Taking the Heat

by Brenda Novak

  The inmate didn’t answer, but a muscle flexed in his jaw and his eyes turned hard and glittery.

  Hansen grinned. “That’s what I thought. Now get your ass back where it belongs before I change my mind.”

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK you were doing out there?” Sergeant Hansen shouted once Gabrielle had composed herself enough to appear at his desk.

  “I was trying to stop a convict from sustaining physical injury,” she said. “I thought I was doing my job.”

  “You were risking your fool life, that’s what you were doing. I had things under control.”

  Gabrielle had promised herself she’d be diplomatic. She needed her job. The small desert town of Florence, Arizona, revolved around seven prisons, including the juvenile detention center. There wasn’t anything else that would pay her enough to survive, at least not anything she could get. After running away from home at least a dozen times in her teen years, she’d barely graduated high school. College had been out of the question. But she was too honest to suck up to Hansen and pretend she agreed with his actions, so she folded her arms and kept her mouth shut.

  “Randall Tucker killed his own wife, Officer Hadley,” Hansen announced as though he were playing some kind of trump card. “I’ll get his jacket so you can read it if you don’t believe me.”

  Gabrielle didn’t want to read his jacket or anyone else’s. The inmates’s wrap sheets were sometimes available to the officers, but she purposely avoided anything she didn’t need to know for fear she’d lose the nerve to do her job. Working for the state provided good medical and dental benefits, an excellent retirement plan and favorable hours. Arizona needed corrections officers in Florence so badly, they’d even offered her bonus money to work in this particular prison, and they’d given her days even though most rookies had to take the night shift.

  “That’s his name, Randall Tucker?” she asked. “I think I read about him in the paper when I was living in Phoenix.”

  He nodded. “Then you know he suspected his wife of having an affair, got insanely jealous and hired a private detective to follow her around. When he found out she was cheating on him, he flipped out and beat her to a bloody pulp with that karate shit of his. No one’s ever found the body.”

  “If they’ve never found the body, how do we know what happened? Did he confess?” she asked in surprise, wishing she could remember more about the story. She was new at corrections, but she’d seen enough court TV to know the rarity of such a conviction.

  “Hell, no. Tucker’s too smart for that. He’s still trying to get out of here. But a whole roomful of people watched him drag her away from an aerobics class the night she disappeared, and he was the last person to see her. He didn’t even report her missing for three days. By then her friends were getting suspicious, but all the police could find was blood spatter in the garage consistent with a blow to the head. The kind made with a fist.”

  Shying away from the mental picture Hansen was purposely creating in an attempt to intimidate her, Gabrielle went back to the name—Randall Tucker. For a moment his deep, angry, fathomless blue eyes flashed into her mind. She recalled his face. A rugged, very interesting face. The face of a man who’d killed his wife in his own garage.

  Gabrielle stifled a shudder. “I don’t care what he’s done,” she said, remembering her ideals. “It’s not up to me to punish him.”

  “I’m not punishing him. I’m just letting him pick on someone his own size.”

  “Four to one is hardly a fair fight.”

  The muscles of Hansen’s arm flexed as he rubbed the top of his blond flattop, studying her. What he lacked in height he tried to compensate for in the weight room, which made him appear almost square. “You think his wife would want him to have a pleasant stay here?”

  “I don’t have to answer that. The government dictates what his stay is like, not me. Or you,” she added.

  He chuckled bitterly, finally seeming to accept that he wasn’t going to convince her. “Damn bleeding heart liberal, that’s what you are. It’s a shame what people like you have done to this country. Prisoners are treated like guests at the taxpayer hotel while we work like slaves to keep food on the table.”

  “What good does it do to behave like them?” she asked. “Just because we work with depraved men doesn’t mean we have to lose our humanity.”

  “You think I’ve lost my humanity, Officer Hadley?”

  Gabrielle hesitated but, in the end, her natural frankness won out. “I don’t think what you did back there was right. And I sure as hell don’t think you should have denied Randall Tucker a doctor. He’s obviously hurt. We should send him to the health center.”

