Inside (5 page)

Wincing, Peyton lowered her foot to the carpet. “He left? Already?”

“You thought he’d stay for the weekend?”

“He told me he might.”

“Nope. Checked out this morning. But he said he’d see me in a few days, if that helps.”

Peyton remembered the groceries Virgil had brought into his room last night. Maybe Wallace had left, but Virgil was still around. “Fine. Try room fifteen instead.”

“You got it.”

There was a click and the phone began to ring.

After five rings, Peyton expected her call to transfer to an automated message service, but then she heard a gruff hello.

“Hey,” she said.

A moment of silence ensued. “Is this my new
friend?
” he asked at length.

“Your new…work associate for lack of a better term. But don’t pretend you can’t use a friend. What are you doing?”

“Just got out of the shower.”

Although she tried to banish the image, she pictured him standing at the nightstand in a towel—or maybe nothing at all. “You slept in?”

“Went hiking.”

Leaning her head back against the sofa, she stared
up at her wood-plank ceiling, stained a beautiful mahogany color, and the fan that hung from one of the rafters. “How do you like the area?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” Peyton smiled as she imagined Virgil experiencing the redwoods for the first time. “What are your plans for this afternoon?”

“I’ve got a TV.”

He’d probably had a TV in prison and would again, as long as he behaved himself. “Get dressed. I’m coming to get you.”

“Because…?” He sounded genuinely confused.

“We’ve got work to do.”

“Chief Deputy Adams—”

“Yes?”

“It’d be better if you just…let me do my thing.”

She toyed with the ends of her hair. “Why’s that, Mr. Skinner?”

“There’s no reason for you to invest in what’s going to happen.”

Leaning forward, she smoothed the area rug that covered this part of the hardwood floor. “There is if it’s happening at my prison.”

“But what I’m doing…it isn’t really under your jurisdiction. I thought you understood that. The meeting at the library…it was just Wallace’s attempt to be diplomatic. A courtesy.”

“I realize the department’s calling the shots on this, but I’m responsible for you while you’re at Pelican Bay.” Getting up, she hobbled toward her bedroom, which wasn’t easy to reach with a swollen ankle. It was at the bottom of a narrow, winding staircase, like a cabin one might find on a boat. “Besides,
you’re
investing in it,
aren’t you?” she said. Did he truly think he should do it alone?

“
I
have a compelling reason.”

“Making sure an undercover operative for the Department of Corrections doesn’t get killed is
my
compelling reason. From Tuesday on, I’ll be responsible for you. I’m sorry if you’ve got a problem with that, but I plan to do my job.”

He cursed under his breath. “You shouldn’t be working at a prison.”

Tired of hearing that comment, in one form or another, from almost everyone she met—
You work at a prison? I didn’t know they hired women like you. The guys must
love
you
—Peyton injected irritation into her voice. “Why not?”

He didn’t back off. “You already know the answer to that question.”

Clinging to the handrail, she took each stair with caution so she wouldn’t tumble down. “Because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re a constant reminder of everything a convict’s missing.”

“Really? Is that
all
I do?”

“All that matters.”

Convicts lived in such a male world, one filled with so much testosterone, they often lost a certain…modern sensibility. Peyton was used to it. But that didn’t mean she liked the discrimination it bred. “Quit with all the sexist bullshit.”

“It’s the truth—from someone who knows. You don’t think half the men in that prison are fantasizing about you when they close their eyes?”

Stopping at the foot of the stairs, she decided to hit back. “Is that what
you
dreamed about last night?”

When he laughed softly, she knew he wasn’t going to deny it. She also realized she was allowing the conversation to drift into dangerous territory, and tried to reel it back in. “Anyway, last I checked, you weren’t in personnel. So until you take over the country and do away with the Equal Rights Amendment, spare me your opinions on hiring women.”

“I’m not talking about
all
women.”

“Oh, so you’re not a complete jerk. You’d only refuse the ones you deemed too young or attractive or interesting or…whatever? And how, exactly, would you implement such standards, Mr. Skinner? Who would get to determine which female was too good-looking and which wasn’t? Because if a job is open to one woman, it’s open to all women. Beauty is subjective.”

“Your beauty isn’t.”

As angry as he’d made her, she was also perversely flattered. She wanted him to find her attractive, because she found him to be one of the handsomest men she’d ever seen. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. “So are you interested in getting out of the motel today or not?”

She’d left him nowhere to go with the argument he’d started—she suspected purposely—and he seemed to realize it quickly enough. “What do you have planned?”

She moved into her bedroom and began searching through her closet, trying to decide what to wear. “An educational seminar.”

“There’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“We can’t be seen together.”

“I’ve got that covered. When I get there, I’ll call your room and let the phone ring once. Come around the block. I’ll be waiting in a white Volvo SUV.”
She removed the sweats she’d been wearing. “And, Virgil?”

“What?”

“Bring the hat and glasses. Leave the knife at the motel.”

“Sorry,” he said. “The knife goes where I do. It’s not much, but…it’s all I’ve got.”

She supposed he could’ve lied to her and brought it anyway. “Fine, but just so you know, I have plenty of steak knives. If someone attacks you, feel free to use one of mine.”

“You’re taking me to your
house?
”

Finding the jeans she wanted, she held the phone between her shoulder and ear while putting them on. “Do you know of a better place?”

“Yeah.
Here.
”

“No. The manager’s a good friend.”

This distracted him. “Is that how you broke into my room? I should sue.”

Peyton couldn’t help smiling at the grumble in his voice. “I got the worst of it. Anyway, I think you have bigger problems to worry about. And she didn’t
give
me the key. I stole it.”

“Do you still have it?”

“You’re afraid I might come back?”

He hesitated. “Would you want me to have a key to
your
room?”

Part of her actually wanted to say yes, which was why her voice grew solemn. “I took it back. I said I found it on the floor at a restaurant, and she thought one of the maids accidentally carried it off the premises.” Fortunately, Michelle had been more exasperated than angry so Peyton didn’t have to feel bad for getting a maid
in trouble. It would’ve been difficult to place blame, anyway. The smocks were used interchangeably.

“She fell for that?”

“Completely.”

“I should rat you out.”

“If only you could show your face.”

“No one would have to see you come here. We could sneak you in,” he said.

“No. If Michelle saw us, she’d ask all kinds of questions.” Especially if she got a good look at him. “And we can’t go to a restaurant. I’m too familiar to the community, since so many people work at the prison. We’d definitely attract attention.”

“That’s your logic for taking me home?”

She pulled a sweater from its hanger. “That’s it.”

“Peyton—”

His use of her first name took her off guard. Both the inmates and staff at the prison called her Chief Deputy Adams, as he’d done only moments ago. “What?”

“There are people who want me dead. You read that letter, you know what they’re doing to my sister. If they’ve found me, if they’re watching me, they could follow us—”

“They haven’t found you.”

“How do you know?”

Deciding to wear her hair down for a change, she ran a brush through it. “Because you’d already be dead.”

His silence implied that he agreed, but he hadn’t given up arguing with her. “There
is
one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I was just released from prison, remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget.”

“It doesn’t bother you—make you afraid?”

“According to what I’ve been told, you were innocent.”

“That doesn’t mean I
remained
innocent. You’re the one who suggested I’ve become…warped.”

She remembered the comment she’d made in the meeting. “Have you ever raped or killed a woman, Virgil?” she asked. “No.”

“Would you if you had the chance?”

“I had the chance yesterday, didn’t I?”

She set her brush on the vanity. “Exactly.”

His voice deepened. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you.”

The flutter in her stomach surprised her even more than his unexpected admission. She’d been propositioned by a lot of inmates in her day. She’d reacted with annoyance, revulsion, fear, sometimes amusement, but she’d never felt breathtaking excitement. She couldn’t imagine why she’d feel it now, except that it’d been a long time for her, too. Maybe not fourteen years, but two or three. And since Crescent City offered so little in the way of romantic possibility, the future didn’t seem very promising.

“What you want is a woman, any woman,” she said. “That’s hardly flattering.”

“Maybe not
any
woman,” he responded.

She grinned at the wry note in his voice. “Humor, from an intense guy like you?”

“When everything’s a matter of life and death you tend to get serious very fast.”

“I understand. I’m serious, too, about bringing down the Hells Fury. That means we need to get to work—and I can’t show you pictures over the phone. I guess we could rent a motel room in a different city, where we
wouldn’t have to worry about being spotted, but I don’t see how that would be an improvement. If we’re going to be alone it might as well be here.”

