Chapter 15: Eight Counts

"Turn around, ma'am," the detective said again.

I set down my box.

Behind her, a neighbor had opened a door on the landing and was holding a dish towel.

Another door opened above us.

"She's the victim," Lucy said. "She is the victim in this."

"I understand that, miss. I still have a warrant."

I put my hands behind my back, because I did not know what else to do.

The detective's partner took my wrists.

His hand pressed flat between my shoulder blades to turn me toward the wall.

I stopped breathing.

It was the exact spot where Conway's hand had always landed before the first blow.

Every muscle in my back locked.

"Wait," Nate said.

He had come up the last stair with a box still in his arms.

He set it down very slowly.

"She has four broken ribs that healed wrong, and a bruise from last week," he said. "I'm a paramedic. Cuff her in front."

"Sir, stay back."

"It's not an argument. It's a medical instruction."

The detective looked at me, at my face, and then at the color of my knuckles.

"Take your hand off her back," she told her partner.

He did.

The air came back into my chest in one ragged pull.

"In front is fine," the detective said, and she did it herself.

The metal was cold and exact.

Lucy had her phone up, filming.

"Good," I told her. "Keep going."

The neighbor with the dish towel crossed her arms.

"Is this the woman who locked up that whole family?" she said. "I saw it on the news."

"Yes," Lucy said. "And you can watch her get arrested for it. Then you can watch the rest."

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