Inside (6 page)

It wasn’t difficult to imagine a female C.O. taking an interest in a man like Virgil Skinner. He’d caught
her
eye, hadn’t he? “Who was she?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Staff having sex with inmates, that’s against the law.”

He shrugged. “Don’t look at me to rat her out.”

“Why not? It doesn’t sound as if you’re too impressed with her.”

“No, but I live and let live, unless I don’t have any other choice.”

Prison rules. What remained of the values, for lack of a better word, he’d developed on the inside. Peyton recognized it easily. “So, if you don’t need me, why are you running?”

As he chuckled under his breath, his eyes ranged over her. “What do you care if I leave? Aren’t there enough other men to admire you in Crescent City?”

“Stop it. I’m not trying to— Never mind.” Getting up, she scooped her car keys off the table. “If you’d rather go back to the motel and eat alone, fine. I’ll take you.” She made a move to stalk past him, but he caught her by the arm, and when she looked up, into his face, she realized he wasn’t nearly as unimpassioned as he’d implied.

“You know what I want from you,” he said. “If you want it, too, you don’t have to make me dinner. You
don’t have to view me as an equal. Hell, you don’t have to do anything at all. Just ask.”

He was determined to maintain the upper hand, at least when it came to any personal interaction between them. But what he didn’t understand was that she couldn’t justify such a shallow encounter. She’d never had one before; no way was she starting now. She wasn’t angling for a thrill, although there
was
that aspect. For some reason, she craved a real encounter with this man, something as honest as meeting him had been unexpected. “I’m not interested in a quick tumble.”

“Who said it had to be quick?” He sent her a lazy grin. “We’ve got all weekend. And despite my past, I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about. They tested me before my release.”

“Good to know, but I can’t accept your terms. Although not for the reasons you think.”

Two grooves formed between his eyebrows. “Then what do you want from me?”

His close proximity made her feel…odd, breathless, aroused. “Does it have to be so complicated? I want you to stay for dinner. That’s what I invited you to do, isn’t it?”

When his eyes lowered to her chest, she knew he was anything but unaffected. “If I stay, it won’t be for dinner.”

Their eyes met again and she saw what she hadn’t been able to see before—vulnerability, maybe even confusion, beneath a shield of male pride. That he hated feeling as needy as he did made her want to touch him and be touched by him all the more, if only to provide him with some comfort after what he’d been through. But she couldn’t respond to the emotions he evoked in her. She barely knew him. And even though the CDCR
hadn’t officially hired him, she
was
working with him. As a woman trying to be successful in a man’s world, a woman who already had the odds stacked against her, she’d always been careful to maintain her professionalism. So why, out of nowhere, was she tempted to indulge herself? With
him?

“Then I’m taking you home,” she said.

“That’s what I thought.” He responded with a careless smile, but that didn’t fool her. He was disappointed.

And so was she.

“T
hey also use a pendulum,” Peyton said as she drove. She was trying to get her mind back on business, back on the reason they’d gotten together in the first place, and stem the rush of hormones.

Virgil glanced over at her. “What are you talking about?”

He hadn’t spoken since they’d left. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, she drew a deep breath. “The Hells Fury. You asked me about their symbols. I didn’t mention the pendulum, but they use that symbol, too. I’m guessing it represents the passage of time, the steady march toward death.”

“Like in ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’”

“You’re familiar with it?”

Leaning his head back on the seat, he closed his eyes. “‘I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.’”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The fact that he’d memorized the opening suggested he’d identified with the story in some way, but that came as no surprise, considering his
situation. She turned down the radio. “That must’ve been uplifting material to read in prison.”

“I read it in high school, too.”

“So…you graduated?”

“I would have if my murder trial hadn’t interfered,” he said dryly. “I was in my senior year when they carted me off.”

Because it’d grown dark, Peyton had less fear that they might be spotted by someone who would later point a finger at “Simeon” and blow his cover. His glasses sat in his hat on the console between them. She was glad he could relax, but the quiet of the countryside they passed on their way into town made her feel as if they were just as isolated as they’d been at her house. “Did you get your G.E.D.?”

“Not for several years. I was too busy trying to get myself D.O.A.”

“D.O.A. is dead on arrival.”

“I know.”

She slowed for a traffic light. “You were suicidal?”

“Not in the classic sense. Just self-destructive, fatalistic. I was looking for trouble, and I expected the trouble I found to be the kind that would put me out of my misery for good.”

“It wouldn’t be easy to deal with being falsely imprisoned.”

“I was consumed by rage.” His hand curled into a fist. Obviously the rage hadn’t left him. But if his mother and uncle had betrayed him as badly as it appeared, he had every right to feel angry. Peyton couldn’t think of anything that would cut a child more deeply. “Is that when you joined The Crew?”

“Yes.”

The light turned green, so she gave her SUV some
gas. “Why’d you pick them and not some other gang, like the Aryan Brotherhood?”

