CHAPTER 6: The Camera Above the Steam Line

They released Caleb from solitary after forty-eight hours because June's new attorney filed an emergency motion before Price could finish burying the cafeteria report.
Caleb returned to the unit thinner, unwashed, and quieter than before. The men at the tables looked away with new respect. Not admiration. Admiration made people reckless. This was caution, and caution could keep a man alive.
In the cafeteria, the tray line had been scrubbed clean. The rice was fresh. The greens looked boiled into surrender. The spoon from the fight was gone from the floor, but Caleb remembered exactly where it had fallen.
Malik Torres, a library clerk with sharp eyes and a limp, slid onto the bench across from him. "You made the kitchen famous."
"Not my goal."
"Goals don't matter here. Results do." Malik pushed a folded napkin across the table. "Amos says you need records."
Caleb did not touch it until Malik looked away.
Inside the napkin was a diagram of the cafeteria cameras. One was above the steam line. One was above the vending alcove. One was fake. One recorded to an old local server because nobody bothered updating it when Falcon installed the new system.
"Who gave you this?" Caleb asked.
"A man who likes being old too much to answer questions directly."
Caleb glanced toward the serving line. The old camera above the steam trays blinked with a smaller red light than the newer ones. If it had captured Rusk entering from the aisle, Price's prewritten report would collapse. More than that, if the server still held older footage, Lennox Gray's hospital transfer might not be a ghost story.
"Can you access it?" Caleb asked.
Malik smiled without showing teeth. "I check out law books, Mercer. I do not hack government property."
"That sounded rehearsed."
"It is."
Across the room, Rusk entered with two officers beside him. His face was still bruised. His hands were cuffed in front. He scanned the cafeteria until he found Caleb.
For one second, the old bully looked almost relieved.
Then his gaze dropped to Caleb's tray.
A metal spoon lay beside the rice.
On its handle, scratched so faintly only someone looking would see, were three letters:
L.G.