  “Let me tell you something, little lady. Randall Tucker is fine. He can take two men easily, and I’ve seen him take three. Far as I know, today’s the first time he’s ever been beat. He’s been fighting since he came here and he’ll continue to fight until he dies, or his appeal is finally heard and the judge overturns his sentence. But he’s already been denied twice, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that. He’s tougher than nails and stronger than a bull. He’s a survivor.”

  Hansen put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “And you know what? So am I. I’ve been workin’ here since college, nearly fifteen years, and I’ll be workin’ here in fifteen more. It’s only the weak who have to worry, the young, the old—” he cocked an eyebrow at her “—the fairer sex. At least those who don’t mind their own business and keep to their place.”

  Indignant, Gabrielle shot out of her chair. “I don’t appreciate the implication, Sergeant Hansen.”

  He sat back, laced thick fingers behind his head and smiled. “The implication? I’m not implying anything. I’m just reminding you of some basic facts, Officer Hadley. You lack the upper-body strength of a good prison officer. You lack a killer’s instinct. I don’t think you got it in you to do this job. Bottom line, you might need a lot of support from your fellow corrections officers, so you’d better be careful not to piss them off.”

  Or? The word hung in the air, but Gabrielle refused to say it. She was afraid she’d pushed Hansen too far already. The tentative relationship that had developed between them over her first two days had degenerated into open hostility, and she needed her job. She pictured herself trying to break up a fight like the one this afternoon and having him and his henchmen, as Randall Tucker had referred to them, hold back, stalling several minutes before coming to her aid. She could be seriously injured.

  She could be seriously killed.

  She hadn’t come to Florence to wage any wars against the powers that be. She’d come for other reasons, personal reasons. Her job was just that—a job, nothing more, nothing less.

  “So, no doctor for Tucker?” she asked.

  He shook his head in obvious disgust. “You don’t give up easily, do you?”

  Gabrielle returned his cold stare without speaking.

  “No doctor,” he said at last.

  “Then can I take a first-aid kit and see if he’s okay? There’s a cut above his eye that looks like it needs stitches. It should be cleaned, at least. And I’m pretty sure he’s broken a bone or two in his hand.”

  “If you want to nurse Mr. Wife-Killer, you can do it on your own time, once your shift ends,” Hansen growled. “But if he attacks you, don’t expect me—or anyone else—to come running.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  GABRIELLE CLUTCHED the first-aid kit in one sweaty hand and moved purposefully down the aisle toward Randall Tucker’s cell. Roddy and Brinkman, another officer, flanked her, walking a few steps behind. Worried about the possible repercussions should something happen to her while she was visiting Tucker, Hansen had finally relented and told the two officers to accompany her. But it was time to go home, and Roddy and Brinkman weren’t any happier about her errand than Hansen had been.

  Could she count on them? The fear that she couldn’t kept her eyes focused straight ahead and her chin held high while, inside, her heart thumped
louder with each step.

  Randall Tucker killed his own wife. Hansen’s words seemed to echo through the cavernous cell block, and with them, his promise. If he attacks you, don’t expect me—or anyone else—to come running…come running…come running.

  Locked down because of the fight and with an hour still to wait before dinner, many of the convicts were listless and bored. They lingered near the front of their cells, tattooed arms dangling through the bars as they hollered back and forth to each other or simply stared at nothing, sullen and withdrawn.

  Unfortunately, Gabrielle’s passing seemed to be just the thing to relieve the tedium.

  “Hey, fine-lookin’ mama, let’s get it on!” someone called after her as small plastic mirrors began to spring up so the men could see her.

  “Shut up, ho, she’s lookin’ fo’ a real man, a man like me,” came a shout two cells further down. “Come on, baby, lemme take you for the ride of your life.”

