The rasp of leather soles on the concrete was the only sound as they passed cell after cell. The occasional cough or snore from a sleeping inmate splintered the dark silence from time to time, but no one roused enough to wonder or witness what was happening to Inmate 541-22.
Erin wanted desperately to ask where they were going, but fear kept her silent. Too many times she had seen inmates pay the price for disobedience. The guard had told her to keep her mouth shut, and she would. But, God help her, fear thudded in her heart, leaped in her pulse. How could she trust anyone in this place? The near darkness of the long corridor only served to sharpen her awareness of being locked up. How would she ever survive another four years and eight months here? Even the confined, sweaty odor of the place made her sick to her stomach.
At the final checkpoint, another guard opened the door leading from the cellblock. A dim circle of light from the desk lamp lit the female guard’s unsmiling features. The door slammed shut behind Erin and “her escort,” leaving her both relieved and anxious. Inside that cell she felt relatively safe from the evil that existed all around her, but at the same time she felt this pathetic world closing in on her in that six-by-nine cinder-block room.
Before they reached the main visitors area, the guard hesitated in front of one of the doors leading to an interview room. The same room where Erin had met with her lawyer on the two occasions he’d seen fit to show interest in her case.
“I’ll be waiting right here to take you back to your cell.” His words more warning than statement of fact, he opened the door and waited for her to enter the room.
“I don’t understand.” Erin felt the sudden, unbidden urge to run. “Why am I here?”
“Go on.” The guard gestured to the door. “You have a visitor.” This time his tone was clearly impatient, annoyed.
A visitor? For her? Had Jeff, the bastard, come to apologize? To tell her that this whole thing had been a huge misunderstanding? That she was free to go now? Erin almost laughed at that. He had used her. She gritted her teeth at the pain still simmering beneath the barely controlled surface she maintained. He had ruined her life, her career. Everything. She would never work in a position that required a security clearance again. And he had come out of the whole mess smelling like a rose. She had taken the fall for him. All his promises had been nothing more than lies.
Now she was paying the price for her naïveté.
Erin squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Whoever was here to see her in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be Jeff. It wouldn’t be her lawyer either. He had told her she was doomed from the beginning. Of course, Jeff had been the one who hired him. She had been such a fool.
The door closed with a loud clang behind her. Erin jerked at the sound of it locking. God, how she hated being locked up. As if on cue, the walls began to close in on her. How would she ever endure the remainder of her sentence? Her breath came in quick, shallow puffs. Fate and Jeff had left her without any choice. She was a prisoner and no one was going to rescue her as she’d foolishly prayed during her first month in this horrible place.
Calm down, she ordered herself. Focus on anything else. This room. She’d been here before. But this time it was only dimly lit. Since it was the middle of the night, no light shone in through the window on the far wall. A singular bulb spilled its sparse light over the empty table in the center of the room. The two mismatched chairs were vacant.
“Have a seat.”
Startled, Erin turned toward the sound of the voice. She didn’t recognize the tall, dark-haired man who stepped into the pool of light near the table. He’d been waiting there and she hadn’t even noticed. And she would definitely have remembered meeting a man as handsome as this one. Five o’clock shadow darkened his chin and chiseled jaw. The white cotton shirt he wore was a bit wrinkled. His jeans were slightly faded, worn enough to be comfortable. He looked rumpled, as if he had traveled a very long way or had just awakened and pulled on the same clothes he’d worn the day before.
Since he made no effort to introduce himself Erin didn’t ask. She crossed the room and settled into the chair on her side of the table that stood between them. She was a prisoner, without any rights to speak of. When she was told to jump, she did so. Erin had no intention of doing anything that might keep her in this place one minute longer than necessary.
The man sat down and began flipping through the file on the table before him. “My name is John Logan, Ms. Bailey, I’ve come here to offer you a proposition.” His gaze settled on hers then, watching, analyzing.
His eyes were disturbing, too seeing, and so brown they were almost black. Erin tamped down the anticipation that welled inside her. She would not get her hopes up that this man could somehow rescue her from the living hell her bad choices had plunged her into.
“It’s the middle of the night,” she countered. “Isn’t this an awfully odd hour to discuss business, Mr. Logan?”
Erin had learned the hard way that business conducted after hours was usually a little shady. Besides, she didn’t know this man. What kind of proposition could he possibly want to offer her? Could he be from the district attorney’s office? Maybe they had decided that pursuing Jeff was worthwhile after all. But her visitor’s manner of dress and the fact that it was definitely past business hours seemed to negate that possibility.
He closed the file and leaned back in his chair to assess her. Erin held his gaze. She would not give him the satisfaction of looking away. She was in prison, for God’s sake, what else could he do to her? Then she remembered the threats lurking within these very walls and she shuddered. There were too many despicable and degrading possibilities to consider.
“You’ve only completed four months of your sentence.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw as if he were tired, and had no patience for any of this. “Five years is a very long time, Ms. Bailey.”
Erin twisted her right wrist inside the confining handcuffs. She still couldn’t understand why the guard handcuffed her for this meeting. She wasn’t a violent inmate. And she could definitely count. “I’m very much aware of the time I’m facing, Mr. Logan.”
He leaned forward, pressing her with that unsettling gaze. “Then I wouldn’t be complaining about what time of day or night my one hope for freedom came.”
Freedom? Who was this man? What was he talking about? “Who sent you here?” she demanded, afraid to believe his words and equally scared not to. The false hope his insinuations engendered in her was too cruel for words.
“I can’t tell you that.” He folded his arms on the table, covering the file that likely contained information about her. “And even if I told you, you wouldn’t know any more than you do now.”
“I don’t understand.” For the first time since stepping into the room, fear for her safety rocketed through Erin. Was the guard still outside as he had said he would be? “I think I should go back to my cell now.”
She started to stand, but his next words stopped her.
“I can make all this go away.”
That was impossible. “How can you do that?” she demanded, knowing full well it couldn’t be true. She lifted her chin and glared at him, daring him to prove his statement.
“The people I work for are very powerful. If you cooperate with us, they will clear your record. You’ll be free to resume your life in any way you see fit.”
That sounded too good to be true. There had to be a catch. “And what do I have to do in exchange?” She surveyed the angular features of his handsome face, lines and angles, shadow and light. His expression gave nothing away, nor did those dark, dark eyes. How could she trust him? No matter how good-looking he was, or how important he appeared to be. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger. A stranger with enough power to waltz into a federal prison in the middle of the night and have the guards