Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Felicity Zimmerman had a corner office in one of Manhattan’s glitziest skyscrapers. She was a freakishly attractive woman in her forties and treated us as if we were royalty. She said she’d hold our hands through the entire process, first filing for a CR1 visa and then, two weeks after, a green card.
She went on to fill out the I-130A form with us and said she’d send it from her office and pull some strings with her friends in the immigration office. It all sounded very reassuring and terribly expensive.
Felicity explained that since Riggs was the petitioner, he wouldn’t have to attend the interview himself, but that it would look lovely if he accompanied me when the time came.
“Optics are the name of the game.” She looked between us, making eye contact to ensure we were on board. “And since everything you’ve filed in your I-130A is fairly recent, establishing a strong relationship and for Mr. Bates to show up with you would put the adjudicating officer at ease. Even if he won’t be able to enter the actual interview.”
“That’s fine,” Riggs said. “I’ll make sure I’m there.”
At the end of the hour, I asked Felicity how much she charged. Probably I should’ve begun with that question, but I didn’t want to be anxious the entire meeting.
“Nine hundred per hour.” She smiled.
“Cents?” I hoped.
Riggs laughed. I whimpered. When we left her office, he patted my back.
“Don’t worry, Poppins. We’ll sell your organs on the black market.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
DUFFY
Riggs wasn’t joking.
Abandoned prison wasn’t a euphemism for something else.
It was actually where he’d taken me.
“Is that . . . ?” My breath hitched. I put a hand to my heart, only to find it trying to drill its way out of my chest and run away, like the rest of me should.
Riggs and I were upstate, at the Northeastern Penitentiary, where he’d so far taken hundreds of pictures of eerie kitchens, exposed walls, rat-riddled corridors, and dirt roads. Now we were in a particularly small room, and I was standing in front of a funny-looking seat, running my fingers over its headrest.
“An electric chair?” Riggs crouched on one knee, camera in hand, taking a picture of the chair. “Yup. That’s Old Sparky, all right. Now get out of the frame, Poppins.”
I gasped, jumping back. “Bollocks. I touched it.”
“You do know it’s not plugged in anymore, right?” He moved across the room to take a picture from a different angle.
“So what? I touched it, Riggs.” I was hyperventilating. “People died on this thing. Their eyes popped out while they were sitting here.”
“That’s a myth, kid.”
“Is it, though?”
“They used to cover their eyes so they wouldn’t roll on the floor and weird everyone out.” He snapped his gum, taking position on the other side of the room, his camera click-click-clicking away. “Besides, it’s not like now that you touched it, the ghost of a gnarly-looking executed murderer is going to chase you.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up.” I clutched my stomach.
“I see a theme here.” Riggs chuckled. “You should get checked for reflux.”
Mumbling something unintelligible toward him, I created more space between the chair and me. The chair was rooted to the floor, its red vinyl pads still pristine, in contrast to the ruins around it.
Wait a minute. Red vinyl pads . . .
It was a barber chair.
I hurried to Riggs, smacking his shoulder. Said shoulder was already quivering with barely restrained laughter, making the camera shake in his hands.
“You bastard!”
“Come on! In the words of every asshole who deserves to be locked behind bars for rape—you were asking for it.” He snickered, straightening.
“Just like them, you deserve to be castrated.” I shoved at his chest.
He grabbed my wrist and kissed the inside of it, in the sensitive spot where you spritz your perfume. “That’s very convenient of you, Daphne.”
Daphne? “Convenient how?” I eyed him suspiciously.
“You using the goods, then throwing them away.” He gave me his back. “Grab my backpack. Let’s get more pictures of those rusty exposed pipelines. They were cool.”
I grabbed his heavy backpack, trailing behind him. Riggs had put me to work in the five hours we’d spent together. If I thought he was going to hand me free cash because he felt bad for me, I was sorely mistaken. I set up umbrella reflectors, carried his equipment, cleared spaces he wanted to take pictures of, fetched him water, did all the driving from prison to prison, and kept a chart of all the places we’d been to, the names, the rooms, the history—everything.
As we were working, I was already writing down notes about each section of the penitentiary, which Riggs could later give to his editor. To be honest, I loved doing this more than any job I’d held in the news. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was fascinating. It made me rethink my entire way of operating. What if money wasn’t the most important thing after all? What if it was passion for life that gave you satisfaction? There was something about capturing a moment in time—a moment you were present in, that belonged uniquely to you—that called out to me. I thought about all the times I’d pulled out my album pictures from the attic to revisit my favorite memories, and realized I liked timeless things. Pictures were timeless. The news? Fluid and ever changing.