by Amy Vansant
Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Just another loose end.
Chapter Thirteen
Stephanie sat up, her head grazing the bunk above her.
Where am I?
She looked around the concrete room, half in a dream.
Oh right. I’m in prison. Fantastic.
“Bitch, you’re crying in your sleep again.”
Stephanie cocked an eye toward the woman in the bunk above her. “Mind your business, Beatty.”
Beatty leaned over her bunk to peer at her. “It is my business when you’re keeping me awake—”
Stephanie grabbed the woman’s greasy hair and jerked her throat against the edge of her bed. Standing, she pressed harder with her opposite hand, dodging as her cellmate’s right arm flailed. Beatty used her left to push against the bed frame, trying to keep her windpipe from crushing against the metal.
“Okay! Okay!” she croaked.
Stephanie released her and Beatty scrambled back into her bed, holding her throat. She glared at Stephanie and Stephanie held her gaze until she looked away.
“You’re crazy,” muttered Beatty, rolling on her side to face away.
Stephanie sighed.
You have no idea.
Stephanie sat back on the edge of her bunk and wiped her hands on the edge of her sheet. She was pretty sure killing a cellmate didn’t play well with juries, or they’d be dragging Beatty’s greasy, dead body out of the cell.
No. The perception of juries didn’t matter.
I don’t kill people anymore.
Right?
But everyone thought she’d killed Jason. And even she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she hadn’t. Each night as she went to bed beneath Beatty she struggled to remember every detail of her moments in the warehouse.
Jason had been tied to a chair.
Tied?
She assumed he was. His arms were behind him, weren’t they?
She closed her eyes and tried to picture him. So still he sat there. His posture unnatural.
Jason had to already be dead. His head hung down...
Or unconscious. He might not have been dead.
Did I shoot him? Did I kill him after all?
No. Something was up. How had she knocked herself unconscious on an old roll of carpet? She’d jumped out the way of all sorts of things over the course of her life and she’d never knocked herself out doing it.
It had all happened so fast.
And if Jason was dead or unconscious, it didn’t matter. She was sure he’d never moved, and yet someone had shot at her. It couldn’t have been him, so there had to be someone else there.
Then there was the coral.
She took a deep breath to slow her beating heart.
Since arriving in prison, she’d had a reoccurring dream of herself swimming underwater through a giant, red coral forest. She picked her way through the coral branches, inching through the murky darkness of the water getting more and more lost. A growing panic built until she looked at her air meter and saw she was nearly out, with no exit from the coral jungle in sight.
She’d take a breath, and although she could feel air entering her lungs, there was no oxygen.
She was drowning.
That’s when she’d wake up, gasping for air, nearly clipping her head on Beatty’s bunk every time.
And every other time she then had to shut Beatty up because Beatty didn’t learn.
What did she expect? Statistically, most people in prison have been in prison before. Learning from mistakes wasn’t a strong suit of the prison population. Smart people didn’t get caught in the first place—
Whoops.
What does that say about me?
Stephanie put her head in her hands.
But I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have. Why would I shoot Jason? Who was shooting at me?
It didn’t help that Charlotte had walked in a moment later. Stephanie was confused and angry at the time, and who should walk in but her romantic rival. Miss Goody Two Shoes.
Bad timing on Charlotte’s part.
Outside Stephanie’s cell there was a loud pop and the lights on the cell block sprung to life.
“Morning, sunshines,” said Gina, the morning guard. The doors unlocked and prisoners began groaning and yawning, then shuffling toward breakfast.
Stephanie stood and stepped out into the hall. The moment she’d cleared her cell, someone pushed her from behind. She stumbled, her hand dragging along the wall in search of something to grab.
Nothing.
She hit the floor knees-first and winced as her bones pounded the hard polished cement floor.
Someone snickered behind her.
Stephanie flipped around and stood, squaring as MuuMuu stopped to smile down at her.
Great. The moving mountain had noticed her.
MuuMuu was an enormous woman of Tongan descent. Her large, rounded shoulders and thick features had put her atop the food chain moments after entering prison and she’d never looked back.
Stephanie stared at the woman’s hanging lower lip and small, pig-like eyes as she straightened and forced a smile to her lips.
“Out of the way, blondie.”
“Good morning, MuuMuu. Didn’t anyone tell you bullying isn’t fashionable anymore?”
MuuMuu’s expression didn’t change. She wasn’t known for her great sense of humor. Except the time she dipped Beatty’s head in the toilet for being late paying her for protection. That was hilarious.
Protection. Duh. That’s why MuuMuu pushed her. Beatty had ratted on her for roughing her up.
When all she had to do was stop talking.
MuuMuu reached out to club Stephanie on the side of her head with her monstrous bear-paw of a hand. Stephanie dropped and swung her leg, her foot striking the side of MuuMuu’s knee with all the force she could muster. The giantess roared, her knee buckling, arms flailing to grab Stephanie and keep from falling. Stephanie barely scrambled out of the way of that falling redwood in time, and MuuMuu hit the ground with a thud they probably could feel way over in cellblock B.
