Taking the Heat

Gabrielle knew she should say something, catch their attention. But she felt like such an outsider, as though she was watching them through the front window with her nose pressed to the glass. She had no idea whether she’d be welcomed. Whether they’d invite her to come any closer.

Allie whimpered, frustrated that she hadn’t been set free after the promising motions Gabrielle had already made, but Gabrielle couldn’t move. Approaching her mother would be difficult enough when they were alone, she decided. She couldn’t do it with her sister there and the two of them laughing and talking. Unless…unless one of them looked up. She’d do it if they noticed her, she promised herself.

She stared after them, willing them to give the slightest indication that they’d seen her. But neither of them even glanced in her direction. They were too caught up in each other. Their voices dimmed as they neared the house, the door opened and shut, and they were gone.

A truck rattled past on the street, windows down, its single occupant visibly sweating. Gabrielle let her breath go and closed her eyes. It was over. It was too late.

Allie started to cry, letting her know she wasn’t happy about this strange neglect, but Gabrielle felt too numb to comfort her. She tugged mechanically on the car seat to make sure she hadn’t loosened the strap, then slid behind the wheel, still hesitant to go anywhere when what she wanted was inside. If she could only witness whatever her mother and her sister did when they were together, see the house, gain a sense of who these people were so she could know more about herself…

Her mother was married, or at least she lived with a man; that much Gabrielle knew. She’d seen him pass in front of the windows before, wearing a plain white T-shirt and holding a can of beer or soda. She guessed he was retired, spent most of his time doing yard work and watching television. But today she could see nothing. The blinds were down to keep out the sun.

Gabrielle started the car, adjusted the air-conditioning vents and gazed off to the other side of the road, where sand-colored desert spread in front of her as far as the eye could see. It gave her the impression that her mother lived on the edge of the civilized world. Paloverde trees, palm yuccas, mesquites, cacti, brown parched earth, it went on for miles and miles….

Go home, she told herself. You have plenty of other things to worry about for one night. And it was true. The warden’s secretary had responded to her phone call, informing her that he’d agreed to see her. They had an appointment first thing in the morning.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she said to Allie, “I’m as disappointed as you are. But we’ll do it someday. Someday soon, I promise. Now let’s go home and give you a bath.” Shifting into Drive, she made a U-turn and headed back to her trailer.

WARDEN CRUMB reminded Gabrielle of Jack LaLane. Five feet ten, or so, he was nearly sixty but took great pride in his appearance. Even though he wore a suit, Gabrielle could tell he had the body of a much younger man and, while his hair was gray, he’d managed to retain most of it.

“How’s our new corrections officer?” he asked, flashing her a poster smile as soon as his secretary showed her into his office. Their appointment had been scheduled for seven o’clock, but he’d kept her waiting almost an hour.

“I’m fine,” she said as the secretary withdrew and closed the door.

Crumb didn’t get up, but he waved to a seat across from his desk. “Would you like to sit down?”

Gabrielle perched on the edge of an upholstered chair and took a deep breath to ease the tension in her stiff muscles. She might become a pariah among her peers, but she was doing the right thing—wasn’t she?

She knew David wouldn’t think so. He’d asked her to lie low, and she’d lasted only two days. But someone had to take a stand, even if Hansen was the warden’s nephew.

Crumb rested his elbows on the arms of his high-backed leather chair and laced his fingers together. “What can I do for you?” he asked, his blue eyes sharp and focused on her face.

Gabrielle swallowed against the dryness of her throat and told him what had happened in Cell Block 2. She mentioned Hansen and the others allowing the fight to continue, Tucker’s injuries and Hansen’s refusal to call the doctor. As she spoke, she expected a look of surprise or dismay to cross the warden’s face, but his pleasant expression never wavered.

“I can understand how you might be concerned by what you saw,” he said when she finished. “But fights break out in prison all the time. It might be easy to blame the other guards for not paying more attention to who doesn’t like whom, but those kinds of things change, depending on which way the wind blows. Today two men might get along perfectly, tomorrow one might slit the other’s throat with a homemade knife. We’re dealing with hardened criminals here—rapists and murderers. That’s just how things are on the inside.”

“But Hansen and the others did nothing to break up the fight,” Gabrielle repeated. “They didn’t even report it.”

He chuckled softly. “There probably wasn’t any need. Prison life isn’t always as…straightforward as they paint it in training, you know. Give yourself some time to learn your way around before you panic and cry wolf.” His smile widened until his teeth glinted in the sun streaming in through the window that overlooked the prison yard, but his eyes had grown cool, and Gabrielle was no longer fooled by his friendly manner. He’d been prepped by someone—probably Nephew Hansen—before she arrived. He hadn’t shown one iota of surprise at her story. He’d taken it in stride, as though he’d heard it all before, then he’d dismissed it.

“I’ve spent nearly forty-eight hours thinking about what I should do regarding this incident, Warden Crumb,” she said, refusing to let him invalidate her feelings or her opinion. “I’d call that concern, not panic. I’m concerned that Hansen and the others would allow a man to be injured. And I’m concerned that they’d deny Tucker medical treatment for those injuries, injuries that should still be looked at, by the way.”

