Well, everybody except one woman. The one who’d refused to follow her leader’s hands-off mandate only to end up running through the common area screaming and less one eye after trying to catch Jamie off-guard in the shower with a homemade shiv.
Jamie wasn’t the toughest, biggest woman, but she was underestimated. Bonus, the idiot had wailed like a doomsday siren through the prison. Jamie couldn’t buy advertising like that.
Her lip curled at the memory. The whole thing had been distasteful, to say the least. She didn’t have the time or resources to plan a proper Puzzle Killer death, and she hadn’t relished piercing the woman’s eye with a sharpened plastic spoon.
But, it had to be done. Plain old, boring murder was such a common thing for the residents of her cell block, so she’d had to send a more powerful message. They didn’t fear death, but nobody wants to be blind.
She knew from gangster movies that removing a tongue implied the victim was a snitch. Moonpie wasn’t a snitch, so she’d gone with the eye and let her fellow inmates interpret the act any way they liked. Like art.
Jamie heard the television channel change behind her. They’d waited until she’d walked twenty feet away before switching it.
Still got it.
She moved toward a nearby guard with purpose, her prison fatigues almost flattering on her hard, square frame. At fifty, she still had the body of a model’s clothing dummy. The prison’s best hairdresser, incarcerated for stabbing her boyfriend in the neck with shears, kept her shoulder-length naturally blonde hair hovering perfectly above her shoulders. She found it odd the prison allowed that woman to handle shears, but Stabby McHaircut was almost always available for an appointment.
The guard watched her approach, the dark-skinned woman’s expression growing more sour with every step. The screw’s mother’s bank account had recently doubled, but she still didn’t like being called on to payback for her payoff.
“Hey, Deja,” Jamie purred, arriving in earshot.
“Hey, Jamie. What can I do for your highness today? Will you be stripping anyone for parts? Poppin’ out a few eyes? You know it’s cuz of me you ain’t die in the hole for that mess.”
“I need to make a phone call to my lawyer.”
“You need? Or you want?”
“Depends. Does your momma need an extra five thousand dollars?”
Deja grew agitated and scanned the area. She leaned in and hissed her answer. “I don’t want to hear my momma’s name anywhere near your nasty lips.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Deja frowned. “Hold on. I ain’t said yes. I don’t trust you.”
Jamie let her head flop to the side, as if she were exasperated by the worries of a small child. “Sweetheart, I kill people. I don’t steal. I’m not a con. You can trust me with everything except your life.”
“Angel was a thief,” said Deja, mumbling as if to herself.
“Angel? Is that your daughter?”
“My daughter?” Deja barked the words too loud and had to sweep the room with a practiced prison guard glower to push the other inmates’ attentions from her. Mission accomplished, she turned back to Jamie. “Are you calling my daughter a thief?”
“No, I thought you were.”
“Angel isn’t my daughter. She’s the one you—” Deja flicked her finger near her eye and made a sound like popping champagne with her mouth.
Jamie blinked. “Oh. Was that her name?” It hadn’t occurred to her to ask. She’d always called the girl Moonpie due to her broad, pockmarked face.
She shrugged. “Then I did her a favor. They can release her. She’d make a crappy thief now, feeling her way around a house looking for the jewelry.”
Deja laughed and covered her mouth with her hand. “You’re bad.”
“Matter of opinion.”
Deja squinted at her. “Where’d you get all this money anyhow, if you don’t steal?”
Jamie smiled, pleased to talk about her work. It wasn’t as if she could share serial killer stories with strangers at bars. “You wouldn’t believe what rich men are willing to pay to have their wives killed. And really, that sum pales in comparison to what they’re willing to wire you once you tell them they’re next for being such a crappy husband.”
“Damn. And they don’t rat you out ‘cause you whacked their wife.”
“Right. At that point they just want to get back to life with their pregnant girlfriend.”
Deja pulled her lips together into a tight knot. “I hate men.”
“They are the pits.”
“Alright. I’ll getchu your lawyer. Follow me.”
Jamie followed Deja into a hall leading to the phone banks.
“You got five,” said Deja, holding up her hand, fingers splayed like the legs of a starfish. She stepped away for plausible deniability.
Jamie chose the cleanest-looking phone of the bunch and dialed, stretching her neck as she waited for the person on the other end of the line to approve the charges.
“Hello, Jamie,” said a man’s voice, smooth and buttery like an old-timey radio announcer.
“Hello, Sidney. I’m ready. We have to speed this up. I have things to do.”
“I thought I had another week? We’re still working on the accent.”
“No. I want to be out before this hurricane hits Northwest Florida.”
“You want out early for a hurricane?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask why?”
“It’s a long story. Oh, if I don’t get a glass of wine soon, I’m going to kill someone.”
“That I understand. I’ll have one waiting for you in the car. Cab?”
“Pinot.”
“Done. I’ll bump up the transfer date.”
“Thank you. Oh, and I need you to transfer five thousand dollars to the guard, Deja whatsherface.” Jamie lowered her voice. “Do you know her daughter’s name?”
“Who? The guard’s?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Jamie turned
