LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      I didn’t lose consciousness, but my vision blurred and there were a few, terrifying moments of darkness. Then things slowly faded back in, like the change of scenes in an old movie. Objects took shape: a bookshelf, an end table, a painting, and a hulking woman with cropped, black hair who sat on a couch and stared at the floor.

      Dazed, I put my hand to my head, trying to remember how I’d gotten there. Had I walked in myself? Had a passerby seen the accident and helped me? I glanced at the woman on the couch, hoping for answers, but she continued to glare at her shoes.

      Other than the strange woman and me, the place was empty: no doctors, nurses, or even a receptionist. What kind of hospital was this? That’s when I discovered the prison bars.

      I was in jail? For what, jaywalking? This had to be a joke. I grabbed the bars, pulling on them as hard as I could. They were thick as broom handles, cold and unforgiving under my clutching fingers. Rattling them was like trying to shake a bus.

      Beyond the bars was nothing but an empty hallway. “Hey!” I shouted. “I was just hit by a car! Hello? I need medical attention!”

      Sweat oiled my fingers, and my cell phone slipped from my hand. I’d forgotten all about it. Picking it up, I attempted to dial, but there was no service. As I shoved the thing back into my pocket, I realized that I was entitled to one call.

      That thought steadied me. Yes, I was entitled to a phone call. That and a lawyer, too. And Miranda rights! I’d been jailed without having been read my rights! My fear gave way to outrage. I was the victim of an auto accident, yet instead of being taken to a hospital, I’d been carted off to prison. This was Detroit, for God’s sake, not some third-world dictatorship!

      I glared at the hallway beyond the bars. When the guard came, I’d let him have it! Though I was no longer married to Dr. Ted Dempsey, the most sought-after orthodontist in the metro Detroit area, I still had connections. My stepfather a lawyer, and I had plenty of friends in the judicial system. I even knew the county sheriff who had once slipped me some tongue at a New Year’s Eve party. Just wait and see whose career went into the toilet because they arrested Lilith Straight!

      I smoothed my sweater, then combed my fingers through my hair, dislodging a myriad of tiny pebbles that rattled onto the floor. Stunned, I picked one up. It was a fragment of glass, probably from the windshield of the car that had hit me. I frowned at it. If I’d been hit hard enough to get glass in my hair, how on earth was I standing upright now?

      Puzzled, I re-examined my surroundings. There were prison bars here, but also an expensive leather couch with an oil painting hanging above it. Not one of those cheesy ‘starving artist’ things, but a genuine work of art. In addition, there were brass lamps, rugs, and a bookcase full of leather-bound books. In the corner stood a water dispenser alongside a coffee maker. Three sides of the space looked like a waiting room in a plastic surgeon’s office, yet the fourth had the steel bars of a prison.

      Although the books and coffee maker seemed out of place in this jail, my cellmate did not. She sat with her legs apart, and her elbows braced on her knees. She had the shoulders of a linebacker, and her feet were clad in boots with thick, crepe soles. Looking at her gave me the same, uneasy shiver as the steel bars. This woman could eat me in two bites.

      As if hearing my thoughts, the woman lifted her head. I pressed my back against the bars, not daring to meet her eyes. Instead, I took in the white T-shirt with the cut-off sleeves, the thick leather wristband, and the enormous chain that went from her front belt loop to her back pocket. She was a bruiser who would make me her bitch.

      When a full thirty seconds passed without her speaking, however, I risked meeting her eyes. What I saw stunned me. Her expression was a bottomless well of loneliness and despair. Concerned in spite of myself, I let go of the bars and took a cautious step towards her.

      She finally spoke. “If I’d known this was gonna happen, I never would have said those things to my brother.” Her lower lip trembled. “I should have kept my big mouth shut. He probably thinks I hate him.” Her brown eyes looked into mine, pleading.

      Unable to bear her misery, I said, “I think your brother understands.”

      Instead of looking relieved, however, she sadly shook her head.

      I risked coming closer. I started to pat her shoulder, then thought better of it. “I’m sure he knows that you care about him.”

      She pressed her lips tightly together.

      “Lilith Straight!”

      I jumped as if I’d been goosed by a shank. Standing at the cell door was a small woman whose iron-gray hair matched her uniform. “Get over here!”

      Relieved, I hurried to the door which slid open with a metallic clank. “Let’s go,” the woman said.

      “Am I free to leave?”

      The woman’s eyebrows drew down in puzzlement. “Of course not.”

      “No?” I paused, shocked. “What am I being arrested for?”

      “I’m taking you to someone who will explain all of that.”

      I hoped that someone was an attorney. I followed her into the hallway, but before the door closed, the woman glanced at my cellmate. “Hey, hon.” Her voice softened so that she sounded more like a nurse than a prison matron. “You want to leave now?”

      The woman on the couch shook her head sadly.

      A little bit of high school English crept back into my mind. Hawthorne, I think. The saddest prison of all, he’d said, is the human heart. Looking at my former cellmate, I knew exactly what he meant.

      My concerns for my former cellmate lasted only as far as the first set of security doors, however. As I followed the prison matron down the long, windowless

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