Down the Brink Page 2

  Aggie hesitated, glanced to her right. “Over there?”

  The cop fidgeted like he had better things to do—and like Gil’s arrest was no big deal, an everyday thing in his world. “Yeah, move along, okay? There’re others waiting.”

  She turned around. The line had grown quickly, even with assembly-line cop moving everyone along like he got paid by the piece. She muttered a thank-you and made her way through the congested lobby toward her destination, sidestepping people in her way as best she could. Seemed like she should feel safe in a police station, but she felt anything but.

  Aggie stopped in front of the room the cop had indicated. Its door stood slightly ajar. The light was on. She slowly pushed the door open, in case someone lurked inside, waiting to pounce. But no one was there, just a malevolent starkness that stopped her in her tracks.

  Behind the door lay a shoebox of a room, about six feet by twelve feet. A narrow, gleaming steel counter ran from left to right. A Plexiglas partition ran from the center of the counter all the way to the ceiling, cutting the room into two chambers. A speaker and mic were mounted high up on the wall in each chamber. A couple of hard, scarred wooden chairs stood on each side of the partition, and there was a closed door at the far end of the other chamber. The walls were a relentless shade of white, as was the linoleum.

  There was nothing else in the room. Nothing whatsoever. Aggie’d never seen anything so spare, so cold and brutal.

  She stepped inside and glanced behind her, unsure of what to do next. A rail-thin, extravagantly pierced young man in black leather gawked at her as he passed by. She shut the door, sat down, and rubbed her face with her hands. Minutes went by. She shifted in the hard chair, unable to find a comfortable position, and stared down into her lap to avoid the aggressive glare of the white walls and floor. If they intended the room to be intimidating, they’d succeeded.

  Finally, the other door opened and Gil walked in, still in his street clothes, but with his wrists in handcuffs. A uniformed cop poked his head in, barked, “Five minutes,” then slammed the door shut. Gil dropped down into his chair with a groan and hung his head.

  This could not be real. Aggie leaned forward, speaking up so the mic would pick up her voice. “What happened?”

  “Got stopped by the Border Patrol in the park.” Gil shook his head and stared down at his handcuffed wrists. “Stupid, stupid! I left my smartphone in the garage, so I couldn’t show them my papers.”

  Aggie drew a sharp breath. “Oh my God. What do we do now?”

  “If you can find a lawyer who’ll take the case, hire him.” Gil shrugged and looked away. “I doubt you will, though. I hear private criminal-defense guys only take the high-profile, big-buck cases. Stuff like this, they assign a public defender, for whatever good that does.”

  Aggie put her hand over her mouth. She’d heard the news stories, too. Prosecutions had become so high-volume that Texas put in a criminal version of the rocket docket. The right to a speedy trial had morphed into the right to be fast-tracked through the process with a rubber stamp. No time for overworked public defenders to actually defend—just appear, answer the judge’s questions, and move on to the next case.

  “What happens next?”

  “Trial’s in only a couple of days. I don’t think there’s much question as to the outcome. I didn’t have my docs on me. That alone’s an offense, no excuses accepted. I’m screwed.” He shook his head.

  “Gil? Are you okay? Did they—”

  He avoided her eyes. “They Tased me when I tried to tell them I was really a citizen. I think they took that as some form of resisting arrest, I dunno. I’m okay now.”

  “But your asthma!”

  He shook his head. “I had a little attack just before they stopped me. Maybe the albuterol was still in my system. The Taser didn’t set that off, anyway.”

  “Oh God.” Aggie tried to push aside mental images of Gil lying on the ground, helpless.

  The door opened and the cop reappeared. “Five minutes are up.” He motioned to Gil to follow him.

  Gil glanced at her with terrified eyes as the cop led him away. Aggie planted her hands on the Plexiglas as if that would somehow bring them closer and mouthed I love you just as he disappeared through the door.

  Her hands dropped to her sides. She stood, motionless, staring at the closed door and feeling hollow, like Gil had just been physically ripped out of her arms.

