by Brenda Novak
“Pretty Boy called,” Horse told Shady. “Ink iced a woman at Skin’s sister’s house this morning.”
Shady was out in his garage, which he’d finished. The rest of his house was a dump. A weight set filled his living room. But this room was nice. He’d put in a bar along one side, bought a pool table, hung some beer signs and created a place of honor for his antique Harley over in the corner. He’d even poured a large cement pad outside for extra parking. But it was the gun cabinets along the back, and the weapons inside them, that were his pride and joy.
“What’d you say?” Setting aside the Taurus Millennium series PT145 he’d been cleaning, he swiveled from his worktable to face Horse. A giant of a man with a pockmarked face, bulbous nose and shaved head, Horse always made Shady feel like a kid by comparison. Shady had gotten his nickname from his resemblance to the white rapper Eminem; they had the same slight build and forever-young face. His appearance made it difficult for him to be taken seriously, but no amount of weight lifting seemed to change that. Horse, on the other hand, didn’t need to lift. He had bulk in spades. According to Mona, the woman Shady was currently living with, Horse looked mean and stupid. She was right about the mean part. But he wasn’t stupid. He made almost as much off pimping out whores as Shady did selling drugs.
“Ink busted a cap in a woman,” Horse repeated.
Shady wiped his hands on a cloth before tossing it aside. “It’d better be Skin’s sister.”
“It’s not. Laurel was gone by the time they arrived. They think she’s in protective custody.”
“Then what the hell? Why’d they kill someone?”
“Frustration and an itchy trigger finger. Ink said he wanted to let Skin know he’s coming for him.”
“We still don’t have a clue where Skin is?”
“No.”
That answered everyone’s questions, then, didn’t it? Made what Virgil Skinner was doing pretty damn obvious.
Cursing, he shoved the ammunition, gun parts and tools off his worktable as he stood.
Horse didn’t flinch as they hit the floor, but the noise drew Mona, who poked her head into the garage. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Shady could’ve said Martians had landed and she would’ve believed him. She was so stoned she had to hang on to the door frame so she wouldn’t tumble headfirst into the pool table. “Did I ask you to come in here?”
He’d told her he wanted her to look like a Playboy bunny at all times—laughable considering the stretch marks on her stomach and the crooked teeth in her mouth. But he had to give her points for trying. She wore nothing but a black bra, a thong and a pair of high heels.
“What’d you say?” Her words slurred and her body swayed as if she might lose her grip and fall despite her efforts to remain upright.
What a worthless crack whore. She’d lost all five of her children to Childhood Protection Services, quite a feat even for a bad mother. He only kept her around because it was nice to have a piece of ass whenever he wanted. She didn’t complain when it got too rough, and she let him pass her to the boys, which he did whenever he wanted to prove that he’d share everything he owned with his Crew brothers.
But he was tired of Mona’s drug habit. “Go inside!” he snapped. “I don’t want to see your ugly face!”
Glassy eyes smudged with mascara, lips stretched into a vacant smile, she stepped back and let the door close as if he’d asked her nicely.
“Any chance you want to take her off my hands?” he grumbled to Horse.
Horse considered the suggestion. “I can put her to work.”
“Take her with you, man. I’m done with her.”
“She got any clothes?”
“Does it matter? She won’t need them where she’s going.”
“She’ll need something to hide her worst features. But I can handle that. What do you want me to tell Pointblank?”
Shady pulled on his soul patch, the only hair he allowed on his body. “Anyone see Ink make the hit?”
“They don’t know for sure. It was a drive-by. Someone might’ve spotted the rental car.”
“They haven’t been arrested, though?”
“Not yet.”
“Have Ink come back as soon as possible.”
Horse shoved his hands in his pockets. “The cops are looking for him around here. That’s why you sent him away.”
“And now they’re looking for him there, too, so it doesn’t improve things if he stays.”
“I don’t think he should be in either place.”
Shady kicked a wrench off his seat. “What do you mean by that?”
“Ink’s becoming too much of a liability. Attracting that kind of attention endangers everybody.”
Horse wasn’t the only one leery of Ink. Ink was crazy enough to frighten them all. “In some ways, he is a liability. In other ways, he’s an asset.”
Pursing his lips, Horse stared at the carpet. “They put the lot of us in prison, who’s gonna take care of business on the outside?”
“It comes to that, we’ll serve him up. We won’t go down because he’s too stupid to know when to keep his pistol in his pants.”
Seemingly satisfied, Horse raised his eyes. “What about Pointblank and Pretty Boy?”
“They stay. Have Pretty Boy find a C.O. by the name of Eddie Glover who works at the prison in Florence.”
Horse walked to the pool table and racked the balls into the plastic triangle. “You think Glover might know where Skin is?”
“If anyone knows what happened to him, it would be Glover. Word is they were pretty damn friendly.”
Studying one cue and then another, Horse decided on a stick. “Skin was friends with a C.O.?”
