stood at the payphone near the guard station.
The dial tone hummed in my ear, followed by the automated operator announcing the collect call from Red Mesa.
Then she picked up.
”Daniel?” Beth’s voice came through the wire, fragile and tense. “Are you alright? I got a message from an attorney saying there was an incident—”
”I’m fine, Beth,” I said.
I looked down through the wire fence toward the exercise yard where the sun was setting behind the red hills, painting the desert in long bands of gold and violet. At my feet, Rusty lay with his chin resting on my boot, snoring softly against the denim.
”Did you… did you stay out of it?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
”I stayed out of it,” I told her. “I sat down, ate my food, and let the truth do the work.”
There was a long silence on
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