  “Look at those tits,” a third man groaned. “What I wouldn’t give for five minutes with those—”

  Previously, Roddy and Brinkman and the other officers had put an end to the taunts and catcalls the prisoners flung her way by threatening them with no recreation and only a sack lunch for meals. The fact that they said nothing now, did nothing, told Gabrielle they were as angry as she’d thought. They didn’t like her interfering and wanted her to know it. But now that she’d taken a stand, she needed to see it through—or Randall Tucker would receive no help, and she would have ruined her relationship with Sergeant Hansen for nothing.

  In five minutes she’d be done with Tucker, she told herself. Then she’d be on her way home to Allie.

  “Come back and give me some love. I got nothin’ but love for you, baby, nothin’ but love.”

  Smooching sounds followed her on the rest of her walk to Tucker’s cell. When she reached it, she found him shirtless, hunched over the small stainless-steel sink in the back corner, trying to rinse the dried blood from his hair. Fortunately, all inmates in central unit lived alone.

  Singularly intent on cleaning up, Tucker didn’t seem to notice her. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care that she was there. He continued his efforts until the moisture glistening on his hair dripped onto his broad shoulders and ran in thin rivulets down his chest and back—a chest and back devoid of tattoos and any ounce of fat. Then he toweled himself off, straightened and turned.

  “Looks like I have a visitor,” he said, leaving his jumpsuit dangling around his hips.

  Unless Gabrielle missed her guess, he regarded her with the same scorn Roddy and Brinkman reserved for him. Hatred or enmity she could understand. She’d seen plenty of both since starting at the prison. Officers and inmates were never meant to be friends. But disdain? Disdain implied superiority. Who did Tucker think he was? He reminded her more of a doctor or a lawyer than a murderer.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

  Please, God, let this day end well, she prayed, telling herself that if there was trouble, Roddy and Brinkman would help. They might hesitate long enough to teach her a lesson, but they’d ultimately intervene.

  Problem was, a lot could happen in a mere sixty seconds. And there were any number of excuses for delay….

  Suddenly seven weeks of job-training didn’t seem like nearly enough.

  In and out. Five minutes, that’s all. Hauling in a deep breath, Gabrielle removed the pin in the door and motioned to Eckland, down in the officer’s booth, to unlock Tucker’s cell.

  Metal screeched on metal as the door rolled to the right. “I’ve brought something to clean your cuts, Mr. Tucker,” she said.

  “Mr. Tucker?” He eyed Roddy and Brinkman, who stood with their batons drawn, as though eager for trouble.

  “Isn’t that your name?” she asked.

  “I think you’re the first person to use it since I came to this hellhole.” Still favoring his left side, he moved forward, and it was all Gabrielle could do to keep from dashing out and running for safety.

  Evidently he read her fear because he stopped, giving her some space, and his voice took on a mocking note. “It’s going to be mighty hard to dress a wound from back there. Or are you planning to leave that stuff here with me?” A nod indicated the first-aid kit she held in her hands.

  Inmates made weapons out of the most innocuous substances. Gabrielle could easily imagine Tucker honing a knife out of the plastic lid and stabbing someone with it.

  “I’m not stupid,” she said, waving him toward the bed. “Will you sit down, please?”

  “Please?” His lip curled into a bitter smile. “At least you’re polite.”

  “Are you going to sit down or not?”

  Holding his injured hand like an unwieldy club, he brushed against her shoulder as he sank onto the lower bunk. She suspected he did it on purpose, to test her, so she stood her ground and refused to back away. If she was going to do this job, she couldn’t act like she was about to run screaming in the opposite direction every time she came into contact with a prisoner. Besides, she’d noticed the lines of pain and fatigue in his face and was starting to lose some of her fear. He was hurting far more than he let on.

  “This is probably a waste of the courage you screwed up to come here,” he said. “Unless you brought an X-ray machine and some plaster, I doubt there’s anything you can do for me.”

  “Sorry, no plaster.” She set the kit on the bed beside him. “Some antiseptic and Band-Aids, though.”

  “I’d settle for a couple of Tylenol.”