“Part of his change of heart.” Shady chafed at the fact that he hadn’t been able to convince other members of The Crew that Virgil wasn’t as great as they thought. Virgil was the kind of leader other men naturally followed. But he’d never been one to take orders. He was an independent son of a bitch and refused to back down even when it was in his best interests. That made him difficult to manage and as dangerous to the organization as he was to its enemies. Shady had been worried about Skin ever since he heard Skin might be cleared of his stepfather’s murder. Who wouldn’t be tempted by a clean break? Skin wasn’t the gang type—not at heart.
Remembering how determined he’d been to walk his own path whether the rest of them liked it or not, Shady shook his head. There’d been times when he’d flat out refused a command. Anyone else who’d done that would’ve been killed. But everyone admired a man who could fight like Skin. They let him slide whenever he acted up because he was so damn good when he did get involved.
“How are they supposed to find Glover?”
“I just told you. He works at the prison.”
“A lot of guys work at the prison. You don’t have his address?”
“I can get it.”
“What about a description?”
“He’s five foot eleven, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds. Red hair cut short. Freckles everywhere. That tell you enough?”
“It should. I know someone on the inside who can get me his shift, which will also help,” Horse said. “But what if Glover won’t talk?”
Shady wasn’t about to let Skin make him look like a fool. He had to prove he deserved the leadership role he’d fought so hard to obtain. “Everybody talks,” he said. “You just have to give them enough incentive.”
The pool balls broke with a loud clatter. “How far do I tell Pointblank to go?”
Wishing he could kill Skin himself, end the rivalry between them the right way, Shady eyed the guns in his cabinets. “Tell him to do whatever it takes.”
“Then maybe Ink should stick around Colorado a while longer, don’t you think?”
“Why?”
“He’s already wanted. Might as well have him do the dirty work.”
See? Horse was smarter than he looked. “Good idea. He can fly home when it’s over.”
“And Laurel?”
“Give me a few days. I’ll find her.”
Horse lined up for another shot. “How?”
“I’m gonna call a private investigator who’s done some work for me in the past.”
Closing one eye, he sent the thirteen rocketing into the left corner pocket. “A private investigator who can gain access to the police world?”
“She can gain access to any world,” he said smugly.
“What’s her secret?”
“She doesn’t look like anyone who’d ever be connected to us, and she’s willing to get creative.”
Clearly intrigued, Horse forgot about his solitary game of pool. “Where’d you meet her?”
“She’s a friend of a friend of a friend. Meeting her isn’t the point. Money is. She’ll do anything for the right price.”
“You said she gets creative.”
“She does.”
“How?”
Shady started picking up the objects he’d tossed onto the floor. “You let me worry about that.”
All during dinner Peyton wondered why she couldn’t be more attracted to John. Or not John, exactly—someone like him. Someone without any rough edges, someone easygoing and civilized. Shelley, her assistant, thought he was a real heartthrob. The warden’s assistant tittered about him, too. But Peyton felt none of what they seemed to feel, nothing that compared to the excitement of being with Virgil.
Was it danger that attracted her? Her way of rebelling against the strictures that governed her life? Or was it some kind of self-destructiveness, the tendency that drew some people toward the edge of a cliff?
Trying to make sense of it all, she kept asking herself those questions. But being self-destructive was too simple an explanation. She had no history of falling for bad boys. In fact, the opposite was true. She picked men who fit safe parameters, then tried to feel more than she did.
The problem was, she hadn’t “picked” Virgil, didn’t want to like him more than any other inmate. She just couldn’t help herself. The decisions that had previously been controlled by cognitive function had been lost to instinct and hormones, a far less logical approach to selecting a lover.
After dinner, she went into the kitchen to rinse off the dishes and felt a measure of relief at being able to escape her guest, even for a short while. The time they’d spent together had dragged by. The clock on the wall indicated it hadn’t been an hour. She wished John would leave, but she didn’t ask him to go because having him around stopped her from visiting Virgil.
When he walked into the kitchen carrying their glasses, Peyton mustered yet another smile.
“I heard Wallace was in town on Friday.” His tone suggested this was idle chitchat, but it made Peyton uncomfortable all the same. The associate director hadn’t visited the prison. How had John learned he was in town?
“Who told you that?”
“Sandy saw him at Raliberto’s.”
“Sandy?”
“My sister.”
Before quitting a year or so ago to be a stay-at-home mom, Sandy had worked as a nurse at the prison. Embarrassed that she’d been too preoccupied to recall his sister’s name, Peyton ducked her head over the sink and kept washing dishes. “Oh, right. Of course.”
“He had some guy with him she didn’t recognize. Somebody in a baseball cap.”
“Really?”
He scowled when she did nothing to further the conversation. “You didn’t see Wallace while he was here?”
He knew there’d be some reason for Rick to visit Crescent City and that she’d most likely be aware of it. “Briefly.”
“Oh, boy.”
This made her turn. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He usually doesn’t show up unless something big’s coming down. Or there’s trouble brewing. I’m almost afraid to hear what it was this time.”
“Nothing. He had a meeting with the warden. That’s all.”
“That’s where it starts,” he joked. “Any idea what it was about? Or will we hear at the weekly meeting?”
