Guilty Wives (25 page)

I FELT A WAVE
of dread in my stomach as I stood outside the door of my cell with my mates, waiting for our hour outside today.

Today could be the day, I thought. Today could be the day they made their move in the prison yard. Presumably, they’d want to put as much time as possible between Winnie’s death and mine, for appearance’s sake, but they also had my upcoming appeal on the other side. They were running out of days. And every day it didn’t happen made the next day more likely.

We slowly marched down to the day area, out to the administration quarters in the center, and then down the corridor of H wing.

I spotted her standing in the hallway, monitoring the inmates as they trudged forward. Lucy. As always, waiting for me on my way to the prison yard.

I felt a spike of adrenaline. My heart battered my chest as though a prizefighter were using it as a punching bag.

Votre belle-soeur laide,
my cell mates called her, though not to her face. My ugly stepsister. I had plenty of reasons to hate Lucy. First, her attempt to make me submit to her sexually, which would have turned very nasty had it not been interrupted by Mona’s attempted helicopter escape. More to the point, she murdered Linette, bludgeoned her with a smile on her face, doing it for me, because of me.

We made eye contact. She gave me a smile of smug superiority, of eminent satisfaction.

In response, I winked at her.

Lucy did a double take. She hadn’t expected that and she didn’t like it.

“Elliot, le mur à l’attention!”
she shouted. She was calling me out of the line, telling me to walk to the opposite wall and to stand at attention.

I walked to the wall as instructed, stood as straight as a statue, eyes forward, arms down, as Lucy approached me. She stood at my side, looking at my profile. An inch or two taller than me, her mouth lined up neatly against my ear.

In French, she said, “Is there something wrong with your eye?”

“No,” I answered.

“You don’t wink at me,” she said.

I didn’t answer. But I smirked. That probably pissed her off even more.

After a moment, she moved still closer to me. Still in French, and in a far quieter voice, she said, “What a shame about Linette. At least she died quickly.”

I didn’t respond. I kept my eyes forward.

“But Winnie?” she went on, still whispering. “Winnie didn’t die quickly. It was long and painful.”

I did a slow burn. Lucy. I’d always suspected it. But hearing it, having it confirmed, filled me with venom. Lucy had poisoned Winnie and watched her die.

In French, she whispered, “Have you ever seen someone struggle to breathe? It can be very difficult to watch. But in Winnie’s case, it was fun.”

I forced my mouth to stay shut, no matter how much I wanted to respond.

“Nothing to say, Elliot? You’re not feeling so funny anymore?”

My eyes moved toward the top corner of the hallway, the security camera, the red glowing light reminding us that they were watching our every move.

“That’s all,” Lucy said in French. “We’re done.”

The signal for me to return to the line of prisoners. I turned back toward the long row of inmates.

But Lucy was wrong. That wasn’t all. We weren’t done.

Instead of getting back into line, I pivoted and lunged at Lucy.

LUCY WAS FAR
superior to me in strength and fighting ability, but she hadn’t expected me to advance on her like that. She managed to throw up an arm in defense but not before my hand reached the left side of her face, just below the eye. I dug in my nails and clawed downward with all my might, cutting skin, drawing blood, getting a good inch or two of epidermis before she shifted her weight and pushed me back violently.

Lucy shrieked in pain. A siren went off and it was only a couple of beats before several guards were on top of me. It didn’t matter. I dropped to the floor and covered my face. I didn’t want any bruises to my face. I took a couple of hits with the baton to the midsection, but I didn’t care. Lucy got some retribution as well, with her hard boots, kicking my legs and then getting me in the ribs a couple of times before the guards, cognizant of the all-seeing security camera, restrained her. The last thing they needed was a Rodney King video.

“Chatte!”
Lucy screamed at me, the left side of her face torn and bloody.
“Salope!”
These were not words of flattery.

They turned me over on my stomach and cuffed me. I offered no resistance. I had no need to resist.

“I want to die!” I shouted. “I want to die! I can’t take this anymore!”

I kept up like that, screaming almost incoherently, as the corridor filled with prison guards. A small fight can lead to a bigger one, a riot, and the guards had to make sure nobody was getting any ideas.

I was glad for that. I didn’t want a riot. I hadn’t wanted to overpower Lucy, either.

I just didn’t want to go to the prison yard, where some prisoner—whether today or sometime soon—would await me with a shank or a razor. There was no way that the guards, after such a brutal encounter had been caught on camera, could justify dusting me off and sending me outside for an hour of recreation. You lost fresh-air privileges just for mouthing off to a guard. I’d viciously attacked one.

And I have to say, it sure was an added bonus to put that scar on Lucy’s face.

BOULEZ SLAMMED HIS
fist on his desk in anger. Abbie Elliot should have been dead by now. An attack in the prison yard. But things had obviously changed.

“Where is she now?” he asked, in French, of the two guards standing before him—the head guard, Sabine, and the enforcer, Lucy.

“Solitary, of course,” Sabine answered in French.

“No, no, no!” Boulez pounded the desk again. He raised his hands. “How do we get to her in there? Think, Sabine,
think!
How do we get to her in solitary and pretend that it wasn’t the guards who did it? Solitary is the safest place in this prison for her!”

Sabine bowed her head.

“And we won’t be sending her out to the prison yard any time soon,” Boulez added. “Someone who attacks a guard? She wouldn’t see fresh air for a month. And we don’t
have
a goddamn month! This was supposed to happen
today!
”

Boulez swept a pile of papers off his desk onto the floor. He took a couple of breaths and tried to calm himself. A temper tantrum wouldn’t help matters.

He looked at Lucy, who was wearing a large piece of gauze on her face, fastened with long pieces of medical tape. She looked awful, of course, but more than anything she was full of rage. She’d received more than a dozen stitches on her face. Lucy had been, objectively speaking, a moderately attractive woman—albeit hard and nasty—but she wouldn’t be attractive any longer. The scar would fade with time, but it would be permanent.

“The infirmary,” said Lucy.

Boulez drew a couple more breaths and did some thinking. “The infirmary…”

“She suffered some injuries today,” said Sabine.

“She also said she wanted to die,” Lucy said, a smile creeping over her damaged face. “More than a hundred people heard her say that today.”

Boulez nodded. “So we make it a suicide.” He frowned. They’d used that ruse with Winnie Brookes. A second suicide by one of the Monte Carlo Mistresses, within the space of three weeks? It wasn’t ideal. But he was running out of options.

Sabine said, “We’ll put her in the secured room. We’ll make sure there’s a bed strap or something in that room. We’ll hang her.”

Boulez sank into his chair. “You’re on until—when?”

“My shift ends at 2:00 a.m.,” Lucy answered.

“Mine, too,” said Sabine.

“Wait.” Boulez snapped his fingers and shot forward. “The security cameras.”

The room went quiet for a time. Everyone stewed on that.

“We have paperwork going back months on those lousy cameras,” said Sabine.

“They went out last week,” Lucy recalled. “Remember?”

“Right. That’s right,” Sabine agreed.

Boulez groaned. They were right. There was a history with those cameras in the infirmary. Budget cuts had prevented the purchase of new ones, so they had just made temporary repairs to the existing ones. No, it wasn’t ideal. But it could sell. Given Abbie’s suddenly erratic behavior—her suicidal comments today and her uncharacteristic outburst in H wing—it would pass the smell test.

“Then the cameras have to go out for a while,” Boulez said. “We can’t have them going out just between 1:45 and 2:00 a.m., though. That would be too coincidental. You understand?”

Both guards nodded.

“All right, then.” Boulez slapped his hands down on the table and released a breath. “We keep this between us, as always,” said Boulez. He pointed at each of them. “Nobody else is involved. Especially this time. Are we clear? Nobody else.”

“I’ll assign myself to G station two tonight,” said Sabine, referring to the guard booth outside the infirmary. “I’ll clear out solitary so that booth stays empty, too. I won’t assign anyone to G station three, either,” she added, referring to the guard booth at the door leading downstairs to the parking garage. “It will just be me tonight on G wing.”

“Fine. You call my private cell when it’s over. And ladies?” Boulez called to them as they walked toward the door. “Make damn sure it’s over tonight.”

SABINE KEPT A
close watch on Abbie Elliot for the remainder of the day. From time to time she would peer into Abbie’s cell in solitary through the hatch. From what she could tell, and from all other reports she received, Abbie Elliot had done nothing but moan and sob and babble incoherently on the floor of the cell.

After the shift change at 8:00 p.m., Sabine had Abbie transferred. There was simply no way Sabine could stage a suicide in solitary. There was no way to kill yourself in there. The suicides, when they happened, almost always occurred in a regular prison cell or the infirmary. And there was no way Sabine could justify putting a prisoner who had just violently attacked a guard in a standard cell.

Thus the infirmary was the only option. When the guards came for Abbie, she was limp as a wet noodle. It took four guards, each taking a limb, to carry her out. It was as if she’d just had a lobotomy.

From G-2, the guard booth just outside the infirmary, Sabine watched on the security camera as the guards placed Abbie in the secured room. They put her in the first bed on the right, nearest the security camera—standard regulation, always filling the beds from right to left. One of a thousand regulations in this place.

The guards watched Abbie for a moment. She appeared to be borderline catatonic, devoid of any life whatsoever. Then they left, locking the door behind them.

Abbie was all alone inside the secured room, staring up near the ceiling, her aimless gaze somewhere between the clock and the security camera.

Sabine checked her watch. It was 9:42 p.m. She took a breath to settle her nerves. And she waited.

Ten p.m.

Ten fifteen.

As the warden said, they couldn’t just shut off the security camera five minutes before attacking Abbie. There had to be a record of problems with it tonight.

Ten thirty.

Ten forty-five.

Eleven p.m.

It was probably about time now. They weren’t going to pull this off until a bit before the shift change at 2:00 a.m., so now would be a good time to start with the “camera trouble.”

At 11:06 p.m., Sabine shut off the security camera.

LUCY USED A
key to open the primary door to the infirmary. None of the loud buzzing of the automated system. The noise might alert Abbie.

Abbie would probably be asleep. She was asleep twenty minutes ago—at 1:00 a.m.—when Lucy had used the key to sneak in, tiptoe toward the secured room, and check on her through the window. There had been no movement from Abbie. Her eyes had appeared to be closed. She was either asleep or she was in the same catatonic state she was in when they’d dragged her from Le Mitard into the infirmary earlier this evening.

Lucy looked up at one of the security cameras in the corner of the main room. The red light was off, of course. The clock on the wall said 1:20 a.m. She would probably not need more than fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, but still there was plenty of cushion built in. She could take all the way until 2:00 a.m. if necessary, then hustle out of the infirmary and head downstairs to her car in the garage. The shift would change but it would probably be some time before a guard would check on the patient in the secured room. When all was said and done, it would be impossible to say for certain that Abbie Elliot had hanged herself before or after the shift change at 2:00 a.m.

Her gun drawn, Lucy tiptoed up to the secured room. She looked through the glass window—glass that was bulletproof and, more important, soundproof. She saw the same thing she saw twenty minutes ago. Abbie was perfectly still. Lying on her back. Sheet and blanket up to her chest. Left arm hanging out over the blanket. Right arm underneath. Eyes appeared to be closed.

Lucy put the key in the lock and turned it slowly, watching Abbie the whole time. She entered the room and raised her gun. She shuffled toward Abbie’s bed.

Still no movement.

Lucy kicked at the bed. “Wake up,” she said in English.

Abbie didn’t move.

Lucy grabbed Abbie’s leg through the bedcovers and shook it.

Abbie moaned and her eyes blinked open. She squinted and finally focused on Lucy. She looked at Lucy’s gun. But her face didn’t register fear. Her face didn’t register anything.

Lucy pulled her handcuffs from her belt and tossed them onto the bed. They landed on Abbie’s stomach.

“Put…them…on,” she demanded in English.

“Kill…kill me,” Abbie mumbled.

That’s what I’m trying to do.
“Put them on,” Lucy repeated.

Abbie clearly presented no threat whatsoever, but Lucy wasn’t going to take any chances. She was going to handcuff Abbie first, then hang a strap from a hook in the ceiling, then force Abbie onto a chair. But first and foremost, the handcuffs.

“Put them on or I will…shoot.” She trained her handgun on Abbie as she moved to the right, going around to the side of the bed to Abbie’s left.

It was an empty threat. The last thing she could do was shoot Abbie. How would she explain
that?

Abbie’s eyes wandered. She seemed unable to focus.

Lucy cursed under her breath. She didn’t have time for this. She tucked her gun in the back of her pants and gripped Abbie’s left wrist. She slapped the handcuff on.

One wrist down, one to go.

“L’autre,”
she said. “Give me…your…hand…your…other hand!”

Lucy held down Abbie’s limp left wrist with her own right hand. She reached over Abbie’s body, holding out her left hand, palm up, fingers curled and wiggling with impatience.

“Your hand,” she said. “Your other—”

Abbie’s right hand flew out from under the covers. Before Lucy knew up from down, Abbie stabbed Lucy’s extended forearm with a syringe and injected its contents into her bloodstream.

In disbelief, Lucy stared for a moment, just one beat, at the needle sticking out of her forearm, and then she reacted, instinctively reaching with her right hand to remove the syringe.

Instinctive, but a poor choice. And Abbie was way ahead of her, anyway. Abbie’s right hand clawed Lucy’s left cheek, the damaged one with the enormous bandage. Lucy howled in agony, even as she realized something dark and terrifying:

She had completely lost control of the situation.

She was off balance, stretched over the bed, the needle still sticking out of her arm, her left cheek in scorching pain.

Before she knew it, Abbie had gripped Lucy’s hair with both hands and yanked her forward. Abbie swung her own head forward and head-butted Lucy right above the eye.

Stunned, Lucy tried to recover, tried to move her hand to reach back for her gun, but Abbie had locked her in a fierce bear hug and held on tight. Lucy tried to struggle but it was becoming harder and harder, with each passing second, to do so. Maybe she had underestimated Abbie’s strength. More likely, it was the narcotic, whatever Abbie had injected into her bloodstream.

“Sweet dreams, you stupid bitch,” Abbie whispered, gripping Lucy tighter still. Lucy’s defenses wavered to nothing. Her body went limp. She had underestimated Abbie. And now she was at her mercy.