He stared out the window, toward the whitecaps of the sea. “The Crew is an offshoot of the AB. My first cellie was a member.”

“Thanks to the Hells Fury, The Crew doesn’t have much of a presence at Pelican Bay.”

“I know. You’re lucky. They’re worse than all the other gangs.”

“I doubt any gang could be worse than the Hells Fury. They live for violence. But I’ll take your word for it.” Peyton found herself less than eager to reach the motel. “So did your cellie actively recruit you?”

“He didn’t have to. He knew, once I’d had enough ass whippings, I’d come to him. And he was right. After a few months, I was burning to take out a few of the bastards who’d jacked me up. The Crew seemed the perfect network to help me do that.”

“The other inmates were giving you trouble?”

“That’s a euphemism if ever I heard one,” he said with a laugh. “I was getting the shit kicked out of me almost every day by big gorilla-like guys who were at least a decade older and had been pumping iron for years.” His lips slanted in a bitter smile, as if he was picturing it all. “That was quite a rude awakening after attending a nice suburban high school. But it wasn’t until one guy—a deviant called Bruiser—tried to make a bitch out of me that I actually joined The Crew.”

Making a “bitch” or a “punk” out of him was basically turning him into a sex slave. His youth and good looks would’ve made him particularly vulnerable to such “daddies,” and every prison had them—men who used sex to punish or control. Peyton did her best to keep that type of behavior out of Pelican Bay. The entire staff did.
But she knew it went on despite their efforts. Too many inmates pretended that whatever relationships they had were mutually agreeable. Reporting the abuse could get them maimed or killed, so they refused to take the risk, which made it very difficult to punish the offenders. Virgil was telling her that, at eighteen, he’d chosen to die fighting rather than become someone’s “bitch” or “punk.”

They’d arrived at the street where she had to let him out. “The ‘blood out’ thing didn’t bother you?”

“I thought I was going to die either way. And I was getting used to blood, mine and everyone else’s. Being able to fight was all there was to take pride in. Once I learned how, I decided to be the best, the one everyone else feared. I didn’t think about the future. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have one.” She stopped when she reached the corner and he opened his door. “I wish I’d considered what my actions would mean to Laurel. But I was so…in the moment. Venting my anger and taking revenge—that was all that mattered.”

Now that he’d matured and calmed down, he’d do anything to change that; she could tell. But even if he could go back, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to take a different path. Not with his temperament and determination. “You’re still here, right? The Crew must’ve given you the protection you needed.”

“They did at first. But after a while protection wasn’t the point. My reputation was enough to keep me from being ambushed. It was the friendships I enjoyed. They were my only family for fourteen years. That’s what I’ll miss.”

If he thought she’d be shocked to hear him speak kindly of men who belonged to a violent criminal organization, he was wrong. She knew why gangs formed,
how close they could become. It wasn’t always for nefarious reasons. Some poor souls simply had nothing else, nothing better, anyway. “What will they do when they realize you’re out?”

“It’ll be a hell of a lot worse than a B.O.S., if that’s what you’re thinking. I know too much.”

“A B.O.S.?”

“Beat on sight. I’ve been gone almost a week. They’re probably already on my trail.”

Peyton let the car idle. “Some people don’t understand how you can love someone who does terrible things. They don’t understand the complexity of human nature, on both sides of a relationship like that.”

“Most of the men in The Crew are the worst people I’ve ever known. I hated them then. I hate them now.” He put on the hat and glasses, even though he was unlikely to run into anyone who’d be able to see him clearly enough to identify him later. “But there were a few others—” his voice changed, grew soft “—men I admired and considered my brothers.”

And yet even these “brothers” would very likely kill him if they ever found him. Which meant he’d be betrayed by his family again.

He closed the door as if that was that, but she lowered the passenger’s side window. “Virgil?”

When he turned back, she nearly told him that she’d seen contradictions like the one he’d mentioned and empathized with the conflict he must be feeling. But he didn’t need her empathy. If she couldn’t allow herself to be a closer friend—or whatever—to him, she’d only become another contradiction, one more person guaranteed to let him down.

“Never mind. I hope you enjoy your dinner.”

He studied her for a moment. “It was nice just looking at you,” he said.

Peyton waited for him to laugh or shrug or indicate in some other way that he wasn’t quite sincere, but he didn’t. She was pretty sure he’d paid her a legitimate compliment, no censure or challenge or sarcasm involved. But by the time she believed it, he was too far away for her to respond.

Shifting the transmission into gear, she drove off but kept one eye on her rearview mirror until she could no longer see him. “You’re an interesting man, Virgil Skinner,” she murmured. A small part of her—maybe even a big part—wished she could’ve been irresponsible enough to sleep with him.

But she hadn’t become chief deputy warden by being irresponsible.

