"Please, they'll kill me." "Keep your head down and your mouth shut," the guard said, handing him a thin mattress roll. "Cell Block D. Move." Cell block D was a cacophony of noise, shouting, metal clanging on metal, the blare of televisions.
As Bryce walked the tier, the noise died down. Heads turned. Eyes locked onto him. News travels fast in prison. They knew who he was.
They knew what he had done. He reached his cell. It was a 6-by-8 concrete box. His cellmate was already there doing push-ups on the floor. He was a massive man with a shaved head and Aryan Brotherhood tattoos covering his arms.
Bryce hesitated at the door. Maybe this is okay, he thought. Maybe the white gangs will protect me. The cellmate stopped doing push-ups. He stood up wiping sweat from his forehead.
He looked Bryce up and down. "You the cop?" the cellmate asked. "Ex-cop," Bryce corrected quickly. "I was framed, just like you guys." The cellmate laughed.
It wasn't a friendly laugh. "We don't like cops in here," the man said. "But we really don't like cops who make the news. You bring heat, you bring lockdowns." "I can pay," Bryce said, desperate.
"I have money stashed outside." "Your money is gone, Callahan." A voice came from the walkway. Bryce turned. Standing at the bars of his cell was a group of three inmates.
One of them was Latino, small but with eyes like a shark. "We saw the news," the Latino inmate said. "The feds seized everything. Your house, your truck, your pension. You got nothing."
Bryce sank onto his bunk. It was true. The civil asset forfeiture laws, the very laws he used to steal cash from drug dealers, had been used against him. Kendrick and Serena had filed a civil suit alongside the criminal case. They had stripped him bare.
"So," his cellmate said, cracking his knuckles, "you're broke. You're a cop, and you're famous. That's a bad combination, Bryce." That first night the lights went out. The darkness was total.
Bryce lay on his bunk staring at the concrete ceiling. He could hear the breathing of the man below him. He could hear the shouts from down the hall. "Hey, Officer Callahan, pull me over now!" Someone screamed in the dark.
Laughter echoed through the block. Bryce closed his eyes and saw the Range Rover. He saw the sunlight glinting off the black paint. He saw Kendrick's calm face. "Why didn't I just let them go?" he thought.
"Why did I have to be the big man?" Regret is a bitter pill, but in prison, it's the only medicine you get. The next morning, Bryce went to the cafeteria for breakfast. He tried to sit alone. He put his tray down, watery oatmeal and a hard biscuit.
He felt a shadow fall over him. He looked up. It wasn't an inmate. It was the warden. "Callahan," the warden said, "you have a visitor."
"Visitor?" Bryce's heart leaped. Maybe it's a lawyer, maybe an appeal. "Legal visit," the warden said. "Follow me."