  “It’s against the rules for me to dispense any medication. You can buy aspirin from the store.”

  “Aspirin doesn’t work for me.”

  “Well, it’s against the rules for me to give you anything else.”

  The look on his face told her what he thought of her response. “It’s against the rules for you to be here now, but Hansen makes his own rules. What’s a couple of Tylenol? Think about it, Officer—” his eyes flicked to the name sewn on her shirt “—Hadley. Two capsules of extra-strength Tylenol and you can consider your mission here complete. Then you won’t have to dirty your hands by touching a monster like me.”

  A monster like him? If he was a monster, it certainly didn’t show on the outside. Despite the injuries that marred his face, he was one of the most attractive men Gabrielle had ever seen. He practically exuded virility, from the comfortable way he fit his body to the aristocratic features of his face—the aquiline nose, the thin upper lip, the prominent jaw and those incomparable eyes.

  “What makes you think I have a problem with that?” she asked, snapping open the kit and rummaging inside.

  “You mean, besides the revulsion on your face? It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see you’d sooner touch a leper.”

  Gabrielle kept her focus on what she was doing and didn’t answer. He was right. He’d murdered his wife, and she didn’t want to come anywhere near him. But he could definitely use what little first aid she could give. Although the blood on his split lip had congealed, his hand had swollen considerably. The cut on his forehead was bleeding again, if it had ever stopped, and he had to keep wiping away the blood to stop it from rolling into his eyes.

  “Can you blame me? Your record doesn’t do much to recommend you,” she said, pulling on the latex gloves she carried on her belt.

  “You can’t believe everything you read.”

  She folded a piece of gauze and doused it with antiseptic. “Oh, yeah? I suppose you’re innocent, just like everyone else in here.”

  He sucked air between his teeth as she cleaned the gash above his eye. “I don’t think you give a shit whether I’m innocent or not. No one else does.”

  She fumbled with one of the butterfly bandages from the kit, trying to figure out how to use it. The wound on his head needed stitches. She’d never seen one quite so deep. But the gloves made it difficult to feel what she was doing, and the darn bandage wouldn’t stick.

  She looked back at Roddy and Brink
man, hoping they would finally see how unethical it was to deny Tucker the medical help he so obviously needed. But they stared straight ahead, stone-faced, and Gabrielle couldn’t decide whom she disliked more. Tucker, for being the murderer he was, the very scum of society. Or Hansen, Roddy and Brinkman for their refusal to do the right thing.

  She studied the wound some more, knew it was too deep to leave as it was, and finally stripped off her gloves so she’d have a chance of making the bandage stick.

  Tucker glanced at the discarded gloves. “Aren’t you taking quite a risk?”

  “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think? I already got your blood all over me earlier.”

  “And now you think you’re going to die of AIDS.”

  “Am I?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on who you’re sleeping with. You won’t get it from me.”

  Ignoring his allusion to her love life, she concentrated on what she was doing so she wouldn’t ruin another bandage. Come on…come on. Once this is on, I’ve handled the worst of it, she thought, but his next question made her pause.

  “Why did you do it?”

  She met his gaze, then looked quickly away. There was something so clear and beautiful about his eyes, they could almost make her forget she was confronting a murderer.

  “Do what?” she asked. She’d finally got the bandage to close the cut and was nearly limp with relief.

  “Jump into that fight. If you don’t have a death wish, you’re either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave. I can’t decide which.”

  “Fortunately you don’t have to. I was just doing my job.”

  “If you were doing your job, what was Roddy doing?” He indicated Roddy with a slight nod.

  “I’ll show you what I’ll do if you don’t shut your freakin’ mouth,” Roddy warned, slapping his baton against the palm of his hand.

  Gabrielle shifted to block the officers’s view of Tucker. “You’re probably going to have a scar above your eyebrow,” she said to distract him from their hostility—and to distract herself from the odd sense of intimacy she experienced at standing between Tucker’s spread legs, only inches from his bare chest.