Sidney Sheldon 3-Book Collection: If Tomorrow Comes, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Best Laid Plans

‘Hey!’ the woman said to the guard. ‘We got a new fish. How ‘bout you put her in with me?’ She had a heavy Swedish accent.

‘Sorry. She’s already been assigned, Bertha.’

The amazon stroked Tracy’s face. Tracy jerked away, and the giant woman laughed. ‘It’s okay, littbarn. Big Bertha will see you later. We got plenty of time. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.’

They reached the warden’s office. Tracy was faint with anticipation. Would Charles be there? Or would he have sent his attorney?

The warden’s secretary nodded to the guard, ‘He’s expecting her. Wait here.’

Warden George Brannigan was seated at a scarred desk, studying some papers in front of him. He was in his mid-forties, a thin, careworn-looking man, with a sensitive face and deep-set hazel eyes.

Warden Brannigan had been in charge of the Southern Louisiana Penitentiary for Women for five years. He had arrived with the background of a modern penologist and the zeal of an idealist, determined to make sweeping reforms in the prison. But it had defeated him, as it had defeated others before him.

The prison originally had been built to accommodate two inmates to a cell, and now each cell held as many as four to six prisoners. He knew that the same situation applied everywhere. The country’s prisons were all overcrowded and understaffed. Thousands of criminals were penned up day and night with nothing to do but nurse their hatred and plot their vengeance. It was a stupid, brutal system, but it was all there was.

He buzzed his secretary. ‘All right. Send her in.’

The guard opened the door to the inner office, and Tracy stepped inside.

Warden Brannigan looked up at the woman standing before him. Dressed in the drab prison uniform, her face bruised with fatigue, Tracy Whitney still looked beautiful. She had a lovely, candid face, and Warden Brannigan wondered how long it would remain that way. He was particularly interested in this prisoner because he had read about her case in the newspapers and had studied her record. She was a first offender, had not killed anyone, and fifteen years was an inordinately harsh sentence. The fact that Joseph Romano was her accuser made her conviction all the more suspect. But the warden was simply the custodian of bodies. He could not buck the system. He was the system.

‘Please have a seat,’ he said.

Tracy was glad to sit down. Her knees were weak. He was going to tell her now about Charles, and how soon she would be released.

‘I’ve been looking over your record,’ the warden began.

Charles would have asked him to do that.

‘I see you’re going to be with us a long time. Your sentence is fifteen years.’

It took a moment for his words to sink in. Something was dreadfully wrong. ‘Didn’t – didn’t you speak to – to Charles?’ In her nervousness she was stammering.

He looked at her blankly. ‘Charles?’

And she knew. Her stomach turned to water. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please listen to me. I’m innocent. I don’t belong here.’

How many times had he heard that? A hundred? A thousand? I’m innocent.

He said, ‘The courts have found you guilty. The best advice I can give you is to try to do easy time. Once you accept the terms of your imprisonment, it will be a lot easier for you. There are no clocks in prison, only calendars.’

I can’t be locked up here for fifteen years, Tracy thought in despair. I want to die. Please, God, let me die. But I can’t die, can I? I would be killing my baby. It’s your baby, too, Charles. Why aren’t you here helping me? That was the moment she began to hate him.

‘If you have any special problems,’ Warden Brannigan said, ‘I mean, if I can help you in any way, I want you to come and see me.’ Even as he spoke, he knew how hollow his words were. She was young and beautiful and fresh. The bull-dykes in the prison would fall on her like animals. There was not even a safe cell to which he could assign her. Nearly every cell was controlled by a stud. Warden Brannigan had heard rumours of rapes in the showers, in the toilets, and in the corridors at night. But they were only rumours, because the victims were always silent afterwards. Or dead.

Warden Brannigan said gently, ‘With good behaviour, you might be released in twelve or –’

‘No!’ It was a cry of black despair, of desperation. Tracy felt the walls of the office closing in on her. She was on her feet, screaming. The guard came hurrying in and grabbed Tracy’s arms.

‘Easy,’ Warden Brannigan commanded him.

He sat there, helpless, and watched as Tracy was led away.

She was taken down a series of corridors past cells filled with inmates of every description. They were black and white and brown and yellow. They stared at Tracy as she passed and called out to her in a dozen accents. Their cries made no sense to Tracy.

‘Fish night …’

‘French mate …’

‘Fresh mite …’

‘Flesh meet …’

It was not until Tracy reached her cell block that she realized what the women were chanting: ‘Fresh meat’.

Chapter Six (#ulink_28e4a869-906b-5c8c-aef5-4dbf8fea62b1)

There were sixty women in Cell Block C, four to a cell. Faces peered out from behind bars as Tracy was marched down the long, smelly corridor, and the expressions varied from indifference to lust to hatred. She was walking underwater in some strange, unknown land, an alien in a slowly unfolding dream. Her throat was raw from the screaming inside her trapped body. The summons to the warden’s office had been her last faint hope. Now there was nothing. Nothing except the mind-numbing prospect of being caged in this purgatory for the next fifteen years.

The matron opened a cell door. ‘Inside!’

Tracy blinked and looked around. In the cell were three women, silently watching her.

‘Move,’ the matron ordered.

Tracy hesitated, then stepped into the cell. She heard the door slam behind her.

She was home.

The cramped cell barely held four bunks, a little table with a cracked mirror over it, four small lockers, and a seatless toilet in the far corner.

Her cell mates were staring at her. The Puerto Rican woman broke the silence. ‘Looks like we got ourselves a new cellie.’ Her voice was deep and throaty. She would have been beautiful if it had not been for a livid knife scar that ran from her temple to her throat. She appeared to be no older than fourteen, until you looked into her eyes.

A squat, middle-aged Mexican woman said, ‘Que suerte verte! Nice to see you. What they got you in for, querida?’

Tracy was too paralysed to answer.

The third woman was black. She was almost six feet tall, with narrow, watchful eyes and a cold, hard mask of a face.

Her head was shaved and her skull shone blue-black in the dim light. ‘Tha’s your bunk over in the corner.’

Tracy walked over to the bunk. The mattress was filthy, stained with the excreta of God only knew how many previous occupants. She could not bring herself to touch it. Involuntarily, she voiced her revulsion. ‘I – I can’t sleep on this mattress.’

The fat Mexican woman grinned. ‘You don’t have to, honey. Hay tiempo. You can sleep on mine.’

Tracy suddenly became aware of the undercurrents in the cell, and they hit her with a physical force. The three women were watching her, staring, making her feel naked. Fresh meat. She was suddenly terrified. I’m wrong, Tracy thought. Oh, please let me be wrong.

She found her voice. ‘Who – who do I see about getting a clean mattress?’