Death Row novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Trapped

The intercom over my head was still on.

I could hear everything in the witness room, because nobody had thought to turn it off.

Blaine's hand was still on the bar of the locked door.

"Open it," he said again. "Now."

"Mr. Fell," the man from the attorney general's office said, "I'd like you to sit down."

"I am a victim's brother."

"Then you can sit down."

"I am leaving."

"Sir," Hauck said, "the wallet."

Blaine turned.

For the first time since the lobby, his face had nothing arranged on it.

He looked at Hauck, and then at the two reporters, who had their phones up, and then at the room.

I watched him do the arithmetic.

It took about two seconds.

Then Marlene stood up.

She was shaking, and the handkerchief had fallen on the floor.

"I didn't know," she said.

Her voice was high, and she said it to the man from the attorney general's office, and not to Blaine.

"I never knew. I thought he was my brother. He told me his wife was a danger to him. He told me she was dangerous. I only did what he asked."

"Marlene," Blaine said quietly.

"I never lit anything. I wasn't there. I swear to God I was in a motel three states away, and he called me at two in the morning, and I said what he told me to say."

"Sit down."

"I cried because I was told to cry!" Her voice cracked on it. "He picked her. He picked all of them. I only drove."

"You drove," Blaine said.

He had stopped pushing at the door.

He said it softly, and he turned toward her with his hands loose at his sides.

"You sat at Sunday lunch and asked her what the care home cost," he said. "That was you. You asked about her mother's will."

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