Sammie gets out of her car, pushes the button to lock the door, and starts toward the prison. There’s a woman coming her way across the parking lot, walking fast, her head down to keep out of the wind. Another visitor, all done for the day. There’s something familiar about the woman, and it isn’t until they’re a few feet away that she realizes who it is—Gloria. Seever’s wife.
Gloria looks much like she always did, is even dressed the same. Sammie had seen her a few times when she worked at the restaurant, when she’d come in with Seever, on his arm, and she’d sit in a corner booth and pick through a salad, or tear apart a hamburger, only eating the meat and skipping the bun, and always with her mouth pinched as tight as a drawstring purse, disapproving. Sammie didn’t officially meet Gloria until after Seever’s arrest, when she was scrambling, when every reporter on the planet was desperate for an interview, and Gloria had agreed to sit down and speak with her. It hadn’t gone well, and it’d only lasted a few minutes, but surely, Sammie thinks, Gloria won’t recognize her. It’s been so long.
But Gloria does. She’s walking across the lot, hurriedly, and she seems upset. Or she’s chilled from the wind—there are two spots of color high in her cheeks, her lips are pressed thin—but when she sees Sammie she stops short, takes in a sharp breath. She looks like a woman preparing for a fight.
“Mrs. Seever,” Sammie says, coming forward, her hand already stretched out. She could turn and run back to her car, part of her wants to do exactly that, but she’s found it’s sometimes better to react against her instinct. It throws people off. “How good to see you again. I’m not sure if you remember me, Samantha Peterson. I’d love to speak with you, if you have a moment.”
Gloria doesn’t blink an eye.
“He told me you were coming,” she says, her teeth set as she speaks, clamped together so only her lips move. Her voice is different, Sammie realizes. Gloria’s the kind of woman who usually speaks in a soft voice, a feminine tone. High-pitched and girly, almost a whisper. But now she sounds harsh and gritty, and Sammie realizes it’s because she’s about to burst into angry tears. “Said he’s anxious to see you after so long. Could barely sit still from the excitement.”
Sammie is struck dumb. Gloria Seever is jealous. Every word she says, every movement she makes is oozing with it. Jealousy is always a terrible thing, but this seems so much worse, this ugliness over a man who’ll be put to death soon enough.
“I’m here for an interview,” she says. “To talk.”
“Can you imagine, after everything I’ve done for him,” Gloria shrieks into the wind, and Sammie flinches back from the sound of it. “He’s looking forward to a visit from you.”
And then, just like that, it’s over. Gloria totters away across the blacktop on her sensible heels and climbs into her Buick. Her car squeals when she backs it out, when she turns onto the street. She needs brake pads, a whole new car. Sammie can’t seem to get her legs to move for a moment after Gloria is gone, but is frozen in place, her purse smacking against her thigh and her heart pounding against the inside of her chest.
*
“I’ll need to hang on to your purse, sweetheart,” the guard at the front says, smiling shyly at her. “Standard procedure, you understand.”
“No worries,” she says, handing over her bag and lifting up her arms, so he can wave a metal detector up and down her body, searching for whatever it is people might try to sneak into a prison. She scratches the loose bun on the top of her head while her arms are up, and the guard catches the movement.
“Can you let your hair down, please?” he asks, eyeballing her head carefully, as if she might be hiding a shank in the coils of hair.
“Sure,” she says, but less enthusiastically than before. She’d wanted to keep her hair up, so she’d look severe, older, not with it all tumbled around her shoulders. She pulls the pins out and the guard sticks his gloved hands right into her hair, digging around and massaging her scalp, running his fingers along the backs of her ears, pulling the ends. He sniffs, he might be smelling her hair, although she’s probably being paranoid.
“You look familiar,” the guard says, staring. “Have we met before?”
“I write for the Denver Post,” she says, a little self-conscious, but still pleased he knows her. “You’ve probably seen my photo printed there.”
“Yeah,” he says, not sounding convinced. “Except I don’t read the paper.”
“Is it usually like this?” she asks the guard when he brings her into a room split in two by a glass partition. There’s a small desk on each side, and a plastic chair. An old rotary phone mounted on the wall, just the receiver. She thought Seever would be right in front of her, so she could smell his breath, see the network of wrinkles under his eyes, but he’ll only be a voice in her ear, a man on the opposite side of the smeary screen. “With visitors, I mean?”
“No, not usually,” the guard says, his hands on his hips. “Most prisoners get to see their guests in the common room.”
“But not Seever.” Not a question, not exactly.
“Nope, not him. He’s had some—problems in the past.”
“What happened?”