Chapter 4 - The Laundry Room Confession
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The prison laundry room was a suffocating inferno of steam and deafening noise. It was also the only place where the security cameras had blind spots. I was folding a stack of rough gray uniform shirts when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned to see Jasmine, one of the prison nurses. She looked exhausted, her eyes darting nervously toward the heavy metal door.
"You're Margaret Kensington, right?" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the industrial dryers.
"Who's asking?" I replied cautiously, taking a step back.
"I used to work at the Westbridge Private Clinic," she said, the name dropping like a bomb between us.
That was the clinic where Savannah was treated the night I supposedly attacked her. My heart hammered against my ribs, but I kept my face perfectly blank.
"What do you want, Jasmine?"
She reached into the pocket of her scrubs and pulled out a folded piece of paper, slipping it under the stack of shirts on my table.
"Your husband ruined my life," Jasmine hissed, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "He paid off the clinic director to alter Savannah's medical records. When I found out, they framed me for stealing narcotics. I lost my nursing license. I ended up working in this hellhole."
"And Savannah?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"She was never pregnant," Jasmine confirmed, looking me straight in the eye. "She came in blackout drunk. She fell down a flight of concrete stairs outside a hotel. The paper I just gave you is a copy of her original intake form. Negative pregnancy test. BAC of 0.18. No ultrasound. Just some nasty bruises."
I stared at the edge of the paper peeking out from under the gray fabric. This was it. The smoking gun.
"Why give this to me now?" I asked.
May you like
"Because I hear things," Jasmine smiled bitterly. "I hear you're planning to burn him to the ground. I want you to light the match."
She turned and walked away before the guard passed by the window. I quickly slid the paper down my pants, my hands trembling for the first time in eighteen months. The lie was exposed. Now, I just needed to deliver the execution.
