Chapter 26: Is That ... A Yes?

I glanced over at Hana as she reached for the remote and clicked the TV off. The room softened instantly, the dim light settling around us. I was curled up beside her on the couch, close enough to feel the shift of her weight when she leaned forward to place the half-finished bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

For a moment we just sat there, watching our own faint reflections in the darkened screen, the quiet stretching out between us in a way that felt almost deliberate.

“So ... she went to acting school?” Hana asked at last, her voice low. She already knew the answer—we both did—she’d told us. But Hana asked anyway, whether for humor or out of sheer disbelief.

“Yeah,” I said. “And Sophie told me she even taught at the university. Just one semester, I think.”

Hana nodded slowly, absorbing all of it.

“And she spent four days in prison just to get moved to California to film that episode?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said again, softer this time.

Her knee brushed mine as she shifted, and the tiny, accidental contact sent a quiet ripple through the space between us. The room felt heavier now, dimmer, as if Isla’s story had pulled us both inward.

Last week at dinner, Noah had told us the whole saga from September. Isla had landed a role in that new streaming show—what we’d just finished watching. Well, the one episode she appeared in. Luckily she was in the second episode, so we didn’t have to sit through much of the series. Honestly, it wasn’t very good. We didn’t even make it through the popcorn.

But the path she took to get to the set ... that was far more interesting than anything we just watched. The series should had been about that.

We’d learned she isn’t allowed to travel or leave town freely. Something about her being flagged in a national prisoner database as an escapee—a misunderstanding, apparently. They didn’t get into the details. I think the Prescotts knew the backstory, so maybe Noah and Isla assumed we did too.

The only safe way for her to get to California without risking arrest was to travel as a prisoner in transport. The same method they use to move inmates between facilities. So, she simply ... did it. She went the way any inmate would—flown on one of those planes where you’re kept cuffed, a bar bolted to the floor for the leg chain to lock into.

That’s how Isla described it, anyway. They kept her in full transport restraints the entire time. No lockbox, she said, just a waist chain with the cuffs looped through the bar. And the leg irons were the longer kind.

Noah explained they didn’t really have a choice. Driving across the country was too risky—they could get pulled over, or worse, in an accident. If anyone ran her ID, she’d come up as a fugitive and be taken in. It would get sorted out eventually, but she’d miss the filming. And flying commercially was impossible; she’d be flagged instantly. Same with trains from what they told us.

So, they went through the prison system. She turned herself in at a facility about an hour from here, got processed as an inmate, and was transferred across the country to a prison in California—the closest one to L.A. They released her just long enough to escort her to the set. She filmed her scenes, then had to go right back, get processed again, and retrace the entire route home.

Which meant she had to show up to the set in the restraints she’d been transported in—and leave in them, too. From what they described, she was only out of them while filming, and even then they had to be removed by the prison guard assigned to her. That apparently made things ... interesting on set. People had questions.

The entire trip—something that might have taken, maybe two days—took a week. She spent two full days in two different prisons. One for intake, one for release. And from the way they described it ... none of it sounded pleasant. There was also some other complication they didn’t fully explain.

It sounded like she had trouble getting released once she got back to New York. DOCCS was dragging its feet the next day I guess—she was supposed to be out, but she wasn’t. She hinted they wanted something from her and she refused to cooperate, so the delay became pressure. Maybe an intimidation tactic. Honestly, I wasn’t sure.

Her attorney had to get involved before they finally let her out. From the way she talked about him, he sounded like the kind of prick you have to be to fight through a mess like that—sharp edges for sharp systems.

Anyway, the whole thing seemed to be pure bureaucratic chaos.

She said she’d never do anything like that again ... and then casually mentioned she might be invited back if the fans liked her. Which made no sense to me. She’d have to go through the whole ordeal again.

But Hana and I didn’t question it. We just ... nodded and listened.

I think I didn’t question any of it because I could relate. Just hearing the story—and feeling it brush up against the edges of my own case—made my stomach tighten. The FBI had its own pissing match with DOCCS, and that whole mess had shown me exactly how fucked up things can get.

In the end, people like Isla—and people like me—are the ones who end up carrying it. We’re the ones who get stuck with the fallout. Not the bureaucrats who tie everything in knots and then go home at five, leaving it all behind. They don’t have to go home in restraints. They don’t have to wake up the next day and make sure they’re secured before they walk out the door.

Their story had also stirred up what Susan and I had been told—what Agent Myers had told us. That DOCCS needed testimony from someone who wasn’t cooperating, someone holding out because they wanted something. It made me wonder if Isla was connected to that somehow. If she might be that person.