Love You More: A Novel

I said nothing, I showed nothing, because the scream was bubbling up again, a tightness in my chest that built and built. I wished I had the blue button, wished I’d been able to keep it, because holding it, in a perverse way, had kept me sane. The button meant Sophie. The button meant Sophie was out there, and I just had to find her again.

The court guard approached, placing his hand on my elbow. He jerked me forward and I started to walk, one foot in front of the other, because that’s what you did, what you had to do.

Cargill was beside me. “Family?” he asked quietly.

I understood what he meant. Did I have family to bail me out? I thought of my father, felt the scream rise from my chest into my throat. I shook my head.

“I’ll talk to Shane, present your case to the union,” he said, but I could already feel his skepticism.

I remembered my superior officers, not meeting my gaze as I passed down the hospital corridor. The walk of shame. The first of many.

“I can request special treatment at the jail,” Cargill said, speaking rapidly now, for we were approaching the doorway that led to the holding cell, where I would be officially led away. “You’re a state police officer. They’ll grant you segregation if you want it.”

I shook my head. I’d been to the Suffolk County Jail; the segregation unit was the most depressing one in the place. I’d get my own cell, but I’d also be locked inside twenty-three hours a day. No privileges such as a gym pass or library hour, and no commons area boasting a finicky TV and world’s oldest exercise bike to help pass the time. Funny, the things I was about to consider luxury items.

“Medical eval,” he suggested urgently, meaning I could also request medical time, placing me in the hospital ward.

“With all the other psychos,” I muttered back, because last time I’d toured the prison, all the screamers had been down in Medical, yelling 24/7 to themselves, the guards, the other inmates. Anything, I suppose, to drown out the voices in their heads.

We’d arrived outside the holding cell, the guard giving Cargill a pointed look. For a moment, my frazzled attorney hesitated. He gazed at me with something that might have been sympathy and I wished he hadn’t, because it merely made the scream rise from my throat to the dark hollow of my mouth. I had to thin my lips, clench my jaw to keep it from escaping.

I was strong, I was tough. Nothing here I hadn’t seen before. Usually I was the one on the other side of the bars, but details, details.

Cargill grabbed hold of my cuffed hands. He squeezed my fingers.

“Ask for me, Tessa,” he murmured. “You have the legal right to confer with your lawyer at any time. Call, and I will come.”

Then he was gone. The holding-cell door opened. I stumbled inside, joining five other women with faces as pale and detached as my own. As I watched, one drifted over to the stainless steel toilet, pulled up her black spandex miniskirt, and peed.

“What’ya staring at, bitch?” she asked, yawning.

The cell door banged shut behind me.


Introducing the South Bay shuffle: To execute this time-honored jail transport maneuver, a detainee must link each of her arms through the arm of the person on either side, then clasp her hands at her waist, where her wrists will be cuffed. Once each detainee has been “pretzeled” with the inmates on either side, ankles are also shackled together and a line of six females can shamble their way to the sheriff’s van.

Females sit on one side of the van. Males sit on the other. A clear Plexiglas sheet separates the two. The bleach blonde beside me spent most of the journey making suggestive motions with her tongue. The two hundred and fifty pound, heavily tattooed black male across from us urged her on with his hips.

Three more minutes, and I think they could’ve completed their transaction. Sadly for their sake, we arrived at the Suffolk County Jail.

The sheriff’s van pulled into the unloading bay. A massive metal garage door clanged down and locked tight, sealing in the place. Then the vehicle doors finally opened.

Males disembarked first, exiting the van as a shackled line and entering the sally port. After a few moments, it was our turn.

Stepping out of the van was the hardest. I felt the peer pressure not to stumble or fall, as I would take down the entire line. The fact I was white and wearing new clothes already made me stand out, as most of my fellow detainees appeared to be members of the sex and drugs trade. The cleaner ones probably worked for money. The not so clean ones worked for product.

Most of them had been up all night, and to judge by the various smells, they’d been busy.

Interestingly enough, the orange-haired woman to my right crinkled her nose at my particular odor of hospital antiseptic and brand-new blue jeans. While the girl to my left (eighteen, nineteen years old?) took in my bashed-in face, and said, “Oh honey, next time, just give him the money, and he’ll go easier on you.”

Doors opened. We shuffled our way into the sally port. The doors behind us shut. The doors to the left clanged open.