Inside

Caring about me puts you in danger. Don’t you understand?” He lowered his voice, as if he spoke the next words grudgingly. “And it gives me so much more to lose.”

“You’re not afraid of losing me. Not like that. You’re afraid to care in the first place.”

“I can’t care. Not right now.”

She remembered the tenderness with which he’d touched her on Saturday night. Maybe he didn’t want to feel anything, but he did. He was as susceptible to love and fear and pain as any other man.

“Nice try.” Even if his statement was true, she didn’t know what to do about it. She felt drawn to him, and that desire wasn’t going away. No matter how sudden, inexplicable or ill-timed it was, she wanted to be with him. His past didn’t change what she felt. Because logic had no place in this.

Footsteps behind her indicated that the nurse had returned with the doctor. Crossing to the sink to wash her hands, she motioned for them to take over as if she’d merely been helping out in the nurse’s absence.

The doctor worked on Virgil for several minutes while she watched, but when he began to suture the hole in Virgil’s stomach, she had to turn away. It made her feel faint, even though she wasn’t usually queasy around blood. “Will he be okay?” she asked, finally asking the question that burned in her mind.

Dr. Pendergast continued to stitch while he spoke. “He’ll be good as new.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Tell your friend she can rest easy. He’ll have another scar to add to all the rest, and he’ll probably wind up in the SHU for fighting, but he’ll live.”

She folded her arms. “He’s not going to the SHU. No one starts a fight that’s four on one.”

“He did almost as much damage to them as they did to him,” the doctor pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t start the fight. And he wasn’t the one with a weapon.”

The blood covering Dr. Pendergast’s gloves seemed at odds with his cavalier attitude. “That’s not what the others are saying. They’re saying he started the fight, that they took the shank away from him.”

Because the one with the weapon would get into more trouble than the others. They had good reason to make the claim.

Peyton didn’t argue. This wasn’t any of the doctor’s affair. She’d handle the situation herself.

“I’ll get to the bottom of it,” she promised. Then she left to see what had happened to Weston and the other two. Apparently Buzz hadn’t sustained more than a few bruises. If he’d caused this fight, he deserved more, but she felt somewhat vindicated once she visited his pals. Westy had a busted nose, a fat lip and a cut on the eye that required a couple of stitches. Ace Anderson, Westy’s cell mate, cradled a swollen hand in his lap. And Doug Lachette had what he swore were broken ribs as well as the more obvious bloody mouth and lost tooth.

“Way to hold your own,” she murmured, silently applauding Virgil as she left the infirmary. But she knew the next time a fight broke out, someone might be carried to the morgue in a body bag.

And that someone could just as easily be Virgil.

23

Wallace’s car was sitting in her drive when Peyton returned home. After the day she’d spent, he was the last person she wanted to see. Especially since she’d already made it clear that she preferred he go back to Sacramento. Why hadn’t he gone? What made him think he could hang out at her place indefinitely?

The fact that he was still here felt like an invasion of privacy. But she knew he wouldn’t understand why. She’d left him and Virgil alone in the house when she went to work as if she was fine with it—but she was more fine with Virgil being in her space than Wallace.

That she preferred Virgil seemed crazy, even to her. She knew Rick better. And Rick didn’t have a past.

“God, what’s going on with me?” she moaned. Then she collected her briefcase and purse from the car and took a deep breath before heading to the house. She was tempted to march up to Wallace and demand he pull Virgil from the prison. But Virgil would never forgive her if she did. He’d blame her if he was brought up on charges and sentenced to another prison term, or if Laurel ended up getting hurt. He preferred to handle this his own way and, while she respected that, she felt torn about his methods.

So what should she do? What could she do? Let Operation Inside run its course? Allow Virgil to continue risking his life? Or bring it all to a stop—and leave Crescent City without a job?

She wished the warden would play the heavy, take the decision out of her hands. He had more power than she did. But there wasn’t any chance of that. Fischer had decided to support the CDCR and was doing it with his eyes closed.

“Here we go,” she muttered as she climbed the stairs to her deck.

Rick was pacing in her living room. He was on the phone, in the middle of a heated argument, and barely turned to look at her when she came in.

Other than giving him a short wave, she ignored him, too, and went into the kitchen, where she dumped her belongings on the counter before opening the freezer. What was she going to have for dinner? She wished she’d gone out. If she’d known her company hadn’t left, she would have, if only to delay her return.

“You stupid bitch!” Rick yelled. “You can’t leave California! Don’t you dare! I’ll fight you every step of the way! Those are my kids, too.”

Flinching at his language and his anger, Peyton rolled her eyes. She shouldn’t have to put up with this. What was it he’d said about his divorce being less acrimonious than his parents’? That didn’t seem likely. And, lucky her, she got to hear this latest battle….

Unable to tolerate it, she shut the freezer and snatched up her purse. Rick didn’t even notice when she left. He had only one thing on his mind—verbally destroying his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Head down, she hurried to her car and peeled out of the drive. She told herself she was going to Michelle’s. She needed a break, a chance to think about something else. But she didn’t actually go to her friend’s. She went into town to purchase a veggie burger. Then she turned around and drove right past Michelle’s house—and all the way to the prison.

The sound that woke Laurel in the middle of the night wasn’t very loud. Just a creak, really. And yet…it roused her from a deep sleep.

It’s the marshal. Every night when she retired, Jimmy Keegan, the U.S. marshal who’d been staying with her since Rick Wallace left, called his wife, watched another hour of TV, then retired. They’d only been together for three days, but they’d already established this routine. Probably because there wasn’t much else to do. It wasn’t as if they could go anywhere. Although Keegan slipped out occasionally for very brief periods, to buy them a treat or some more milk, he wouldn’t even let the kids play in the yard because it was too risky. He was that strict.

Laurel didn’t mind. She felt safe for the first time in a long while. Vigilant as he was, she couldn’t imagine anyone getting past him, so she disregarded whatever had disturbed her and allowed her eyes to drift shut.

Shuffling, coming from the direction of the laundry room, made her eyes snap open again. What was going on?

A sliver of moonlight filtered through the blinds, falling over her son, who was sleeping on the twin bed against the wall. Mia curled against her in the double bed. Her daughter’s warmth was reassuring. Both Jake and Mia were fine. But something was wrong….

What time was it?

Late.

Careful to move very slowly so she wouldn’t wake Mia, she reached over to the nightstand to get her cell phone. The rental house in which they were staying had been furnished when they arrived, but very sparsely. No clocks or pictures hung on the walls. Only the furniture had been provided—the kitchenette set, the sofa, recliner and TV in the living room, the beds, dressers and nightstands in the bedrooms.

Sure enough, it was 2:30 a.m. Late, as she’d thought.

Creak…

She caught her breath. That had to be Jimmy, didn’t it?

Of course. If The Crew had followed her and Rick Wallace that first night, they would’ve struck before now.