Chapter 38

• RICHARD'S POV
• The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as I walked down the sterile, echoing corridor of the county jail. My footsteps, though quiet, seemed to announce my presence with an authority I wasn't sure I possessed. At the end of the hallway, a guard waited by a heavy metal door, his expression unreadable. He checked my ID, then buzzed me through.
• The visiting room was stark, the kind of place that seemed designed to remind you of the bleakness of your circumstances. I took a seat at one of the tables, the cold metal chair barely moving on the polished floor.