clink.
Vivian shrieked into the steel plating, her white mink coat tearing along the seams, her tears mixing with the rock slurry on the deck:
“MARCUS! TELL THEM! WE ARE INNOCENT! YOU CANNOT LET THEM TAKE ME TO LEAVENWORTH!”
Marcus Hale did not look at her.
He lay in his Leavenworth transport chains, his knees dragging across the wet asphalt, his bloodshot eyes fixed entirely upon me:
“Natalie…” Marcus wheezed, his vocal cords tearing as if he had swallowed ground glass:
“Natalie… forgive me… I didn't know… God, I didn't know who you were!”
I walked to where my husband knelt in the mud.
My hand-welted leather field boots stopped twelve inches from his face.
Beside me, Barnaby stood at rigid, silent attention, his amber eyes locked onto Marcus’s jugular with predatory discipline.
I reached out, holding that four-inch antique solid-titanium surveyor's compass transit key, stepped with fifty-six analog cryptographic notches:
