Page 7

Present Day

R hea.” My voice is hoarse. Even though my throat has been hurting for the last several weeks, it feels even worse right now. I can barely even get any words out, but I still push forward. “Can you please stop? I need to ...”

Rhea finally pauses for a moment, turning to look at me with barely disguised annoyance. “What is it, Kemper?”

“That man—the one visiting that other inmate—he’s ...” I swallow, trying to moisten my sore throat. “I think he’s my ...”

How am I supposed to say this? I’m pretty sure that man in the visiting area is my dead husband.

Yes, I recognize how that would sound.

Rhea sighs heavily. “Spit it out or start moving.”

“He looked like my husband.”

That gives her a moment of pause. Her somewhat scruffy eyebrows inch upward. “Your husband that you murdered ?”

“No,” I say quickly. “I ... I mean, yes, that husband. But I didn’t murder him.”

She smirks at my assertion.

“He looks a lot like Noel.” I shuffle my shackled feet. “A lot like Noel.”

“But your husband is dead,” she points out. “And he didn’t have an identical twin, did he?”

He did not.

“Who was that man?” I press her.

“Hell if I know.” Rhea grabs my arm, clearly weary of this conversation. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your cell.”

As far as Rhea is concerned, the matter is concluded. But I keep thinking about that man all the way back to my cell, and I don’t stop thinking about him, even when I fall asleep that night on my crappy mattress with Pat the Rat staring at me through the darkness.