Chapter 7: Agent Moretti

“Agent Moretti,” the man repeated, “are you injured?”

Elena wiped water from her eyes. “No. Preserve the yard feeds and separate Mina Okafor and Tess Ward before anyone from Block C questions them.”

The man in the dark suit spoke into his radio. Officers moved toward Mina and Tess, placing themselves between the women and Vera. Another blocked Holt’s path to the gate.

Vera looked from Elena to the visitors. “Agent?”

“State investigative division,” Elena said. “You had a choice in this yard.”

Vera let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “This was a setup.”

“You took the water yourself.”

The woman with the tablet identified herself as investigator Claire Bennett. She had monitored the yard feed from an office inside the administration building. She showed Elena the footage already copied to a secure device, then noted the time and the cameras from which it had come. Elena pointed out the cracked housing on the camera above Sofia’s bench.

“Get the other angle too,” she said. “Holt was watching from the wall.”

Holt opened his mouth. Claire raised a hand before he could speak. “Officer Holt, step away from your radio.”

An officer collected the radio in a clear bag and noted its channel and serial number. Another photographed where Holt had been standing. Vera watched these ordinary, careful actions with more alarm than she had shown when the gates opened. Elena understood why. Vera had counted on everyone remembering the scene as a quarrel between inmates. Now people were preserving the parts that showed who else had been present.

He set it on the concrete. “I didn’t know who she was.”

“You knew who her sister was,” Elena said.

Holt said nothing. Vera’s youngest companion retreated farther from him.

The visitor in the suit was Jonah Price, Elena’s contact on the investigation. He instructed the team to retain the original recordings and collect the paper Holt had taken from Elena’s cell. Holt claimed it was in the property cabinet. When Price asked for the cabinet key, he said it belonged to the shift supervisor.

“Then we’ll ask the supervisor,” Price replied.

Vera’s two remaining companions stood near the basketball hoop. An officer directed them to the far gate. Vera followed with an escort, still looking back at Elena as if the yard might return to her if she refused to leave it.

“Are they putting me in segregation?” she demanded.

“You’re being housed away from the witnesses while we investigate,” Claire said. “You’ll be told where you’re going.”

Mina stepped forward. “I want to speak to someone without Officer Holt in the room.”

“You will,” Price said.

Elena looked at Mina. The woman who had warned her away from Sofia’s bench was shaking, but she remained standing in the middle of the yard. Tess stood beside her.

“You don’t have to tell them anything today,” Elena said.

“I know.” Mina lifted her chin. “I want to.”

The officers led the witnesses through a different gate from Vera. The woman who had refused the apple followed at a distance and asked Claire whether she could give her name later. Claire told her where to go when she was ready.

Only after the yard was cleared did Elena become aware of how cold she was. Price offered his coat. She declined until he told her the infirmary had dry clothes waiting.

“I need the apple,” she said.

It still sat on the bench. Price picked it up, avoiding the wet patches, and gave it back. Elena held it while they walked inside.

In a private room, Claire reviewed the first recordings with her. The yard cameras showed Vera taking food and pouring water. They showed Holt’s position and his response. They did not show what had happened to Sofia months before, or prove every claim Elena had heard.

“Mina can tell you about the blackout,” Elena said. “Tess can place Holt at the meal line. There’s also a handwritten page logged during a search of my cell. I have the carbon receipt.”

Claire wrote down the property description and the time of the search. “Did you keep a copy of the page?”

“No. Sofia wrote it. Holt took the only piece I saw.”

“We’ll document what we find in the cabinet before anyone handles it.”

Elena changed into dry clothes. When she returned, Price had news: the page was in the cabinet, sealed in a property envelope, but someone had entered a request to have it destroyed as unauthorized writing. Her stamped requests from the day before had delayed the decision.

“Who entered the destruction request?” Elena asked.

“Holt.”

For a moment she could see Sofia at their kitchen table, pressing a pencil so hard that it left grooves in the page. Elena had spent months wondering whether her sister’s letter had simply vanished in the mail. Holt had held at least part of it in his hands twice.

“I want the outgoing mail register,” Elena said. “And the records from the laundry outage.”

She also gave Price the names of the six women on Sofia’s list from memory, specifying which she had met and which she knew only from the paper. She told him about the torn book cover and soaked blanket, and how she had never seen who entered her cell. Price wrote the limits down with the allegations. When she mentioned the red circle around Holt’s signature, he asked that the book and disciplinary notice be collected separately so the marks could be photographed. Elena had not saved them to prove who made the circle. She had saved them because someone had wanted her to see it.

Price nodded. “We’ve requested both.”

Mina’s first interview lasted less than an hour. She described the lights going out, Holt opening the laundry corridor, Vera entering, and Sofia saying she would not reveal where the page was. She refused to guess what had happened inside the room. Claire thanked her for being precise.

Afterward Mina requested a chance to call her daughter. The request had nothing to do with her statement, and Elena was relieved when Price treated it as a request Mina was entitled to make rather than a reward for cooperating. The call was arranged through the normal monitored system. Mina later told Elena she had only said she was safe for the night. It was enough for her daughter to hear her voice.

Tess confirmed the stolen meal tickets and Holt’s presence, then asked where she would sleep. Price showed her the temporary housing assignment before asking another question. She read it twice and continued speaking.

By evening, six women had asked to be interviewed. Two wanted to wait until their housing changed. Claire arranged that before booking their statements.

Elena walked past the dining room on her way to a second meeting. The women of Block C were eating. No one stood over Tess’s tray. Mina sat beside her, peeling an orange with slow, unsteady hands.

It was a real change. Elena let herself feel it for one breath.

Then Claire came down the hall carrying a copy of the outgoing mail register. Sofia’s envelope was listed as received. Beside the entry, in a different pen, someone had written

return to sender

.

No return address appeared anywhere on the envelope record.

“The entry was changed,” Claire said. “We need to find out by whom.”

Elena looked at the signature in the original receipt column. It was Holt’s. The correction carried a second set of initials she had not seen before:

E.P.