The last thing Rick Wallace wanted was to fly back to Colorado. Thanks to the long drive from Crescent City, he’d spent only a few hours with his wife and kids. But he needed to make sure Laurel Hodges and her children remained safe. If anything happened to her, Skinner would lose his motivation, and if Skinner lost his motivation, the whole operation would fall apart.

Mercedes, his wife, walked into the bedroom carrying a basketful of laundry and frowned when she saw him. “What are you doing in a suit?”

Having just showered and dressed, he straightened his tie. “I’m heading to the airport.”

“What?”
She dumped the laundry onto the bed. It used to be that she had all the housework done by the weekend, so she could devote her time to him, but that’d changed. Nowadays when he asked her about the state of the house, she said there wasn’t much reason to keep
it perfect when she and the kids were the only ones who ever saw it. She said even when he
was
home he walked past them as if they were inanimate objects and not real people, always thinking about his work.

Hoping to finish getting ready before she could really lay into him, he slipped into the bathroom. He didn’t like it when Mercedes was upset. That nasty edge to her voice ground on his nerves, making him wonder why he’d ever married her. If not for the kids, they probably would’ve split up years ago. But since they had children, that wasn’t an option. Growing up, he’d suffered through the divorce of his own parents and had promised himself that he’d never make the mistakes they had. And he wouldn’t. Especially considering the financial consequences….

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, but he’d said it so many times it was an automatic response that no longer held any meaning for either of them.

“Today, when you said you left Crescent City because you missed us and wanted to be with us, I thought…”

He glanced at her in the mirror, saw her nostrils flare.

“Well, I assumed you were home for the rest of the weekend. And you
know
I thought that.”

The last sentence dripped with accusation. In order to sidestep a major blowout, he decided to play dumb. “So? What are you getting at?”

“I’m wondering why you weren’t courteous enough to disabuse me of that notion.”

Because she would’ve started pouting and might’ve refused him sex.

“Rick?” Mercedes prompted when he didn’t respond.

Here we go again….
“I didn’t know I’d have to leave tonight.”

It was easier to lie, but he’d been too obvious about it. The disappointment he’d created by setting her up for this reversal made her pounce.

“That’s not true,” she snapped, coming to the door.

He didn’t bother arguing. “Sorry.”

Ignoring his second empty apology, she blocked his path and he realized it hadn’t been very smart to let her box him in. “Can’t we have even a partial weekend as a family?” she asked.

“We had dinner. That was more than we would’ve had if I’d stayed in Crescent City.”

“
Dinner?
You think I should be happy with one meal together in a whole week?”

“We had more than a meal.”

She rolled her eyes at his meaningful grin. “You were home just long enough to lift my nightgown so you could get off, and now you’re leaving.”

He should’ve gone to the trouble of pleasuring her. Then maybe she wouldn’t be acting like this. But he’d been so preoccupied…. “Better your nightgown than someone else’s, right?” He chuckled as if he was joking, but the anger that flashed in her eyes told him he’d been made on that, too.

“What are you saying?”

He sobered. “I’m saying that at least I still come home for it.”
Usually.
“That’s something.”

“It’s not enough. Not anymore.”

“Come on, Mercedes.” He hung his head, implying that he felt bad, but he didn’t. Not really. They fought so often, he’d grown numb. “Please?”

“Please, what? Please don’t ask for anything? Please don’t expect you to behave like a husband? Please don’t
demand that you do your part in our relationship or as the father of this family?”

Jerking his head up, he shot her a look that said he was tired of hearing the same old complaints. “I don’t have time for this. I’m going to miss my plane.”

She didn’t move out of the way. “I want you to quit your job.”

He gaped at her. “Are you kidding? How would we pay the bills?”

“You could find something else.”

“Nothing that’ll pay what I’m making now!”

“Then I’ll go to work, too. I need to get out, anyway, make a change. I’d do anything to fix what’s wrong. Our children need to see more of their father.
I
need…” She let her words dangle, probably because she knew how selfish they sounded. “I can’t take the neglect, Rick.”

“Neglect?”
He grimaced. “If you want to get off and I’m not around, use a damn dildo. Maybe you need to grow up and start fulfilling yourself a little bit instead of relying on me.”

“I’m not talking about sex!”

“Then what are you talking about? You think it’s
my
fault we’re having trouble? How do you know it’s not you? Maybe you don’t like that I have to work so much, but I don’t like that you’re so needy. It makes my skin crawl.”

He actually shuddered. The minute that registered on her face, he wished he could take it back. It was the stress—the pressure he was under. Maybe Mercedes had gained some weight, and maybe she’d let herself go in other ways. He couldn’t help finding her drab and worn compared to the women who caught his eye. Compared to Peyton, who particularly appealed to him. But he still loved her. Didn’t he?

“I wasn’t needy until I married you,” she said. “You made me like this.” He heard their youngest daughter come into the living room then, yelling “Daddy!” and Mercedes dropped her voice. “And sometimes I hate you for it.”

“You
hate
me?”