“Visiting hours start at noon,” she said. “You need to be there at eleven thirty so they can check your ID, do the cavity search, all that stuff.”
Miranda thought she was funny. I thought different. She shoved the paper in my direction. “Fill this out before you get there. They’ll want it from you at the gate.” I took the paper. “What about Darcy?”
The corners of her mouth flashed into a little smile. “You need someone to hold your hand?”
“No. I meant what are you going to do to find her?”
“It’s a scary place over there,” she said, still smiling. “All those mean, nasty men. I could get my sister to go with you. She’s thirteen, but she’s tough.”
“You treat all your clients like this?”
“Other than Russell, we don’t have any clients right now,” she said, the smile fading.
“Imagine.”
She waved a hand in the air. “Go. They won’t let you in if you’re late. I’ll work on tracking down Darcy.”
“Maybe your sister can help you out,” I said, turning to leave.
“Hey,” Miranda called out. “Noah?”
I opened the door. “What?”
“Say hi to your daddy.”
I slammed the door behind me.
NINE
Two blocks away from Miranda, I waved down a taxi. I didn’t know where Darcy was, but I had other things to worry about.
The cab went north out of the city. The irony was that California’s most violent prison sat on a beautiful plateau next to San Francisco Bay in one of the wealthiest counties in the state. For years there had been rumors that the state would sell the land to developers for billions and ship the prisoners to other prisons. But, so far, they remained incarcerated with an ocean view.
I looked at the paperwork Miranda had given me. Basic stuff about who I was and why I was visiting. Probably just to have a record of me in case I tried to break someone out.
Not likely.
The cab pulled to a halt outside the entrance. The driver turned around. “This is as far as I go. Bad luck to drive in there.”
I handed him the fare and tip. “Probably bad luck to walk in, too.”
“No doubt, man.”
The front of the prison looked like a city park. Big grassy lawns with palm trees. The parking lot was full, and there was a line at the main gate. A knot like a rock formed in my stomach as I got in line.
The guard greeted me with a big smile. She looked at my paperwork, nodded, asked me a few routine questions. She handed back my license, but kept the paperwork. “You’ll have exactly fifty minutes, sir. We’ll notify you when there are ten minutes left.” She upped the wattage in the smile. “Welcome to San Quentin.”
I walked through a metal detector and into an expansive courtyard. People talked casually, the prisoners identified by their bright yellow coveralls. Babies cried, toddlers ran in circles, and men and women held hands, trying to act like normal families. But the forced smiles and reserved actions told the real story.
I felt like I was entering some sort of deranged amusement park.
A guard explained to me that death row inmates were not allowed into the public areas, and I was directed through another gate and to a bank of windows down a narrow hall.
I didn’t argue.
I slid into a seat in front of the last window and my assisting guard told me that Mr. Simington would be along shortly. In the center of the window was a small circle with slats running through it, like in the box office of a movie theater.
Only this movie was real.
Sitting there by myself, the urge to run was greater than anything I’d ever felt. I had no place being there. I could live without meeting this man. My life would be no different. I owed nothing to him or to Darcy Gill. Nothing. Going through with this suddenly seemed like a ridiculous exercise in masochism, and I stood to get the hell out of there.
There was movement behind the window and a guard pulled back the chair on the other side of the clear panel.
I froze.
Run or sit?
I sat.
The guard moved away, and Russell Simington moved into view.
He was a little over six feet tall and well built, the yellow coveralls fitting him like a tailored business suit. I put him somewhere in his late fifties. Thick brown hair streaked with gray. The reading glasses he wore over his dark green eyes gave him an educated look. A nondescript nose. His skin was darker than I expected for someone in his