The warden’s smile finally faded at her persistence, and he leaned forward. “Are you a doctor, Officer Hadley?”

“No, and that’s why—”

“Then perhaps you should keep your medical opinions to yourself. I don’t appreciate you going around trying to stir up trouble in my prison. You’ve been here less than a week, which is why I’ve been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But one week hardly qualifies you as an expert on anything. I’m not going to let you tell Hansen how he should be doing his job, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you tell me how to do mine. So I’ll reiterate what I tried to say before. Let it go.”

Gabrielle stared at him for several seconds. “That’s it?”

“More or less. Tucker’s a troublemaker. Even if Hansen was at fault, it would be difficult to blame him or anyone else when Tucker gets into so many fights.”

Gabrielle remembered the grudging admiration in Hansen’s voice when he’d said that Tucker could take two or three men at a time and seriously doubted Tucker deserved full blame for all the fighting. Entertainment value, possibly even gambling, played at least some role in those incidents, she felt sure. But she had no proof. “So you’re not going to do anything about it?”

He began to straighten his desk. “The only thing I’m going to do is transfer Tucker to Alta Vista and let them worry about him there.”

Gabrielle’s spine stiffened at this announcement. Alta Vista was a private prison that housed some of the most violent criminals in the country. For Tucker, it was definitely a step down, and she got the distinct impression it was all in the name of sweeping Hansen’s actions under the rug. Better to transfer Tucker, claiming he was a behavioral problem, than to risk a scandal. “Alta Vista?”

“It’s near Yuma, not far from the California border.”

“I know where it is,” she said. “When’s he going?”

“Monday.” He smiled. “And you and Eckland are driving him.”

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT THE HELL was going on?

Tucker stood straight, jaw clenched, as he tried to keep the pain shooting up his arm from showing in his face. Eckland had barged into his cell at six-thirty, half an hour before he usually had to get up, and strip-searched him. Then he’d put him in handcuffs, leg irons and a belly chain and he’d cuffed his broken hand so tight the bracelet was cutting into his swollen wrist.

“Move it,” Eckland said, prodding him forward and out into the corridor. “We need to get an early start.”

“Where we goin’?” Tucker asked, breaking his rigid silence. Wherever it was, he seemed to be the only inmate making the trip. The others were still in their beds, though a few craned their necks to peer out at him when they heard the jangle of his leg irons.

“You’re going to get some new digs, man,” Eckland told him. “You’re being transferred. Say goodbye to all the boys.”

Tucker halted his chain-clattering stride. “Transferred where?”

“Alta Vista,” Eckland told him with a smile. “Just your kinda place.”

The only place on earth worse than here, Tucker thought as the despair that had been edging around his consciousness crept a little closer. He’d just received word from his lawyer that his appeal had been denied—again. And now this.

He’d never get out, never get his life back. At times he felt so powerless, he was tempted to pound and kick and rail at everyone and everything until they simply killed him. Then the quest to survive would finally be over. Forever.

But he couldn’t give up, wouldn’t allow himself to be such a coward…at least not until there was absolutely no hope he’d ever see his son again. The thought of how lonely Landon must be, how confused, cut Tucker to the quick; it was the only thing powerful enough to lend him the strength to keep fighting.

Tightening his jaw against the nausea caused by the throbbing in his hand, he moved on. Eckland had been poking and prodding him in the back for several seconds, but Tucker hadn’t paid him any mind. He responded only to his own internal drive. Whether or not the guards understood that, Tucker didn’t care.

“We’re gonna miss the excitement ’round here,” Eckland was saying as they made their way down the stairs. “You always put on a fine show, Tucker. Sometimes I wish I could fight like you. But I figure, why hit somebody when you can shoot ’im, eh? That’s the beauty of being a corrections officer.”

Eckland wielded nothing more than a baton most of the time and, when he acted as a member of the emergency response team, his shotgun held only birdshot, but he enjoyed the power his job afforded him. He liked baiting Tucker and some of the other inmates, but Tucker generally didn’t bother to respond. None of the guards could compare to his real demons, the ones that taunted him from inside his own head.

“Good morning.” Officer Hadley came out of the guards’ station just as they reached the outer door, but she was the last person Tucker wanted to see. She symbolized everything he’d lost—love, respectability, his wife, his child. And he couldn’t help but remember the way she’d touched him in his dreams, the kindness of her smile, the feel of her lips on his face, her hands on his chest….

“I’ve got the paperwork,” she told Eckland. Her eyes settled on Tucker and her pleasant expression immediately turned into a glower. “You’ve got him in full restraint,” she said, accusation in her voice.

“He’s dangerous,” Eckland snapped. “’Course I’ve got him in full restraint. It’s standard procedure.”

“But he can’t wear handcuffs. His hand is broken.” She took Tucker’s elbow to turn him slightly, probably to check the tightness of the bracelets, but Tucker shook her off.