Inside (Bulletproof 1)

“Let’s go,” he said again.

Ace came to his feet. “Dude, I’m gonna miss you,” he told Westy. “I wonder who else they’re gonna stick in here to pester my ass.”

Westy didn’t even bother to respond. He was too angry, too dejected.

John kept his mouth shut until they were out on the grounds. But he was too excited to wait any longer. “I’ve got something for you,” he murmured. “Something big. But you’re going to have to pay for it.”

Westy didn’t hear him. He was somewhere inside himself, nursing his resentment. John had to give his arm a jerk to catch his attention.

“You do that again, and I swear—”

John repeated what he’d said.

“What is it?” Westy was suddenly alert, hopeful. “Money first.”

“What, you think I can pull a wad of cash out of my ass? Fat chance. I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Trust me. It’ll be worth a lot.”

“How much?”

“Five grand.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m telling you this is worth it!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“So we have a deal?”

“If what you give me is that valuable, I’ll pay. I’m not committing until I hear.”

Could he be trusted? He’d always been dependable before. Cooley paid him, not Westy. “Fine. That dude you were fighting?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s a plant, a snitch.”

Westy stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

“He’s a cop.”

“No…”

“It’s true.”

“Can’t be. I can smell a cop a mile away.”

“He’s some kind of mole working with the authorities.”

Skepticism etched deep grooves in his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Shh…” John got him walking again.

“If you’re yankin’ my chain—”

“I’m not yankin’ anything.”

He lowered his voice still further. “How do you know it’s true?”

“My sister saw him having dinner with Wallace just last week.”

“No f**king way.”

“It’s true.” Another C.O. approached. Only when they were well past him did John explain.

“You could be making this up,” Westy said when he was through. “Maybe you just don’t like the guy. Maybe you want us to take him out.”

“I don’t want him in here any more than you do,” John told him. “Who knows what he’ll tell the warden?”

Westy started to laugh. “Oh, I get it. He could rat on you as easily as me so you want me to pay you five grand and kill the bastard.”

“If he rats on me, who’ll smuggle in your dope?”

Unable to argue with that, Westy sobered. “I’ll need more than what you’ve told me.”

“Like what?”

“Some way to be sure. I don’t want to get Deech involved in this, have him risk his ass by ordering a hit if this is all some bullshit you’ve dreamed up to make a quick buck.”

They’d reached the SHU. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Westy stopped before it was too late to talk. “Wait a second…”

“What?”

“It’s gonna be easy.”

John held the door. “What’s gonna be easy?”

Westy tapped his head as if he’d just had the most brilliant idea in the world. “Do as I say and we’ll know whether he’s a snitch within twenty-four hours.”

24

After leaving the infirmary, Peyton had returned to her office. She’d been too unsettled to go home and face Wallace and had needed a place to relax for a few minutes. But then she’d started going through the stack of items awaiting her attention and wound up working another two hours. Fatigue weighed heavily as she packed up to leave.

Her phone rang. Curious as to who would even know she was here, besides the skeleton medical staff working graveyard and the people she’d passed coming and going from the prison, she checked caller ID. It was an internal call.

“Hello?”

“Chief Deputy? It’s Sergeant Hutchinson.”

Peyton made a face. McCalley had given John the word that he was no longer under disciplinary action. He’d left her a voice mail notifying her that it had been handled. But she didn’t feel good about it, so she didn’t want to talk to John. “Yes?”

She wondered if he could hear the dislike in her voice.

“I just transferred Weston Jager to the SHU as you requested.” He sounded like the old John, the one who’d tried so hard to befriend her. But she didn’t understand why he felt he had to call her to report this. He had a line supervisor.

“Thank you. How does his face look?”

He chuckled. “Like he’s been hit by a train. That new guy, he really packs a punch.”

Peyton thought of Virgil’s knife wound. “I think he sustained his share of damage.”

“Still, for three on one, he handled himself pretty good.”

Irritated without fully understanding why, she clenched her teeth. “John, I’ve got to go. I’m exhausted. I was about to leave.”

“I’ll let you get some rest,” he said. “I just called to tell you that Weston passed me a note as I was moving him.”

“A note? What’d it say?” She covered a yawn. “That we have the wrong guy?”

“To ask you to come see him in his new cell as soon as possible.”

She didn’t want to go back inside the prison. “Did this note say why?”

“It said he has something very important to tell you.”

“Then why didn’t he share it with you?”

“I can’t say. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear. He was trying to keep his request to see you on the down low, as if he didn’t want anyone else to find out. I don’t know if it makes any difference to you, but I got the impression it might be worth your time.”

“Don’t tell me the prospect of spending the rest of his sentence in the SHU has caused a change of heart about his gang activities.”

“That’s possible. Maybe he’s ready to debrief.”

She doubted it. Things were never that easy. Not with someone as hardened as Weston. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said. “But I’ll stop by before I go. Anything else?”