I picked up the pen and signed.
As I pressed my thumb to the ink pad, Detective Mercer dropped his voice.
"Kid, if you've got evidence, get it out now. Every eye in the city is on you."
I wiped the red ink off my finger.
"Thanks for the tip. Let the bullet fly a while longer."
I was taken to the detention center.
Seven or eight women in yellow vests sat inside the cell, every head turning toward me at once.
A heavyset woman near the wall corner stood up.
"Fresh meat? What're you in for?"
I ignored her.
She walked over and kicked the edge of my bunk.
"Gone deaf? I asked you a question!"
I looked up at her.
"Stay away from me if you don't want to die."
The woman burst out laughing.
"Ha! Scrawny little thing talks tough. Girls—time to educate her."
Several women closed in around me.
Just then, a guard rapped on the iron door from outside.
"Number 093, Laurel Fox. Attorney visit."
The heavyset woman glared at me, then slunk back to her corner.
I stood and followed the guard to the visitation room.
My lawyer was already waiting. Ernest Henson.
He'd been a senior when I was in college. Now he was the top criminal defense attorney in the city.
"Laurel, it's bad out there."
"What did Nelson do now?"
Ernest opened the case file in his hands.
"He gave a live media interview outside the police precinct this morning."
"He's doubling down—says you're a criminal syndicate leader. And he threw out something new."
I watched the gravity settle deeper into Ernest's face.
"Tell me."
Ernest took a long breath.
"He brought up the girl who killed herself—jumped off the building. Gail Lambert."
"He says you forced her to pour drinks at the karaoke lounge, that she was—"
"That she couldn't live with the shame."
My hand clenched hard. Gail Lambert.
The girl who always kept her head down, who spoke so softly you had to lean in to hear her.
"Does he have evidence?" My voice was ice.
Ernest nodded.
"He produced a photocopy of a diary Gail supposedly kept before she died."
"One entry reads: 'Laurel Fox is a monster. She forces me to drink. I'm so scared of her.'"
A cold laugh left my throat.
"Public opinion online has completely spiraled." Ernest pressed his fingers against his brow.
"They've tagged you 'the deadliest beauty in the class.' They're demanding the death penalty."
I looked at him, my tone flat.
"Ernest, I need you to do two things."
"Name them."
I spoke slowly, making every word land.
"Submit that photo Nelson filed, the one of me holding the knife, for forensic authentication."
Ernest wrote fast.
"Then go to the bakery in the alley behind the college district. Ask the owner for the custom cake receipt from October 12th, ten years ago."
"That knife in the photo was the plastic cake knife that came free with a three-layer Black Forest cake."
Ernest frowned.
"What about the Gail Lambert accusation? That diary is devastating."
"Don't respond to the Gail Lambert claim. Not yet."
Ernest held my gaze for a long moment.
"All right. I'll get on it. Watch yourself in here. Nelson's put the word out—he wants you wishing you were dead inside this place."
I turned and walked back to the cell.
The second I stepped through the door, the air was wrong.
Every woman who'd been sitting on her bunk was now standing, their bodies packed together to block the surveillance camera.
Marlene Coyle walked toward me with a smile.
"Laurel Fox, right? Somebody outside put up a hundred thousand for one of your legs."
The words barely left her mouth before two women lunged at me from either side, locking my arms tight.
