Chapter 6: The Basement Tape

I did not sleep.

At eight in the morning an officer unlocked the cell and said, "Ellery, your bond's been posted."

"By who?"

"Fifty thousand dollars, paid in full." He shrugged. "That's all I know."

Jude was waiting by the front desk in yesterday's shirt.

He did not say hello, and he did not ask how I was.

He held the door open for me, and we walked out into the gray morning together.

Tilda was in the car at the curb with the engine running.

She leaned out of the window.

"I told him about the drive," she said. "Don't be mad."

"You told him?"

"He's the only one with a lawyer who isn't owned by Dax."

I got into the back seat, and Jude sat beside me.

For a few blocks nobody spoke.

"You paid fifty thousand dollars for me," I said.

"I paid it for a woman I think is innocent."

"You don't know me."

"I know your voice better than I know most people's faces."

I looked out of the window, because I did not know what to do with that sentence.

"They're going to say I stole the masters," I said. "Kiera signed a paper. She was standing right there, and she lied to the police."

"I know."

"She cried. She hugged me. I thought she was..."

I stopped.

My voice had started to shake.

Jude did not tell me it would be fine.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a flat gray envelope that had gone soft at the corners.

"I want to show you something," he said. "I found it last night after you left."

"Is it a legal paper?"

"No."

He handed it to me.

The envelope was addressed to Gold Line Records, Attention: New Artists, in blue ink I knew very well.

It was my handwriting.

The postmark was seven years old.

My stomach dropped.

I opened it with clumsy fingers.

Inside was a small cassette tape with a label on it.

Paper Sparrow, verse one and chorus. J. Ellery.

And a single printed card, stamped with the Gold Line logo.

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