  CHAPTER 3

  First Sunday in May, 2021

  Los Lobos, California

  “Yes!”

  Zach Winters thrust his fist into the air. After weeks of obsessive thumb play on his smartphone—in bed, in the bathroom, on breaks at work—he’d finally achieved the second level on that goddamned game. MoonPop. Stupid name for such an awesome app.

  He usually stayed away from game apps and other time sucks, but curiosity finally got the better of him. Lots of his coworkers spent ridiculous amounts of time playing MoonPop and bragged long and hard whenever they achieved a new level. He had to admit, the graphics were amazing for something that fit on a smartphone screen and the gameplay was just challenging enough. No wonder it was the most popular free app around these days.

  Setting his phone on the coffee table, he pushed himself up off the couch, then stretched his arms high over his head and stood on tiptoe. Couldn’t be good, sitting all tensed up like that for so long at a time. He should really exercise more self-control. And maybe even actually exercise. Hunching over a computer all day at work was doing nothing good for his energy level. He never was much of an athlete, but back in school, he at least had the time to bike around and be more active in general. Not anymore. Now he sat in his car during the tedious commute, sat at work all day, then sat in his apartment when he got home. Sort of like a slow-motion death.

  Zach crossed to the front window—the only window, as a matter of fact—and gazed out. Despite earning a halfway-decent salary, he could only afford this dinky, sparsely furnished third-floor apartment that looked out over…still more apartments. Such was the cost of rampant growth. Silicon Valley had expanded so much that it forced Los Lobos to transform itself from a semi-rural cow town to a congested little city full of mostly single techies in their overpriced cubbyhole-sized apartments.

  He sighed. If only he hadn’t graduated into the shittiest job market in years. Top of his class. Mad tech skills. Should have had his pick of offers right out of the gate. Instead, he’d struggled to find a job, any job, for the better part of a year. The rest of his classmates had it even worse. Some still hadn’t found work.

  But time ticked on and student loans don’t pay themselves off, so he had no choice but to take the first offer he got: a crappy junior developer position in GSI’s IT department. Guardian Systems Incorporated. What a euphemism. Made it sound benign at worst, caring at best. Hardly.

  He worked as part of a team that maintained the prisoner-revenue tracking systems for the largest for-profit prison company in the U.S. Of all the places to end up working, after what happened to Raymond. He got fifteen years in prison for robbery and second-degree murder because of that botched C-store holdup. Came out with no skills and pretty much a scarlet letter around his neck. No one would hire him, not even for the crappiest minimum-wage job. So what else could he do but embrace the criminal life? At least he could feed himself, pay his rent.

  But that didn’t last long. About a year later, he was just making the exchange at a drug deal, when the buyer decided he wanted the drugs—and the money. Shot Raymond in the head and left him to die. Some jogger found his body days later. Zach shook his head. He’d never known anyone as kind and good as Raymond. He never, ever would have hurt anyone intentionally. He didn’t deserve what he got. None of it.

  Zach loathed the idea of working for a prison system, of helping the industry in any way. But he’d been out of money, with nowhere to go. So at first he sucked it up and just did his job. But it didn’t take long before he simply couldn’t ignore how GSI made its
money. It was far worse than he’d imagined.

  Seemed like everyone—his coworkers, politicos, and the press—turned a blind eye to GSI’s brutal business model. They warehoused as many prisoners as they could stuff into their facilities, and constantly looked for ways to trim costs even further, no matter the consequences. He saw the data every single day. GSI made money hand over fist and he had no doubt at all that the rumors of the terrible conditions inside those prisons were all true—and then some.

  Zach turned away from the window, went to his battered old student desk, and woke up his laptop. He’d been at GSI nearly a year now. Too damned long. Time to quit procrastinating and distracting himself with that stupid game. He had to get out of that place, find some other job.

  And quit helping GSI do what they do. While he still had some self-respect left.

