more clear that he’s involved in this mess somehow. His behavior has been so weird lately. There was the box he built in the garage. The way he disappeared for hours in the middle of the night. The strange late-night drive to supposedly get her bike fixed. And the three a.m. pickup at the railroad tracks.
Danny’s erratic behavior should have been a telltale sign that he was up to something. The way he snapped at her. The way he almost hit her. The way his mind has seemed a million miles away for the past few days.
Nancy thinks that he must have been roped into being involved. Maybe the drug dealer he used to work for coerced him because Danny still owed him money. Maybe other past associates tricked Danny.
This couldn’t be Danny’s idea.
But then she remembers him sitting in the kitchen, next to Benji, drawing designs on paper. He wouldn’t tell her what he was building. But it had been him who built the strange box in the garage, him who drew the designs, him who went to the lumberyard and bought supplies.
Danny wasn’t following anyone’s orders, doing anyone else’s bidding.
Now Nancy’s mind turns to Benji and the memory of him sitting next to Danny, drawing pictures. She’d liked the sight of the two of them together. She remembers thinking that Danny could be a good father figure for Benji.
Could she have been that wrong about him? She has the desperate need to see her son, to hold him in her arms.
When I get out of this mess, she thinks, I’m going to be the best mother I can possibly be.
She vows to love him and hold him and stay away from any bad influences.
She’ll stay away from men like Danny, she swears to herself.
She suddenly recognizes how stupid she’s been, lying to protect Danny. Her concern should be for Benji. She needs to get out of here. She needs to be with her son. Let Danny worry about himself. She needs to worry about her child.
Down the hall from her jail cell, Nancy hears a commotion. Urgent voices. The female officer posted outside her cell glances Nancy’s way, then heads down the hall to find out what is happening.
Wait, Nancy thinks. I’m ready to tell the truth.