The Bad Daughter(91)

“Your face is beautiful.”

Robin smiled and opened her car door.

“Wait,” Blake said.

She turned back.

“I love you,” he told her.

Robin stretched across the front seat to kiss him gently on the lips. “I love you, too.”

She walked up the concrete path to the prison’s front door, then stopped for one last deep breath before stepping inside. She was greeted by an unsmiling male officer in a glass booth who asked for her ID, after which she was patted down by a female deputy and her purse was passed through a metal detector. She was then escorted into a waiting area filled with gray plastic chairs and instructed to wait until her name was called.

There were three people already waiting, a middle-aged man and two women. They looked up briefly when she walked in, the younger of the two women offering an almost imperceptible nod in her direction. Robin took a seat in one corner of the room, noting the long tubes of too-bright fluorescent lights lining the recessed ceiling and shining down on the dull white walls. Abundant signs warned visitors against bringing items such as guns, explosive devices, and chewing gum into the jail.

“First time here?” a voice asked from beside her, and Robin jumped. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Mind if I sit down?”

Robin turned to see the woman who’d acknowledged her arrival. She was in her mid-twenties and auburn-haired, wearing blue jeans and a red V-neck T-shirt that exaggerated the multiple folds of flesh beneath it. She smiled and sat down before Robin could object. “First time, huh,” she said, turning her earlier question into a statement.

“Is it that obvious?”

“The dress is a dead giveaway. I wore a dress the first time I came, too. But then you realize there’s no point. Do I know you? You look sort of familiar.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“My name’s Brenda. I’m visiting my boyfriend. He got laid off from his job and didn’t take it too good, went back the next day and shot up the place. Didn’t hurt anybody, but that’s more a case of dumb luck than anything else. Turns out it’s not as easy to hit your target as it looks on TV. The jackass. Got six years.” She shrugged. “What’s your guy in for?”

Robin hesitated, wondering if the woman was a plant, if their conversation was being recorded. “It’s a mistake…”

Brenda laughed. “That what he told you?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that. What’d you say your name was?”

Robin briefly considered giving Brenda a fake name, but decided against it. “It’s Robin.”

“You’re sure? You kind of hesitated.”

“I’m sure.”

“Robin,” the woman repeated. “Like the bird.” She squinted, small hazel eyes all but disappearing inside fleshy cheeks. “You sure do look familiar.”

The door at the far end of the room opened and a deputy appeared. “Robin Davis,” he announced.

“Davis?” Brenda repeated as Robin was standing up. “Robin Davis? No shit. You’re related to those people who got shot? I saw your picture in the paper. Damn it, I knew you looked familiar.”

“This way,” the deputy directed, and Robin eagerly followed him into a small adjoining room. “Empty your purse, please.” He pointed toward a scuffed metal table that was the room’s only furniture.

“It’s already been through the scanner.”

“Empty your purse, please,” the deputy repeated.

Robin dumped the contents of her beige canvas bag onto the table, revealing a mint-green leather wallet, a bright orange change purse, her cell phone, a checkbook with a torn black plastic cover, three ballpoint pens, a small notebook, a pair of sunglasses in a red faux-ostrich case, and a bunch of crumpled tissues. “No chewing gum,” she said, hoping to elicit a smile from the officer, but receiving only the hint of a scowl instead. Robin decided that the poor man had probably heard that line at least a hundred times. “Sorry.”

The scowl became fixed. “For what?”

“Bad joke,” she muttered, deciding to volunteer nothing further unless asked a direct question. If she wasn’t careful, they would throw her in jail, too.

“Okay,” the deputy said after rechecking the inside of the bag to make sure it was empty. He handed it back to her, indicating that she could refill it, then directed her to the door opposite the one from which she’d entered. “Your brother will be in shortly. You have thirty minutes.”

“Thank you.” Robin stepped inside a long, narrow room divided down the middle by a wall of individual glass partitions. Ten round wooden stools were secured to the dividing wall by metal bars, and the concrete floor had been painted an unpleasant shade of butterscotch. An elderly woman sat on a stool at the far end of the room, crying into the telephone on the wall beside her as she spoke to the prisoner on the other side of the partition. Robin slid onto the closest stool, staring at the empty space in front of her, her solemn expression reflected in the glass. What must it feel like to be on the other side?

A minute later, her brother was led into his half of the room and directed to the stool across from her. He was wearing the same orange jumpsuit he’d worn to court. His hair was combed away from his face, but he looked gaunt and a decade older than when she’d last seen him. He sat down, lifting the phone to his ear at the same moment that Robin lifted hers.