Chapter Thirty

People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.―Harper Lee

Damon Wendell was living his worst nightmare. He sat on his bunk holding his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth, desperate to calm his frayed nerves. The air in the jail was heavy with a film of body odor and disinfectant, the tension among inmates, constant. Knowing he was now a target, he hadn’t slept much either of his first two nights in custody. He wouldn’t have anyway.

Jesse’s cellmate hadn’t noticed the switch. Or if he had, he hadn’t said anything. Last night, Damon had spotted the one they called Turbo who had tried to kill his brother. Cell Two L in the corner of the pod, bottom bunk. Jesse said Turbo skipped breakfast and stayed in his cell sleeping most days. Yesterday morning, though, he had gone to breakfast.

Damon stopped rocking and rubbed a hand across the stubble of his fresh buzzcut. “So here he was,” he thought to himself, with a disbelieving smile. Thirteen years after formulating his plan, he had actually broken into a jail for his twin brother. God knows he owed it to him.

At seven a.m., he flinched as a heavy door to his cell buzzed open. He was rocking again, his wide eyes watching as inmates filed out for breakfast. Only a few of the forty inmates remained in their cells. Turbo didn’t leave his bunk. Damon reached under the mattress and felt for the heavy lead pipe while staring straight ahead. Jesse had traded two weeks’ commissary for it. It looked like a piece of plumbing, probably from one of the jail’s industrial washing machines.

Just as Jesse had predicted, there was no one in the common area of the pod. The inmates who stayed in their cells for breakfast wouldn’t snitch. He would be back in his cell before the guards arrived and be released later that afternoon. He trusted his twin.

Even if he got caught, he was prepared. Jesse wouldn’t be around to take the blame for him this time. He would do his own time. Part of him even hoped that would happen. If he was in custody, he knew Jesse would straighten his life out and be happy. Jesse would owe him that, and he would do it for him, just as he had done for his twin.

As Damon waited for the stragglers to clear out of the cell block, his thoughts turned to the clothing swap with Jesse. It had been stressful and somewhat painful, but typically, the twins had found a way to have fun together. They’d bet on whether or not Jesse would be handcuffed—he wasn’t—and had laughed at his pathetic attempt to tie Damon’s necktie.

Jesse had resisted the idea at first but the twins both knew he had to agree. Neither twin could deny the other’s visceral need to look out for one another. It had always been that way, and now, more than ever, it gave their lives purpose. So Jesse had relented to the clothing swap, just as Damon had given up his blood-spattered shirt to Jesse all those years ago.

Damon scooted to the edge of his bunk. “I got this, brother,” he whispered, repeating his ten-year-old brother’s words to him before the police had arrived on the worst day of their lives. He stood and walked through his open cell door wearing Jesse’s jail clothing. He held the end of the foot-long pipe in his cupped right hand, pinning it to his side with his forearm. Cell Two L was ten paces away, a diagonal walk across the pod. Approaching, he could see the guy who had attacked Jesse dozing on his bunk, alone in his cell.

Damon’s breathing shortened. “You’ve done it before, Damon. Just breathe,” he told himself, reciting the silent mantra in his head. “Plan your work. Work your plan.” He pushed silently through the open door and stood at the edge of the bunk. Then he jostled the bed with his knee and waited for the look of fear he needed to see.