“As long as you know not to trust me too much, we’ll be fine.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you just said you wouldn’t hurt me. At least, I think that’s what you meant.”

“I won’t hurt you. But if you give me the opportunity to do the opposite, I’m taking it.”

Oh, God… He thought he was putting her on notice, scaring her off. He probably figured that if he destroyed any chance he had before they were even together, he wouldn’t get his hopes up. But, in reality, he was offering her some of the thrills that’d been so conspicuously missing from her life. “Then I’ll be careful to keep my signals clear.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Now
she was worried, but more because of how she might react to him than how he might react to her. “See you in a few minutes.”

V
irgil was fairly certain that what he stood to lose outweighed what he stood to gain. Driving himself crazy wanting what he couldn’t have had never seemed wise. While in prison, he’d watched other men torture themselves over missing this or that and he made a point of not being so stupid. But he was only human. And, as the chief deputy warden led him up the stairs to her front door, moving slowly because of her ankle, her ass was right at eye level. He couldn’t help admiring it. He’d been seventeen when he’d had his last sexual encounter—with the girl he took to the homecoming dance. They’d dated a few weeks, lost their virginity to each other, continued to experiment for a month or so and that was the extent of it. It probably hadn’t been the best sex in the world, but he would’ve had no experience at all if not for that short period. Three months later he’d been arrested.

Her name was Carrie. He’d dreamed of her soft thighs and breasts a lot since then, but as he aged those dreams had become so old and tired they were as ineffectual as a threadbare shirt. They certainly weren’t as stimulating as a flesh-and-blood woman, especially a woman who looked like Peyton Adams….

As soon as they reached an elevated deck from which
he could see the Pacific Ocean, he circumvented her so he could focus on something that didn’t make him instantly hard. Like the barbecue, the picnic table, the trees towering all around or the wind chimes that hung from the eaves and tinkled in the breeze.

“This is nice.” He noted the rhythmic wash of the waves. The ocean sounded even closer than it was. “Peaceful.”

“I like it.”

The house behind him had a wall of windows. He was eager to look in, but only because he wanted to learn more about this woman who seemed so out of place in the prison system.

Once he’d acknowledged the reason for his interest, he knew he’d be a fool to feed his curiosity. He crossed to the banister instead of letting her lead him directly inside. There was no point in getting to know her. Even if he ended up liking her, she’d never feel the same way. He was an ex-con. The fact that he’d been wrongly imprisoned was irrelevant. He’d lost the most important years of his life, the years during which most other men built a foundation that allowed them to support a family. Other than the few classes he’d taken while incarcerated, he had no college education, no career—just a lot of experiences guaranteed to keep him up at night.

It’d be easier, smarter,
better,
to immediately rule out what his body insisted might be attainable.

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“Since I started at Pelican Bay six months ago.”

“So Crescent City is pretty new to you.”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you come from?”

She approached the banister at the other end. “I grew
up in Sacramento, where I worked at Folsom Prison for fifteen years.”

“Do you have family in Sacramento?”

Hugging herself to ward off the cold advancing with the fog, she kicked a pinecone off the deck. “Some. An aunt and a few cousins.”

Quit asking her questions. None of it matters.

And yet he wanted to know. “Any siblings?”

“I was an only child.”

He closed his eyes, breathed in the scent of the forest. “Where are your parents?”

To keep the wind from whipping her hair into her face, she anchored it behind her ears. “They’re both dead.”

The sadness in her voice undermined his resolve. “I’m sorry.”

“Things happen.” For a moment, she seemed lost in her memories. Standing still, staring out to sea, she reminded him of the female figurehead on an old wooden sailing ship. Beautiful, lonely but serene. A bare-breasted woman was supposed to shame nature and calm the seas. He’d read that somewhere. He’d also read that a live female on board was considered bad luck.

He felt as if he’d just discovered a stowaway on his own vessel. Would Peyton prove to be a blessing or a curse?

Maybe seeing her bare-breasted would help him decide….

“How’d you lose them?” he asked when she didn’t elaborate.

“My mother had ovarian cancer. She went into remission for quite a while, over twenty-five years, but…it came back in the end. She died twenty-nine months ago.”