  CHAPTER 4

  First Monday in May, 2021

  Seco, Texas

  “In the matter of State versus Bingham, I find the defendant guilty as charged. Five years at the GSI prison in Elias.” The judge slammed down his gavel. “Bailiff, call the next case.”

  Elias. That hell-hole near the border. Gil hoped to God they didn’t send him there. Elias was hours away from anything—let alone home. Nothing out that way but baking heat, scorpions, and misery. He stole a quick glance at the other defendants sitting beside him, all waiting their turn before the court. Judging from the looks on their faces, they feared the Elias prison as much as he did. Not only was it set in the most desolate place in Texas, but there were stories. Stories about people going there and never coming back. Unexplained deaths. But Governor LaRoux always declined to investigate.

  Once the guard led the convicted man out of the courtroom, the bailiff stood and announced, “People versus Balderas.”

  The gray-haired public defender pushed himself up from his chair as if he barely had the strength to stand, then motioned to Gil to join him. Head bowed, Gil rose and crossed over to the defendant’s table. Each step seemed to stretch on forever, and the handcuffs made him feel like he was assumed guilty until proven innocent. He couldn’t bear to see the look on Aggie’s face, watching him at his most helpless and degraded.

  The judge yawned as he shuffled through some papers. “I see the defendant was picked up on suspicion of being in the country without authorization.” He selected one sheet of paper from the stack and scrutinized it, his reading glasses slung low on his nose. “But he subsequently submitted proof of citizenship through his attorney. Any objection to this proof?” He shot a glance at the young female prosecutor.

  The prosecutor stood and smoothed her neatly tailored suit jacket, disappointment evident on her face and in her voice. “No, Your Honor. It appears legitimate, albeit tardy.”

  The judge set aside the paper. “Then you’re amenable to reducing the charges to failure to produce proof when asked by an officer?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” The prosecutor nodded, then took her seat and scrawled something on her legal pad.

  “Six months. Elias.” The judge raised his gavel.

  “Your Honor, if I may speak first.” Gil’s attorney again struggled to his feet, nearly knocking over his water glass.

  The judge scowled and glanced at the clock. “Make it brief.” He tapped his fingers on the gavel as he listened.

  The public defender took off his glasses and cleared his throat. “Your Honor, this is Mr. Balderas’s first offense of any kind. We wish to move the Court to consider a reduced sentence.”

  “You know perfectly well this is a zero-tolerance offense, and the sentence is mandated. I have no discretion to deviate from it, even if I wanted to. All rise.” The judge brought the gavel down hard. “Next case.”

  Gil’s attorney reached over, touched him on the shoulder. “Sorry.”

  “What happens now?” Gil whispered. “Can you appeal or something?”

  The attorney shook his head, a wistful look on his face. “I don’t handle appeals, but I can tell you there’d be no point. The facts and the law are completely against you. No one’ll touch it. I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing more I can do.” He reached down, pushed Gil’s file aside and grabbed the next one from the stack.

  An armed guard approached Gil and seized his upper arm in a meaty paw. Gil glanced back at Aggie as he was led away, then wished he hadn’t. The image of her standing there in the courtroom gallery, face red and wet with silent tears, would haunt him the rest of his life.

  This couldn’t be happening. Six months in prison? For a stupid mistake! One careless moment, and now they were going to throw him into the worst prison in the entire state and tear him away from Aggie. They’d never been apart since they got married. Not even for a single night. How would she manage all alone—after what she’d been through?

  Gil felt trapped already. Everything was closing in, dragging him down into some dark vortex. The handcuffs. The guard’s firm, sweaty grip on his arm.

  And just thinking about being locked up in a prison cell.

  Suddenly lightheaded, Aggie dropped back down onto the wooden bench before her legs could give out on her. Darkness crowded the edges of her vision as she watched the unthinkable: Gil being led away in handcuffs by an armed guard. In less than forty-eight hours, their lives had been turned upside-down. How could this happen?

