Free Tell Me by Lisa Jackson Page A

received the items passed through the two-sided drawer. Asking for their signatures, she returned visitors’ passes with dexterity, if not pleasure.
    Nikki hoped to be the first person allowed inside, but she was disappointed. She was third, behind Lynnetta Ricci and a man she didn’t recognize, who had introduced himself as Ryan Nettles, a twentysomething, eager stringer for a newspaper in Atlanta. DeAnthony Jones had to settle for fourth.
    She fidgeted on the padded bench in the anteroom, all the while cognizant of the cameras that were filming this sterile room along with all the other corridors and common areas of the new prison. The gates were electronic, the guards stern, the air inside the prison filtered and yet stale-feeling.
    Her claustrophobia was trying to raise its ugly head. She hated the idea of being locked away, be it in a closet, a prison cell, or a damned casket.
    The reporters before her filed in and out, and finally she was led by a guard through a series of electronic gates that hummed and clanged, her footsteps echoing on concrete floors as she was guided to an office on the first floor.
    “Wait here,” the guard instructed, pointing to another small, windowless office, where a receptionist/secretary was hard at work on the keyboard of a computer. A heavyset woman with streaked hair meant to conceal her gray, she wore a telephone headset and glasses balanced on her pert little nose. A nameplate announced that she was Mrs. Martha Watkins, and several plaques that had been proudly hung on the walls led Nikki to believe Mrs. Watkins had been an excellent employee in the service of the state of Georgia for thirty-plus years.
    “Warden Billings will be with you shortly,” the woman said, not missing a beat in her typing, though she did slide a quick glance as Nikki entered and the door closed behind her, clicking loudly, as if it too were locked.
    Nikki fidgeted in her seat for almost ten minutes before the inner door opened. A tall, serious woman in a slim skirt and collared sweater introduced herself as Warden Jeanette Billings, then asked Nikki into the inner sanctum of her office. A large window allowed sunlight into the room, where a Thanksgiving cactus was starting to show orange buds, and Nikki breathed a sigh of relief.
    The warden’s desk took up most of the office, where shelves of books and framed black-and-white photographs lined the walls. A laptop computer was open on one side of the desk and a tablet on the other. As if to add some age to the room, an antique globe, circa 1920, was positioned on a stand in one corner.
    “Please, have a seat,” the warden offered, and Nikki dropped into one of the two visitors chairs. “I received your e-mail about an interview with Ms. O’Henry,” she said before Nikki could ask about it. “I did write you back this morning to let you know that Mrs. O’Henry is seeing no visitors.” Her features were sharp, her demeanor that of someone who was used to being in charge. “Obviously you, and the others, didn’t receive it or chose to ignore it.”
    “I was on the road.”
    One of the warden’s slim eyebrows arched as if she doubted Nikki’s word.
    Nikki hadn’t driven for over an hour to end up empty-handed. “If you read my e-mail, then you know I’m not just here for a quick article or even a series of articles for the Sentinel. I’d like to write a book, tell Blondell’s side of the story.”
    The warden’s smile was tiredly patient. “Again, Ms. Gillette, you’re not the first. Ms. O’Henry has been approached many times by different authors interested in her story.”
    “But that was before. Now it looks like she could be released, a free woman for the first time in nearly two decades. I’d think she’d want the world to know how she feels, what really happened that night.” Nikki was on a roll now, but she could see the censure in Jeanette Billings’s eyes.
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Gillette. There’s nothing more I can do.