She counted by months, not years. The pain was still fresh.

Zipping his sweatshirt, he sat on the picnic table. He’d left the hat and glasses he’d worn from the motel in Peyton’s car. There was no need for them out here. She didn’t have neighbors. “And your father?”

“Died in prison.”

Virgil walked over to her. “Your father was a
convict?
”

“He spent five years behind bars.”

“What for?”

She continued to fight the wind. “It’s a long story.”

In other words, she didn’t want to get into it. “How’d he die?”

Her gaze remained anchored on the horizon. “How do most people die in prison?”

“Someone shanked him?”

A slight nod confirmed it.

Virgil wanted to touch her, to comfort her, if he could, but he didn’t know how. Except for what he’d said to his sister in his letters, he hadn’t had much experience with tenderness, not in fourteen years. And, as an eighteen-year-old boy who’d had only one rather tentative sexual relationship, a less than reliable mother and four step-fathers, he hadn’t had the best example. “How old was he?”

“Thirty-one.”

A year younger than he was. She’d lost him early. “That’s too soon to die,” he said, but he’d seen it, plenty of times.

“He was a good man.”

A convict who was also a good man? Virgil didn’t believe there was any way to be both. He’d tried. But Peyton’s belief in her father gave him hope that, accurately
or not, his sister might be able to remember him in the same light. “Is your dad the reason you went into corrections?”

Peyton offered him a fleeting smile. “That, and I thought I could make a difference.”

Holding his breath for fear she’d think he was coming on to her, he covered her hand with his. “Maybe you are,” he said, then forced himself to let go and turn away. “I guess we’d better get started, huh?”

“This is Buzz Criven.” Peyton slid the picture onto her dining table.

Instead of sitting next to her, Virgil had chosen the seat across from her. Ever since he’d touched her, briefly, while they were out on the deck, he’d been careful to keep his distance, so careful that he stepped wide just to avoid brushing up against her.

Peyton told herself she should be glad of his caution. He was showing her respect. But the way he behaved had the opposite effect. His reluctance made her crave physical contact, if only to see how he might react to it.

Lifting the picture, Virgil studied its subject. “Rosenburg mentioned him in the meeting yesterday. He’s getting out soon.”

“But he’ll be inside for the next thirty days. I’m thinking it might be smart to make him your cell mate. Maybe, since he’s a short-timer, he’ll be more prone to recruit you right away, to help you along, to talk about his activities, that sort of thing.”

“He has power inside?”

“Some. Like the Nuestra Family, the Hells Fury have modeled their organization after the military. Buzz would be considered a captain.”

He put down the picture. “Who’s the general?”

“We believe it’s Detric Whitehead. We’ve kept him in the SHU for the past ten years, trying to curb his activities, but somehow he manages to get his orders wherever he needs them to go. This man—” she pulled out another picture “—Weston Jager, or Westy as they call him, is pretty far up the chain of command. He’s in gen pop, so you’ll meet him when you go in. If it wasn’t Whitehead who put out the hit on Judge Garcia, it could’ve been Weston.”

Virgil rubbed his chin with the knuckles of his left hand. “These guys are skinheads?”

“The Hells Fury are actually a hybrid—part racist skinhead, part street gang and part prison gang. In recent years, they haven’t been as worried about their supremacist ideology as making a profit from their illegal activities. Without strong leadership—and the opposition posed by the Nuestra Family, which unifies them—I would’ve expected them to divide into two camps, the way Public Enemy Number 1 did years ago, with the true supremacists on one side and the crime-for-profit supporters on the other. But…that hasn’t happened. Whitehead keeps them tough and focused.”

“Are there any PEN1 in Pelican Bay?”

He hadn’t met her eyes since they sat down, and that bothered Peyton. She didn’t know why. Maybe it wounded her ego that he could ignore her so easily. “There were, but that was a few years ago. For the most part, the Hells Fury have absorbed them, as well as all the other smaller white gangs.”

He thumbed through the photographs and stats she’d collected on the known members of the Hells Fury. “Their activities are mostly drug-related?”

“They don’t limit themselves. They’re involved in
drugs, yes, but also assault, murder, attempted murder, prostitution. Even white-collar crimes like fraud, counterfeiting and identity theft.”

“Where’d they get their start?”

“In the Texas prison system, in the mid-eighties. They’ve grown considerably since then.”

He looked up, caught her eye, but glanced away. “I can’t believe they’ve been able to gain such a stronghold here, of all places. According to Wallace, everyone knows this is Nuestra Family turf.”

“That’s partly why the Fury have grown so fast. Operation Black Widow made a sizable dent in the NF. Since then, anyone hoping to keep them in check, anyone who needs protection from them, joins the Hells Fury.”

“And what’s the NF’s reaction to having another gang rise up to challenge them?”

She noticed a scar on his forearm. Long and jagged, it looked as if it came from a defensive wound. She couldn’t help wondering when he’d received it. “They’re not happy, as you might’ve guessed. These two gangs are always on the brink of war. We keep them apart as much as possible, but that doesn’t stop the violence. It seems as if someone from one side or the other is getting assaulted practically every day.”

He spread out the profiles of the most important members. “What’s the death toll?”

“This year?” She sat back. “A handful, which is damn good considering there’ve been nearly a hundred assaults since January. It says a lot about our medical staff.”

His gaze met hers again and finally held. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but suddenly the men in the Hells Fury felt no more dangerous than their pictures. She was mesmerized by Virgil’s eyes. The pain inside
them was unsettling and yet it seemed at home there, even added an unfathomable quality that made him all the more mysterious.

Clearing his throat, he went back to the materials strewn in front of him. “What symbols do they use?”

“As with most supremacist groups, you’ll see the swastika. More specific to the Hells Fury is the
HF
or a pitchfork.” She fished out a picture of a man with
HF
inked in fancy script on his pectoral muscle. “The letters
fury
might be tattooed on the knuckles or across the back.” She showed him that, too. “But their most consistent symbol seems to be a satanic
S
that looks more like a lightning bolt.” She couldn’t find the photograph she’d planned to bring of the
S,
so she drew it. “I heard one man say it represents the Destroyer.”

“It’s also the weapon of Zeus,” he muttered.

“You’re familiar with Greek mythology?”

“I’ve checked out a few books.”

“Not what I’d expect you to read.”

“I didn’t have a lot of choices. If it was available to me, I read it. What’re their colors?”

“Orange and black. Ghoulish, huh?”

It was growing late, and Peyton was getting hungry. She could send these files to the motel with Virgil, let him finish on his own. Or she could invite him to dinner and they could continue together.

She didn’t see any reason either of them had to spend the evening alone. “I was going to make some pesto pasta tonight. Would you like to join me?”

She expected an eager response. What man who’d been eating prison rations for fourteen years would turn down a home-cooked meal? A chance to eat all he wanted? But he surprised her by rising to his feet. “No, thank you. I should get back.”

He’d spoken as curtly as though he had an important meeting, but she knew he had nothing scheduled. Nothing until Tuesday. “You’re choosing whatever you’ve got in that grocery bag Wallace provided over my garlic bread and pasta?”

“There’s no need for you to put yourself out.”

“Cooking for two isn’t much different than cooking for one.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

Refusing to lower his guard, he’d started already walking toward the door.

“Are you trying to prove a point, Virgil?”

He stopped. “What point would that be?”

“That you don’t need anyone? That you don’t want anyone? That you’re fine on your own?”

“I
am
fine on my own.”

She pursed her lips. “A simple dinner might threaten that? Threaten
you?
”

“Maybe. In any case, I’ve already warned you.”

“Warned me.” To be careful of the signals she sent him, he meant. She shook her head and laughed. “To a man who’s been in prison for so long I probably look pretty good. But don’t let that confuse you.
Any
woman would look good.”

“Quit acting as if I can’t tell the difference between you and someone else, as if I have no taste, no ability to discriminate. I’ve had other opportunities. Once I established who and what I was, the only person who ever came on to me in prison was a woman. She would’ve spread her legs at the snap of my fingers.”

Peyton pushed her chair back. “How’s that, if you were housed in a male prison?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She wasn’t a prisoner.”

“So it was a staff member?”

“A C.O.”

“Did you take what she offered?”

“Hell, no. She got off on passing herself around to as many men as she could, mostly prison scum. Who knew what diseases she carried? I could never be desperate enough to sleep with her.”