A collective gasp escaped from the inmates gathering to watch the fight.
MuuMuu lay on her back like a stranded turtle.
Stephanie had an idea.
This is an opportunity.
She didn’t have time to work out the entirety of the plan percolating in her brain, but felt solid enough to leap on top of her fallen foe. Knees pinning MuuMuu’s limbs, she pushed her fingers neatly into the notch of the woman’s throat. MuuMuu tried to lift a meaty arm to push Stephanie away and then stopped as the pressure at her throat intensified.
“If I crack this windpipe, there’s a good chance you’re going to die, understand?”
MuuMuu nodded as best as she could.
Stephanie leaned down to whisper into her opponent’s ear. “Listen to me. I’m going to let you knock me off you. Okay? You save face and I walk away. I’ve got a business opportunity for you. We’ll talk later. Blink if you understand.”
MuuMuu blinked, her face growing more crimson by the second.
Stephanie eased her pressure and MuuMuu clapped the side of her head to knock her from her perch. Stephanie threw herself away from the woman as if she’d been hit by a train.
A deep ooooh rose from the crowd.
MuuMuu lumbered to her feet, assisted by several of her more beefy sycophants.
“Next time I’ll kill you,” she said, stabbing a finger at Stephanie.
Stephanie rubbed her head where she’d purposely knocked it against the wall and nodded, appearing defeated. MuuMuu walked on with her circle hooting around her.
The Tongan’s lumbering gait seemed even more labored than usual. She’d picked up a noticeable limp.
Stephanie turned and had to stop short from walking into Morning Guard Gina. The woman stood staring at her, her hands on her hips, disapproval stamped across her expression.
Nice timing.
“You alright?”
Stephanie nodded. “I need to make a phone call.”
“About MuuMuu? I would let it go. You’ll only make it worse. I can’t always be here.”
You weren’t here.
“No. I need to talk to my lawyer. Totally unrelated to the Pillsbury Dough Girl.”
Gina laughed. “Girl, you crack me up. Sure. I’ll get you a phone.”
Gina turned and led the way to the bank of phones located just outside the visitors’ area.
Stephanie took the least grubby-looking receiver of the four available and called Declan. She made a mental note to look for hand wipes at the commissary. It was the little things you missed in prison. Easy access to hand sanitizer, being able to Google every question that popped into your head, edible food...
Declan answered after the first ring. At least the first ring she could hear. She suspected he’d already had to agree to accept a call from prison.
“Stephanie?”
“You know other people in prison?”
Declan sighed. “No. What do you need?”
“Tell me, am I your little jailbird?”
“Don’t start. What do you need?”
“Spoilsport. Fine. Be that way. I called because I keep having this dream about coral.”
“Coral? The color or the reef?”
“The reef. And I think it means something, but I don’t know what.”
“Means something for your case? What could coral have to do with your case?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. I wanted to bounce it off you and see if it rings any of your girlfriend’s bells.”
“Okay. I’ll ask her about coral.”
“Maybe tell my mother, too, if she calls. I, of course, don’t have a phone number for her and she only blesses me with a call once every decade or so.”
“Okay.”
“Actually, I did get a call from her the other day, before I realized the coral dream wasn’t just prison anxiety.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted to know if I did it. I told her I didn’t and that I wouldn’t even if I wanted to, because I was going straight for you.”
Declan sighed. “I hate it when you say things like that. Going straight can’t depend on me.”
“No. I know. I’m not thinking of you as the piece of chocolate cake I get at the end of my death diet.”
“Uh, good.”
“She didn’t like it either.”
“Your chocolate cake metaphor?”
“No, the idea of you influencing me to be good.”
The line went quiet.
“Declan?”
“I’m here. I’m just wondering how worried I should be that your psycho mother is angry with me.”
“Eh. She probably won’t kill you.”
“Great. Is that all?”
“I think so. Tell Bopeep about the coral.”
“Right. Thanks for probably getting me killed.”
Stephanie chuckled. “No problem.”
Chapter Fourteen
Miles heard his phone buzz against the egg crate the woman he’d picked up at the bar had serving as a nightstand table.
The girl beside him still wore her clothes. She lay tangled in musty, cartoon racing car sheets, one cellulite-puckered leg jutting from the side of the bed like a crane’s beak.
He’d asked her why she slept on kids’ sheets after she dragged him into the end of the trailer that served as her bedroom. She said she’d lost a son and sleeping on his sheets made her feel close to him. She’d started crying then. He got out of bed and fetched her another shot of Wild Turkey to tip her over the edge. She was a lot quieter passed out.
Miles grabbed his phone and stepped over the clutter to move into the main section of the trailer.
“Miles here.”
A man started talking without saying hello. Jim, the man who’d asked for his help taking down Jamie.
“There’s a girl working to get Stephanie exonerated.”
Miles scowled. “What? Speak English.”
“I need you to take care of a girl.”
“That I understand. Whudya need?”
