Inside (Bulletproof 1)

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 involved 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?”