amid the sea of lush green. A wide-open blue sky spilled from the heavens as far as the eye could see, with only a puff of white here and there to disrupt the absolute infinity of pure blue color.
In the dream, Erin closed her eyes and spun around slowly. The tall grass tickled her ankles. It felt soft beneath her bare feet. The sweet smell was all around her. The scent of wildflowers…of rich, green grass…the smell of freedom—
“On your feet.”
Erin jolted awake, squinted through the darkness and tried to make out the silhouette hovering over her cot. Fear surged through her when a strong hand closed over her shoulder and shook her. Oh, God, what if Guard Roland had decided to make good on his threat? Or was it that inmate who seemed to have it in for her? Panic tightened around Erin’s chest. She wanted to scream, but the sound simply knotted in her throat.
“What—what’re you doing?” she managed to mumble around the lump of fear. It was well past midnight. The cellblock was deathly quiet.
“I said, on your feet,” the gruff voice repeated in a harsh whisper.
The voice was different. This wasn’t the guard who had threatened her. Relief washed over Erin as she scrambled from beneath the threadbare covers. Feeling her way, she pushed her feet into her shoes, stood and quickly righted her rumpled clothes.
The guard tugged first one hand then the other in front of her and handcuffed her wrists together. “Keep your mouth shut. I don’t want you waking up the whole damned block.”
He shined his flashlight in her face. Erin squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding light and nodded her understanding. The light vanished with a definite click. Where was he taking her at this time of night? What did he want? She frowned. Why had he handcuffed her? Before she could consider the questions further, the guard pushed her through the door, then closed and locked it behind him.
The rasp of leather soles on the concrete was the only sound as they passed cell after cell. The occasional cough or snore from a sleeping inmate splintered the dark silence from time to time, but no one roused enough to wonder or witness what was happening to Inmate 541-22.
Erin wanted desperately to ask where they were going, but fear kept her silent. Too many times she had seen inmates pay the price for disobedience. The guard had told her to keep her mouth shut, and she would. But, God help her, fear thudded in her heart, leaped in her pulse. How could she trust anyone in this place? The near darkness of the long corridor only served to sharpen her awareness of being locked up. How would she ever survive another four years and eight months here? Even the confined, sweaty odor of the place made her sick to her stomach.
At the final checkpoint, another guard opened the door leading from the cellblock. A dim circle of light from the desk lamp lit the female guard’s unsmiling features. The door slammed shut behind Erin and “her escort,” leaving her both relieved and anxious. Inside that cell she felt relatively safe from the evil that existed all around her, but at the same time she felt this pathetic world closing in on her in that six-by-nine cinder-block room.
Before they reached the main visitors area, the guard hesitated in front of one of the doors leading to an interview room. The same room where Erin had met with her lawyer on the two occasions he’d seen fit to show interest in her case.
“I’ll be waiting right here to take you back to your cell.” His words more warning than statement of fact, he opened the door and waited for her to enter the room.
“I don’t understand.” Erin felt the sudden, unbidden urge to run. “Why am I here?”
“Go on.” The guard gestured to the door. “You have a visitor.” This time his tone was clearly impatient, annoyed.
A visitor? For her? Had Jeff, the bastard, come to apologize? To tell her that this whole thing had been a huge misunderstanding? That she was free to go now? Erin almost laughed at that. He had used her. She gritted her teeth at the pain still simmering beneath the barely controlled surface she maintained. He had ruined her life, her career. Everything. She would never work in a position that required a security clearance again. And he had come out of the whole mess smelling like a rose. She had taken the fall for him. All his promises had been nothing more than lies.
Now she was paying the price for her naïveté.
Erin squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Whoever was here to see her in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be Jeff. It wouldn’t be her lawyer either. He had told her she was doomed from the beginning. Of course, Jeff had been the one who hired him. She had been such a fool.
The door closed with a loud clang behind her. Erin jerked at the sound of it locking. God, how she hated being locked up. As if on cue, the walls began to close in on her. How would she ever endure the remainder of her sentence? Her breath came in quick, shallow puffs. Fate and Jeff had left her without any choice. She was a prisoner and no one was going to rescue her as she’d foolishly prayed during her first month in this horrible place.
Calm down, she ordered herself. Focus on anything else. This room. She’d been here before. But this time it was only dimly lit. Since it was the middle of the night, no light shone in through the window on the far wall. A singular bulb spilled its sparse light over the empty table in the center of the room. The two mismatched chairs were vacant.
“Have a seat.”
Startled, Erin turned toward the sound of the voice. She didn’t recognize the tall, dark-haired man who stepped into the pool of light near the table. He’d been waiting there and she hadn’t even noticed. And she would definitely have remembered meeting a man as handsome as this one. Five o’clock shadow darkened his chin and chiseled jaw. The white cotton shirt he wore was a bit wrinkled. His jeans were slightly faded, worn enough to be comfortable. He looked rumpled, as if he had traveled a very long way or had just awakened and pulled on the same clothes he’d worn the day before.
Since he made no effort to introduce himself Erin didn’t ask. She crossed the room and settled into the chair on her side of the table that stood between them. She was a prisoner, without any rights to speak of. When she was told to jump, she did so. Erin had no intention of doing anything that might keep her in this place one minute longer than necessary.
The man sat down and began flipping through the file on the table before him. “My name is John Logan, Ms. Bailey, I’ve come here to offer you a proposition.” His gaze settled on hers then, watching, analyzing.
His eyes were disturbing, too seeing, and so brown they were almost black. Erin tamped down the anticipation that welled inside her. She would not get her hopes up that this man could somehow rescue her from the living hell her bad choices had plunged her into.
“It’s the middle of the night,” she countered. “Isn’t this an awfully odd hour to discuss business, Mr. Logan?”
Erin had learned the hard way that business conducted after hours was usually a little shady. Besides, she didn’t know this man. What kind of proposition could he possibly want to offer her? Could he be from the district attorney’s office? Maybe they had decided that pursuing Jeff was worthwhile after all. But her visitor’s manner of dress and the fact that it was definitely past business hours seemed to negate that possibility.
He closed the file and leaned back in his chair to assess her. Erin held his gaze. She would not give him the satisfaction of looking away. She was in prison, for God’s sake, what else could he do to her? Then she remembered the threats lurking within these very walls and she shuddered. There were too many despicable and
