When the door is closed, Doctor Dad pounces. “Can you tell me why, a perfectly healthy woman enters a women’s jail, and three weeks later she’s pregnant?”
I shake my head, and shrug my shoulders. “Immaculate conception?”
“It’s not the time for your smart ass attitude Melanie Grace Vaden!” he yells.
“Uh-oh, Doctor Dad used my middle name. Shit just got real,” I taunt.
“Explain what the fuck happened, Lani,” he insists.
“Well, as a rational human being, I would think that that woman had sex.” I shrug. “But I don’t have a medical degree, or anything.”
He isn’t any less furious. “Were you raped?” he demands. “Because I know that stuff can happen in jail, and you’re a very beautiful girl.”
“I wasn’t raped,” I say slowly, because he’s going to think I’ve lost my mind when I tell him. “I met a man.”
“Only you, Lani, could meet a man in a woman’s jail.” He is more mad than I’ve ever seen him, and he rubs the spot right over his nose, where I think I see frown lines forming on his otherwise perfect forehead. Does he use Botox? He looks so young, for fifty. He’s only four years older than Tony.
“I could have said I met a girl, but that wouldn’t explain the baby,” I say, and place my hand on my stomach. This baby must be a fighter, if it survived the morning after pill. Just like his father. I smile when I think it.
“I have an operating room ready, Lani, and the best OB/GYN in the state. It’s very early to call it an abortion. We’ll call it unwanted tissue removal.”
“Hell no,” I state firmly. “No fucking way. No fucking way you’re aborting this baby.”
“Lani, it’s not a baby yet. It’s barely even a fetus. How far along are you?” he demands. “You have to know.”
“Three weeks,” I say. The bravado is gone. “How can you even tell for sure in three weeks?”
“Three weeks. It’s barely a zygote. It’s not even formed into an embryo yet.” I frown, but I’m quiet. “And you had sex because?” As I calm down, so does he. “Answer me, Lani.”
“Can I see your phone, please?” I ask very nicely. He nods, and pulls it out of his coat pocket. I google Antony Roman, and I find a lot of news stories about him. Apparently what he said is true. One of the other SEAL’s wives even set up a legal fund to fight for their freedom. There are also Justice for Our SEALs websites. I click on the page for Antony Roman. There are pictures of him in his uniform. My knees start to shake. If I thought he got my pussy wet in prison clothes with long hair, I’m glad I didn’t know him ten years ago. I would have gotten pregnant just walking past him.
His dark hair is short, and swept up away from his face. His black eyes sparkle with pride. His beard is short and well groomed. But his smile blows me away. I’ve never seen a man smile with such sincerity. In the photo he’s standing between two of his SEAL team brothers. He dwarfs both of them. He was so happy. It’s hard to believe this is the same man that cried on my shoulder two days ago.
“The tall one,” I say, and show Doctor Dad the picture.
His eyebrows raise, and he nods. “Handsome. Big, huge man, isn’t he?”
As big as he is now, he’s probably lost forty pounds in prison. “Yea, he is.”
“What’s he doing in prison?” he wonders, as he looks at the picture and nods.
“You can read all about him. Did you bring me stuff? I need to see Killian Burke.” I look around in the bag that he’s packed, and thankfully my phone is inside.
“Your ex? Lani, you’re not making any sense right now. I know, you’ve found out some troubling news. I know you’re in shock, but…”
“It’s not troubling. I’m perfectly happy about it. Now I need to keep him from getting killed on Saturday.” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have.
“Killian, hi, it’s Lani.”
“Lani the lesbian?” Killian replies.
“Stop being an immature frat boy for five minutes, and listen to what I have to say. I need you,” I begin. That should get his attention.
“I wish you’d said those words three years ago,” he groans.
I scoff. If I’d married him, I wouldn’t have met Tony, because he wouldn’t have allowed me to investigate Addy’s death. “This is going to get you the biggest promotion you can imagine. You’ve always wanted to go to Washington, haven’t you?”