“I’ll text you the address. She’s got two bodyguards sitting outside her house in a Cadillac and motion cameras around the perimeter of the house.”
Miles snorted. “Why don’t you just put her in a bank vault and call it a day?”
“Are you saying you can’t handle this?”
“No. I can handle it.” Miles spun the lid off the bottle of Wild Turkey and took a swig.
“Alright then. Do your job and keep her from getting Stephanie freed. We need her in jail.”
“Got it. Text me the info.”
“Done. And Miles...”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t get near her boyfriend. His name’s Declan. Don’t let him see you.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not someone you want to mess with. There’s no reason to complicate things.”
Miles shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll handle it.” He hung up. A second later his phone dinged and he read the name and address.
Charlotte Morgan.
He grunted and scratched at his belly with his stubby, print-less fingers. Too bad. He liked the name Charlotte. He might have had an aunt by that name, but he couldn’t remember.
Miles heard the girl waking up behind him in the bedroom. She blasted an exaggerated yawn and called for him using the nickname she’d christened him with the night before.
“Hey, Lightning, you out there?”
He looked back into the bedroom and saw her beckoning to him.
Those damn sheets.
He shook the empty Wild Turkey bottle, finding his liquid courage gone.
“You got any beer?” he called back to her, pulling open the mini fridge.
Chapter Fifteen
Miles parked in the Publix parking lot and pulled the large canvas bag from the back of his mud-splattered pickup truck.
There was no one around to see how the bag moved on its own when he wasn’t touching it.
He felt good. In his element. He’d spent half the day at the trailer getting buzzed on beer he’d talked the girl into picking up at the corner store, and then taken a nap. When he woke up the girl was still asleep, so he sneaked out and drove to his farm to gather the equipment he needed to run his errand for Jim. He’d pulled the canvas off his old pickup and it had started.
It was like God was on his side today.
Now it was nearly three a.m. and he had everything he needed to stop Charlotte Morgan from freeing Simone’s daughter.
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.
Illuminated by the parking lot lights, Miles jogged to the road and crossed without pause. No cars whizzed by at three in the morning.
He slipped through the unmanned gate of the Pineapple Port neighborhood and strode briskly toward his goal, keeping his head low to avoid any personal cameras that might spot him from the doorways of the homes he passed.
He made his way to the house next to his target’s and slipped into the back yard. Peering around the corner, he pulled down his night-vision goggles and stared at the two men sitting in a Cadillac outside Charlotte’s house.
Just like Jim said.
He’d driven by earlier in the day to check out the situation. Two older men were stationed in the car. By the tilt of their heads, he suspected they’d fallen asleep.
The girl might have more people guarding her than the President, but if they were all as good as these two, he’d be okay.
Miles set down the bag and fished for the mask in his pocket. Finding it, he removed his goggles, and pulled the specialized balaclava over his head, covering every inch of his face including his eyes. Clear plastic windows stitched into the high-tech fabric of the hood would allow him to see.
The stealth clothing would protect him from the thermal imaging he felt confident the cameras mounted on Charlotte’s home possessed. He couldn’t be sure of course, but he guess
ed if someone was smart enough to rig all those motion detection cameras, they were probably smart enough to use good ones, ones with thermal imaging that would make his body heat trigger their sensors. Luckily, there were things he could wear to hide his heat.
Motion was trickier.
He’d planned for a long night.
Miles had looked up the style of modular home Charlotte owned and figured where her bedroom was. Fortunately, it was at the back of the house where he wouldn’t have to go far. Still, moving slower than a camera could detect took patience.
Miles reached into the side pocket of his gym bag and pulled out a Bud Light. Whipping the butterfly knife from his belt he poked two tiny holes into it and drank it dry without the loud Psssh! The tab opening might have caused. When he was done, he tossed the can into the thicket behind the houses and picked up the canvas bag.
Then he began to move.
Slowly.
One tiny step at a time, each step taking a minute or more. This way he inched the fifteen feet to Charlotte’s bedroom window.
He’d reached the window when he realized his bladder was full.
Damn beer.
He grit his teeth and tried to ignore the gentle ache in his lower abdomen.
How can I spend all day planning my attack and then forget beer makes me pee?
Miles pushed the thought out of his mind. Bending, ever so slowly, he pulled the glass cutter from the side pocket of the bag. He straightened, and stuck the suction cups to the window pane. Beneath the soffit of the house, he suspected he was no longer in camera range, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d tried to spot the location of all the cameras during his afternoon reconnaissance, but he couldn’t be sure he’d clocked them all. There might be more in the trees. He had to continue assuming one pointed toward him at all times.
Miles worked the glass cutter, carving a perfectly round, eight-inch hole in the window. The suction cups attached to the center allowed him to pluck the glass from its spot without a sound.
When he wanted to be quiet, there was no one quieter.
Miles bent down to the bag and slipped the glass cutter back into the side pocket. He was about to unzip the bag when he spotted two glowing eyes at the edge of the thicket lining the back of the house.
