I can feel my jaw set. None of this is wrong. I know it’s necessary, but it feels so… intrusive.
All this because of a damn latte?
I remind myself that it’s for my safety.
“Any packages you’re expecting?” the lead asks.
“No.”
“You using a package room?”
“In the lobby. Keypad access.”
“Good. Don’t leave anything down there overnight. We’ll ask the manager to hold your deliveries behind the desk for ID pickup for the next few weeks.”
“Understood.”
They look up at the ceiling. “Do you use a smart speaker?”
“No.”
“Good. Router?”
“In the hall closet.”
They open it. Modem, router, a coil of cables. “Change your wi-fi password tonight. Don’t reuse one. Turn off WPS if it’s on. We’ll send you a sheet.”
“Done.”
One of them walks to the windows and checks sight lines. “Keep the blinds down,” she says.
For the first time, I don’t just say, “Okay.”
“Keep the blinds down? All the time?” I ask, starting to get annoyed. “Until when? How long before I can see sunlight again? I can’t open my shades. I can’t take any walks. I enter and leave my building through the parking garage exclusively.”
“It’s for your safety,” she says patiently, like I’m some child she needs to explain the basics to.
“Great. So I’ll just be completely miserable every moment of the rest of my life. At least until Luca Conti stops being amused and decides to pop one between my eyes.”
I pick up a sweater that was carelessly dropped on the floor and trampled on. “None of this stuff is going to stop him if he really wanted me gone. You really think he can’t get into my parking garage if he wanted to?”
I ball the sweater up and throw it in the hamper.
“Ms. Pennino?” a voice says behind me. Lawrence, the man in charge, is standing in the doorway of my bedroom. “Can we walk for a moment? Down to the garage.”
I follow him out, past the other deputies, into the hall. We take the elevator down. He doesn’t make small talk. Good.
The doors open to the garage. Concrete, oil, fluorescent buzz. He walks a few steps and faces me.
“I don’t have anything to show you. I just wanted five minutes of your time,” he says. “We already checked your car and cleared the garage. Put some new measures in.”
“Great. I feel so safe now,” I say, deadpan. “I don’t know if you noticed, Marshal, but there’s a giant, car-sized hole that leads right into this place. And I don’t think the clearance bar is going to stop anyone from waltzing right in.”
He doesn’t flinch. “You’re not wrong to be angry,” he says. “Restrictions feel like punishment when you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“They are punishment,” I say. “Of convenience. Of sunlight. Of having a normal human day.”
He nods. “I’m not going to sell you a fairy tale. This won’t feel good. It’s also not forever. We use tight posture at the front end, then loosen as the board stays quiet.”
