Page 38 of Too Old for Love

“Keep me alive long enough to get married,” she grinned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The prison rose out of the fields of farmland like a machine built to grind names into numbers. Alice Quinn watched it through the windshield until the razor wire blurred in the drizzle, then killed the engine and sat with both hands locked around the steering wheel. Her wedding ring pressed a pale crescent into her finger.

Three men waited inside: her husband, Michael; Sean Quinn; and Michael’s father, Thomas Quinn. Three convictions. Insurance fraud. Medicare fraud. Wire fraud. Conspiracy. Money laundering. Crimes the government had named and crimes it had only hinted at.

Alice had not seen all three men in one place since the sentencing, when each had looked back at her as if she were the only door left unlocked.

She entered beneath white lights and cameras, surrendered her purse, removed her shoes, and answered questions in a voice that sounded borrowed. The officer compared her face to her identification twice.

“You’re approved for all three inmates?” he asked.

“Family,” Alice said.

The word tasted metallic. He stamped her wrist with invisible ink and pointed toward the detector. When she passed through, it gave a single soft chirp. Every officer in the room looked up.

“Again,” one said. Alice stepped back, removed a hairpin, and tried once more. Silence.

“Lucky,” the officer murmured.

The visiting room was too bright for secrets. Plastic chairs sat in rigid rows beneath smoked domes. Children whispered over vending-machine snacks. Guards watched from behind glass. Michael came first, thinner than Alice remembered, his prison khakis hanging from his shoulders. He hugged her briefly, within the rules, and his mouth brushed her ear.

“Don’t say Med-Tech.” Alice pulled back.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Smile,” he said. “They record what they can’t hear.” She smiled. It hurt.

They sat across from each other at a scarred table.

“Abigail and Samantha are dead,” Alice said quietly. Michael’s gaze stayed on her face, but a pulse moved in his jaw. “Elevator accident. That’s what the papers called it.”

“And what do you call it?”

“A warning.” Michael leaned back and glanced toward the nearest camera.

“Then listen to it.”

“I’ve been listening for three weeks. Every time the office elevator opens, I expect to find someone standing there.”

“Did anyone contact you?”

“Not directly.”

“That isn’t an answer.” Alice rubbed her thumb over the edge of her ring.

“A hospital administrator asked why old patient records were being queried at two in the morning. A doctor in Plano says his software vendor found a phantom maintenance account. Yesterday, a package arrived at my apartment.”

“What was in it?”

“A photograph of Abigail and Samantha in the elevator.” Michael’s expression did not change.

“Before?”

“After.” For the first time, he looked away.

“You brought it here?”