He pauses for several moments. “I’m listening.”
“The federal prison in Mason County is hosting death matches every Saturday night, charging money, and making book to allow sickos to watch prisoners fight gladiator style to the death. And we need to stop it before it happens again this Saturday.” I look at Doctor Dad as I say this. He looks horrified.
“If you’re shitting me, Lani, I will personally punch you in your nuts,” he says.
“Do some checking if you don’t believe me, then call me back. But do not, under any circumstances, contact the warden. I do not want you to let on that you are investigating them, because they’ll kill him.”
“Who?” Killian asks.
“The love of my life,” I say into the phone. Doctor Dad puts two and two together. He points at the phone, and I nod.
“Well, I can’t stop your happy ending now can I Lani? I’ll see what I can do.” He closes the line.
“I was the spoils of victory, Doctor Dad. Strangely enough, he was the victor.”
“Lani, you’ve always been unconventional,” he starts. Then he looks back at the picture. “Hell, he’s giving me a boner, and I’m straight.” I smile happily. “So are you going to need your trust fund for his defense?”
“Nope, I’m breaking him out,” I admit proudly.
“Lani, you can’t,” he starts, then he shrugs. “Whatever.”
“I’m bringing him to protective custody, in Winston. Never know who might want to kill a valuable witness like him.”
“You are such a clever girl,” he says with a huge smile. “I hope he can handle you. Does he know what he’s getting into?”
“I think he knows.” I place my hand protectively over my stomach. “He killed the man who killed Addison.” I say it proudly. Doctor Dad is shocked to hear that. “Gladiator style, to the death,” I remind him.
“Are you sure the other guy killed Addy?”
“Pretty sure.” I nod.
“Good,” he says. “We’ll work on that escape plan."
Tony
“Medical complications,” the guard says, before he closes the hatch. She was released yesterday, and I had no way of knowing until today. I’d thought about nothing but her for days. She’d given me a false sense of hope, and then she was just fucking mean on Sunday when they took her from me. It wasn’t her normal sarcasm, it was just cold, and empty. Good Lord willing? Who even says that anymore?
She took the morning after pill. She’s a sensible woman. She didn’t know who I was on that first night. And, who wants to have the baby of a prisoner? Is that the medical complications that got her released? Did the pill have some kind of adverse effect on her?
I can’t be mad at her. She’s a cop. She’ll figure something out. I have to have faith in her. I have to. I lie down on my cot that still smells like her, and close my eyes.
I can still see her green eyes sparkling as she looks up at me. I can still hear her sighs, and moans of pleasure. I can almost imagine she’s still here with me. Almost.
Chapter Fifteen
Lani
“There have been some deaths at the Mason County facility that have been questionable,” Killian says when I answer his call on the first ring, at seven thirty the next morning. “The last three are interesting. One says it’s a suicide by hanging, but there are finger marks on the body. The other two both say they’re from a fall, but their necks were broken clean, as if done by a person standing behind them and twisting. The only difference between those two was one of them had additional bruising on the face and abdomen.” I can p
icture all three of them easily in my mind, as if they just happened. They were all caused by Tony. I don’t know if I can trust Killian with that information right now. “And there are more, supposed prison fights, where only one prisoner was injured and they were beaten to death. Oddly enough, it looks like there’s at least one a week.”
“Hm… it’s almost as if what I told you is true. Do you want to hear what I’ve found?” He makes some kind of noise in the back of his throat, and I take it as a yes. “I’ve only found three buildings that might be big enough to host the fights within a ten minute drive time. One is the high school, and I know it wasn’t a high school, so I marked it off the list.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a high school?” He asks.
