The glass door behind me slid open. My assistant, Clara, stepped out with a folder of documents to sign.

“These are ready for you, Mrs. Sanders,” she said, offering a pen.

“Thank you, Clara.” I signed and handed it back — and noticed a small white envelope in her other hand. She looked uncertain.

“This came in today’s mail,” she said. “It’s addressed to you personally, so I thought you’d want to see it.”

The envelope bore the red stamps of a prison mail room, and my name across the front in a hurried, familiar scrawl.

It was from Raymond, reaching out from the cell I’d put him in.