  The guard whisked Gil away through a door at the side of the courtroom and the bailiff called the next case as if nothing unusual had happened. Maybe that was the point. Maybe that’s exactly what they did: call case after case like those people—and Gil—were nothing more than objects on an assembly line to be dispatched as efficiently as possible, not human beings with lives and families.

  Aggie rummaged through her purse for a Kleenex, eventually finding a crumpled packet of tissues mashed into a bottom corner. She tugged a few out, pressed them to her eyes, and blew her nose as quietly as she could. Nothing seemed real anymore but the Kleenex in her hand, as half-formed thoughts swirled in her mind like debris in a windstorm. Nothing she could latch onto. Nothing that made sense. Certainly no clue as to what she was supposed to do now.

  The gavel came down again, wrenching her attention back to what was going on around her. Another case already? It was just bang, bang, bang in there. Like a slaughterhouse. No explanations, no mercy, no justice.

  Gripping the back of the bench to steady herself and muttering apologies as she went, Aggie wobbled to her feet and stumbled around several spectators as she fought her way to the aisle. Oblivious to everything around her, she fled out the door and leaned against the wall outside the courtroom, gulping in air like she’d just run a sprint. Got to get home. Can’t think. Can’t breathe.

  The floor began to spin beneath her, whirling her around like a sinister carnival ride. She tried to breathe like her therapist had taught her, but the attack came on too fast this time. Nothing was working. Her heart pounded so fast and hard she couldn’t catch her breath at all.

  Aggie slid down the wall, panting, then curled up on the floor in the fetal position, eyes shut tight. Like that horrible night right after her high school graduation. When those men forced their way through the back door of her house and changed her life forever. She watched it all over again, replayed it like a video, just like she always did when a bad attack made her lose control.

  She was upstairs, getting ready for bed. So happy to be done with high school, about to start summer vacation before beginning college in the fall. Her whole life ahead of her. Her parents were still downstairs, watching TV. There was a crash at the back door. She hurried to the landing to see what was going on.

  That’s when she saw the men barge into the living room. Three of them. Masked, with dark, menacing guns. They started yelling at her parents, brandishing their weapons. And laughing. She would never forget the sound of their laughing as long as she lived. Cruel, vicious. She froze, then ran back into her bedroom to call for help. Just as the 911 operator answered, she heard her parents scream. Then she heard
the shots.

  And the sound of those men laughing even louder.

  She dropped the phone, curled up in the fetal position and stayed that way until the police arrived. They said her parents never had a chance. The men shot them dead before they could protect themselves. Then they trashed the downstairs, grabbed some things, and left. But she didn’t remember that part.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  Aggie flinched and opened her eyes. A concerned-looking, uniformed cop squatted down next to her.

  “Ma’am, you passed out. I’ve called for paramedics. They should be here any minute now.”

  Aggie took a deep breath and sat up, leaning back against the wall. “I’m okay.” She rubbed her face with her hands and pushed the hair out of her eyes.

  “You were out cold. Better have someone take a look at you.”

  “It was just a panic attack. I get them sometimes. I’ll be okay. Really. I just want to go home.” She slowly got to her feet, using the wall for support. “See? I’m fine.” She walked away, trying to look more stable than she felt.

  Aggie tossed her bag and keys onto the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch. So this was it. This was really it. Gil wouldn’t be home for six whole months. They’d never been apart a single day since they got married, and she didn’t even want to imagine what it was going to be like living without him for that long. And after what happened when she was a kid, the idea of being alone and defenseless at night terrified her. Gil had been around her entire adult life to keep the fear at bay. What would she do without him?

  At least she’d be able to visit him. That was something, anyway. She pulled out her cell phone and looked up the Elias prison, then clapped her hand to her forehead and groaned. The place was several hours away by car, for sure. She’d have to take a full day off work just to visit him. How often could she do that and not lose her job?

  Suddenly chilled, Aggie flung the phone onto the couch and rubbed her upper arms. The house felt so cold and empty now. And if it was already this bad for her, what must it be like for him? If that visiting room at the police station was any indication, Gil was in for a hellish six months.