“Because I did an internet search for the school, and it doesn’t have media boxes in the basketball court. The next two are a closed factory, and a closed warehouse. Now, both could have offices above the production floor that could be used as viewing boxes.” I really got deep into the internet last night. It was either that, or worry about Tony. I ended up worrying about Tony anyway, as soon as I put my head down on my pillow.
“How do you know they’re holding the fights in a place that is closed?” he asks.
“There was absolutely no furniture in the viewing box I was in. Not even a chair. If it was operational, I think there would have been a chair in the office,” I explain.
“Okay, I’ll go with that,” he says.
“Can we recon them?” I ask.
“You don’t have jurisdiction.” He has to fucking remind me.
But I interrupt him. “I’m on leave, and I could be your consultant.” He’s silent for several moments. “Please, Killian. I promised I wouldn’t let him get killed.”
“Okay,” he agrees after being silent a few seconds. “But just for today. And if your smart mouth shows up…”
“It won’t. I swear to not be a sarcastic, smart ass bitch today,” I say.
I realized last night that I would not be a good mother with the attitude I have. And I would not be a good mother sleeping around all the time. So I swore last night, to the baby I have on the way, to curb my attitude and try to be positive.
“I will pick you up in twenty minutes,” he says as he closes the line. I almost don’t believe him. I dress quickly, taking only a moment to look at the clothes in my closet. I’ll need maternity clothes. Me in maternity clothes. I laugh at the thought.
Doctor Dad gave me a list of things to get before I see my lady parts doctor. Iron supplements, which taste disgusting, pre-natal vitamins, which I got at the drug store, orange juice, and cocoa butter.
I’m taking my vitamins with the orange juice when Killian arrives. I throw open the door before he even knocks. I have a bag packed with my tablet, my phone, and a list of the addresses I told him about. I lock the door behind me, and place my keys in my bag. “Coffee,” he says, and hands me a Styrofoam cup.
“No caffeine for me,” I say, and shake my head. Five years ago I thought he was the best looking man on the planet, besides Doctor Dad. I thought he should have been an actor. Now, after being with Tony, Killian’s brown hair and brown eyes are just average, and his skin is too pale. What did I ever see in him?
“I can’t deal with you with caffeine, how am I going to deal with you without it?” He groans, and opens the passenger door to his black SUV.
“Nice car,” I say, and smile. I want to say, could your car possibly scream I’m a fed any louder? But this is the new Lani, the expectant Lani.
“Where are we going first?” he asks. I hand him the paper, proving that I can be organized when I set my mind to it. He enters the address into his GPS system, and I lean back and vow not to complain about his driving. To occupy myself, I search the internet on my tablet for the Mason County Federal Penitentiary.
When I pull up the page, I can’t help but swear. “Mother fucker, it’s Nameless!”
“Who? What?” he demands, and when he stops at a light I show him what I mean.
“The warden of the penitentiary, Louise Drake, took an interest in me. I saw her several times. Hell, I talked to her. What was she doing at the women’s county jail?” I wonder aloud.
“Who knows,” he replies, and continues to drive. I don’t complain when he tunes the radio to classic rock. I don’t even complain when he sings along, off key.
“The prison is privately owned, and runs as a commercial business, not a federal entity. The county jail is run by the same company. No wonder I saw her. But why did she lead me to the nurse’s office the day after? And why did she lead me out of the penitentiary the other morning?” I’m basically talking to myself, because I’ve told Killian none of this.
“You were at the men’s prison?” He asks in disbelief.
“For a short while, three times. Listen, if I tell you the story, you have to suspend judgment, and help me save lives and bust an illegal gambling and underground fighting syndicate, and not worry about the role Tony or I might have played in it.”
“Are you in trouble?” he asks. I shake my head. “Did you break any laws?”
“No, and technically neither did Tony.” So, for the next forty-five miles I tell the story. He asks for clarification a few times, because God knows the story is hard to believe. I barely believe it.
“So you were raped by a prisoner, and now you’re pregnant,” he concludes.
