Chapter 11: Her Own Ledger

They put me in a holding room with a steel bench and a camera in the corner.

I sat there for six hours with my hands cuffed in front of me.

I did not feel afraid.

I felt the strange calm of a man who has already lost the worst thing.

At two in the afternoon, a guard unlocked the door.

"Sewall. Your bail's been posted."

"By who?"

"Don't ask me. Sign here."

Sadie wasn't in the lobby.

A woman in a long dark coat was waiting by the vending machines with her hands in her pockets.

It was Joanna.

She looked ten years older than she had a week ago.

"I paid it," she said. "The lawyer says the complaint will be dropped if you apologize to Dane."

"I'm not apologizing."

"I told him that. I told the lawyer you wouldn't."

She turned toward the doors.

"Please get in the car. I need ten minutes."

Rain was coming down in sheets.

I got in because I had nowhere dry to stand.

She drove out of the lot and parked under an overpass, and she shut off the engine.

Neither of us said anything for a while.

"Why did you bail me out?" I asked.

"Because the detective called me this morning," she said. "He read me the file over the phone."

My head turned.

"He read me four years of your life, Flynn. Every page was a reading Dane had already given me."

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