He did not play them aloud.
He checked that the files were there, locked the screen, and placed the phone inside a clear evidence bag while I watched.
“Please don’t let it die,” I said. “Everything is on there.”
“We have it,” he answered. “You did your part.”
Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Marcus’s mother appeared in the doorway with the gold chain bouncing against her church dress.
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The key hung at the center of her chest.
“I can open it,” she said quickly. “I’ve been taking care of her.”
She reached for the chain, but the officer stopped her before she touched the cage.
The door was no longer merely locked.
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A fresh silver seam ran around the latch where Marcus had welded it shut.
Her key had controlled my life for weeks, but that night it could not free me even if she suddenly decided to pretend she wanted to.
“She had that key every day,” I told the officer. “She decided when I ate. She decided when I drank.”
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Marcus’s mother stared at me with the same cold expression she had worn whenever she stood outside the bars.
Then she looked toward the officers and softened her face.
“My son made me do things,” she said. “I was afraid of him too.”
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One of the real dinner guests had followed the noise to the basement stairs.
She stood behind the officers with one hand over her mouth, looking from the gold key to the cage and then to the empty apple tray on the floor.
Only minutes earlier, she had been eating at Marcus’s table while he explained that I was visiting family.
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Now she could see exactly where I had been.
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The officers cleared everyone except the emergency crew from the basement, and a cutting tool screamed against the welded metal.