His interest struck her as too intrusive until she remembered that a couple of weeks ago, while breaking up a fight, he’d inflicted harm on one of the inmates. The case was under review to see if he’d acted appropriately or let himself get out of control, so he was probably worried about the outcome and whether he’d face disciplinary action.
She decided to tell him just enough to relieve his anxiety. “Thanks to the recent media reports that the Hells Fury might be responsible for the murder of Judge Garcia in Santa Rosa, the CDCR wants us to step up our efforts to curtail gang activity. He didn’t say but I’m pretty sure it had to do with that.”
“How can we step up our efforts?” he asked. “To do that, we’d have to build a SHU big enough to accommodate everyone in gen pop. And then we’d have to answer to all the activists who are crying that isolation’s cruel and unusual punishment.” He shook his head in obvious disgust. “No one likes the problems we’re dealing with, but they don’t like the solutions, either. Not the ones that actually work.”
Was he advocating more force? Or attempting to justify how he’d behaved when that fight broke out?
“There aren’t any easy answers.” She wasn’t up for a debate tonight, not when she was so preoccupied.
“Wallace came to the prison, then?”
Unsure how to answer, she stayed as close to the truth as possible. “No. He met the warden for lunch.”
“You weren’t with them?”
“What?”
“I stopped by your office on my break. Your assistant said you’d gone into town with the warden.”
She’d just acted like she wasn’t at the meeting. Scrambling to cover her gaffe, she tried to clarify. “I was supposed to be there, but one of my friends called. She was in the middle of an emergency, so I had to beg off.”
It wasn’t a good excuse. Any meeting with Wallace, especially one in which they left the prison, would be important, making it unlikely that she’d accept outside calls. But she hoped he wouldn’t think of that. For all he knew, she had a friend who was dying of cancer.
He stared at her for a few seconds, then shrugged and seemed to accept her words. “So you have no idea who the other guy was?”
“Nope.”
“Who do you think he could be?”
She wanted to blurt out that it had nothing to do with him but couldn’t without revealing that she knew more than she was saying. Wishing she’d never let him stay for dinner, she finished loading the dishwasher. “No one special.”
“He wasn’t part of the meeting?”
Averting her face, she bent to fill the soap container. “Not that I heard of.”
He leaned against the counter, considering.
“Why are you so worried about this?” she asked. “That meeting had nothing to do with the fight you broke up, if that’s what’s got you going. The warden specifically mentioned the gang problem.”
“I just can’t imagine who that person could be.”
“It’s no fun to eat alone. Maybe he was someone Wallace met at the restaurant and they ended up sharing a booth. For all your sister knows, the guy could’ve been another C.O. She hasn’t met every officer. We’ve done some hiring since she left.”
“She said he didn’t act like a C.O.”
Peyton laughed. “Not all C.O.s act the same.”
“But there’s a certain feel about them.”
“I’m not convinced of that. Anyway, what else could he be?”
“A reporter.”
No one who worked in corrections was ever happy about having a reporter around. Rarely did they heap praise on the system or those who ran it. Unless it was published in the local paper, which was generally supportive, prison articles were almost always steeped in criticism. That threatened change, and everyone feared change—the loss of jobs, the loss of tools necessary to do the job, a cut in funding, a court-ordered oversight. On top of this, John had been invol
ved in an incident the media could easily use to “prove” the abuse so many inmates claimed. He didn’t want to be named in a story like that. No one did.
“What makes you think it might be a reporter?”
“My sister said Wallace spoke in a low voice and kept leaning close. She tried to say hi to him, but he practically ignored her. When she approached, they hurried out.”
“Wallace wouldn’t try to wine and dine a reporter with tacos.” She tried to make a joke of it, but John didn’t even crack a smile.
“Since that judge was murdered, there’ve been a lot of media hanging around. Maybe he was trying to head off another scathing article condemning us.”
If such an article condemned him, he’d probably receive harsher disciplinary action than he would otherwise. No doubt that played into his thoughts. “I’m sure it was nothing, John. Really. Investigative Services is still reviewing the incident. Lieutenant McCalley hasn’t decided yet how he’s going to react.”
“How do you know?”
She faced him. “Because he would’ve told me.”
His mouth rose up on one side. “You’ll put in a good word for me, right?”
This was the reason she didn’t fraternize with the C.O.s. She didn’t want personal relationships to interfere with her ability to be fair. “I’ll review the facts and make sure whatever action he takes is appropriate.”
John didn’t like her response. His smile faltered, but he covered it by acting as if he’d expect nothing more.
A few of the empty food containers were still on the table. More than eager to send him on his way, Peyton motioned toward them. “Get those, will you? I’ll wash them so you don’t have to take them home dirty.”
“Sure.” He walked out, but when he returned he brought only one dish—and her phone.
“Why—?” She didn’t get the question out before he handed it to her.
“It buzzed. So I grabbed it for you,” he explained.
She’d received a text message. From Wallace. Her iPhone gave a short hum by way of notification with every text and automatically displayed the message.
Anxiety pulled her nerves taut as she read what Wallace had sent. She’d just convinced John that nothing unusual was going on, and now he’d seen this:
