CHAPTERONE
NADIA
Smugglingdrugs into prison is enough to take the shine off a good morning.
A grey pall clings to the day despite the sky overhead being brilliant blue. Only the faintest purple bruise along the horizon showing the forecast for a southerly change and accompanying downpour might be correct. The fields on either side have browned in the relentless summer, bales of hay dotted among the paddocks.
I’ve been driving for forty minutes and there’s only another five to go until I reach the corrections facility. It’s not too late for me to turn back.
I should turn back.
I want to turn back.
My stomach lurches and I reach over the empty passenger seat, searching in the glove box for a ginger biscuit to take the edge off the nausea. As I straighten, I catch sight of myself in the rearview mirror. Greying chestnut curls, neatly styled. Amber eyes knocked back to dull bronze through lack of sleep. Crimson lipstick doing its best to make my thin mouth visible.
The rest of my face is clammy white. A match to my sweaty palms, which leave marks on the steering wheel grips.
At the next set of lights, I press my hand against my midsection. It growls, struggling to keep the biscuit where it belongs.
The same two thoughts keep tossing back and forth in my brain.
Go home. This is insanity. You’re going to get yourself locked up or killed.
Hold your nerve. Keep to the plan. Otherwise, Joshua is dead.
Boing.Boing.Boing.Boing.My brain feels like it’s playing Pong up there.
Joshua is my son. The one who’s trying his luck over in Sydney when anyone at work asks, but who is really waiting for my visit at Christchurch Men’s Prison. Waiting for my visit… and to hand over the parcels his old boss forced me to take.
Five chunky plastic-wrapped packets stuck up in my business, feeling like the world’s largest and least absorbent tampons. A big enough quantity that if I get caught, I’ll spend a hell of a long time in the next prison over.
So much that if one of the plastic-wrapped parcels breaks, I’ll be dead. A death I researched to ensure I knew the potential consequences and now wish I hadn’t. The horrific details lodged in my memory do nothing to calm my nerves.
Sweat beads on my clammy forehead, little to do with the heat of the day. A headache pulses at my temples.
The moment I walk in, I’m sure the prison staff will see the guilt in my eyes. My irises will be ready to broadcast it in elaborate detail as soon as I pass through the door.
My stomach lurches again, this time not kidding around.
I pull my car over, wheels bumping a metre into the patchy grass of the roadside. My fingers scrabble at the door release, unable to find purchase until the last possible moment, a thin line of acidic drool burping up my throat the moment I finally open it, splattering onto the hard soil.
The smell and feel of it makes the whole thing happen again. I haven’t eaten much, not today, not yesterday, barely a thing the day before that. Nothing substantial since Trenton Reddick paid me a visit and spelled out my and my son’s choices.
Do what he says, or Joshua dies.
I pull a soft pack of tissues from my pocket and scrub at my mouth, desperate to lose the taste and sting of the acid coating my teeth. I scrape the soft paper against my tongue, my taste buds so relieved to lose the flavour they don’t protest the trauma.
A thin mouthwash strip ignites another battle with my stomach, but this time I come out the victor.
When I straighten, I’m shaking. My hands tremble, even while gripping hard on the wheel.
This is insane.
If I walk into the corrections facility doing my best impression of jelly mid-earthquake, they’ll pull me aside for a full cavity search. The warnings they can are planted on the walls of every part of the visitor’s area. Once I’m inside those walls, I abide by their rules, and those rules are designed to catch me.
Turn around. Go home. Call the police.
It sounds so reasonable. I’ve shouted the same thing at a dozen different TV shows over the years while the protagonist makes their incredibly stupid decisions, their poorly written characters tossing aside all reason in the pursuit of entertainment and a solid six or seven on the creator’s IMDB score.