“No, I never said I was raped. I never said no,” I explain emphatically. “I could have punched him in the nuts or something.”
“And then you might be dead like Addison. What were you thinking Melanie? I mean, really. Were you thinking?” He’s actually yelling at me now, and he never yelled at me, not once, while we were together. And Lord knows I deserved it.
“Well, I wasn’t thinking that I’d step into the middle of a death match ring.”
“Obviously, you couldn’t have known that.” He agrees with me, for once.
“I just thought a guard was too rough with the women or something. The guards were actually really nice, except for the fact that they turned women over to the male prisoners.” I don’t know why I’m trying to defend them.
“Yea, there is that.” He’s pensive for several minutes. “It’s all so unbelievable. I mean, you’re supposed to be catching poachers on Old Man Farmer’s land.”
“I have investigated a death this year,” I correct him.
“Reverend Ted having a heart attack while screwing with the local hooker doesn’t count,” he laughs.
“You’ve checked up on me.” I shake my head in disbelief.
“I was curious,” he says. “You call me out of the blue, when I haven’t spoken to you in three years, and just throw this on me. It’s just…”
“I know,” I agree, as we stop at a local diner. “Someone might recognize me. What if Hughes eats lunch here?”
“You’re right. What are you going to do when you have to pee, mommy-to-be?”
“I don’t know. Port-a-potty I guess.” Now he’s made me want to pee, damn it.
“Here,” he says, and pulls a navy blue windbreaker and ball cap out of the back seat that say FBI in big yellow letters. “Hide your hair, and put on your sunglasses.”
I twist my hair, and put it up under the ball cap, then hide my face behind dark sunglasses. He’s right, maybe no one will notice me. We head inside, and sit in a booth in the back. I have to remove the sunglasses, but I don’t recognize anyone. We eat, I use the bathroom, and we’re back in the car in forty minutes.
“Are you sure this town has the income to support a high dollar crowd like you’ve described?” he asks. I shrug, and look around at all the empty store fronts. But as we get closer to the prison and the jail, business is booming. A lot of jobs were created by the prison coming to the county.
“Okay, the prison and the jail are about two miles apart. You were taken somewhere between the jail and the prison. Let’s head to the first location.”
We drive down a s
treet, and see several seemingly empty buildings, but there is an armed security guard at one of them, farther down the street. Killian stops suddenly, and ducks into a side parking lot at one of the buildings.
“I hope we weren’t seen,” he says.
“I guess we found the right place.” Thankfully there’s another exit for the parking lot onto the main street. “Do you want to check the other building?”
He drives to the other building, just to be sure, but there’s not a soul around. “Fuck, I don’t know how to stake that building out.”
“We’ll have to go in on Saturday,” I say. That was my plan all along, I just didn’t tell Killian. “Catch them in the act?”
“I’ll have to set up a mobile unit, a task force, and air support in four days. And if this doesn’t pan out, I’ll look like a fool,” he reminds me.
“And if it does pan out, you’re headed straight to the top.” I smile encouragingly when I say it.
“I like the new, positive you,” he says with a grin.
“Sorry, buddy. I’m taken by a war hero,” I shrug.
“Who is a also prisoner.”
“You always have to see the negatives?” That’s odd, coming from me.
“Why is he not in Leavenworth?” he wonders aloud, as he drives toward the prison. I wish we would just leave the town without being spotted, but he drives to a fucking donut shop and orders coffee. I can see the prison from the parking lot.
When he returns to the car with a donut and coffee for himself, and an orange juice and bottle of water for me, I answer him. “Because he wasn’t court martialed. He was tried in federal court. The fucking president threw the book at him.”
“Well, there’s a new administration now. Maybe they’ll be a little more sympathetic.” He’s thoughtful and silent again as he drives back toward Winston. When we arrive back at my house, he says, “I have to contact some people, to find out if we can get this together in four days.”
Prisoner (All of You Book 1) Page 11
