as it struck the linoleum.
She drew in a breath then released it in a high-pitched scream—not that anyone would hear her. The morgue was in the basement of the hospital and soundproof because of the bone saw and other instruments Dr. Bernard used. But just in case Bob, the driver, had forgotten something and returned…
“Help! Help me!”
Although she struggled, the convict effortlessly manacled both her wrists in one big hand and clamped the palm of his other hand over her mouth again. His fingers cupped the edge of her jaw, his thumb reaching nearly to the nape of her neck.
“Shh…”
Holding her, he swung his legs over the gurney and kicked off the bag with a barely perceptible shudder. Although he’d lost his shirt somewhere, he wore jeans and prison-issue tan work boots. He was definitely an inmate—or he had been until his escape.
“No one’s coming,” he told her. “No one heard you scream.”
Oh, God, now this man—this escaped convict—knew that he could do whatever he wanted to her. He held her in a tight grasp that she couldn’t break despite how she struggled to free her wrists. Her weapon lay beyond her reach. She couldn’t protect herself from him and she couldn’t summon help.
Bob and Dr. Bernard would be returning. But would they come back from the prison in time to save her? This man hadn’t gone to the trouble of escaping Blackwoods so he could hang around the county morgue. And if he was desperate enough to risk a prison escape, he was capable of anything.
Even murder…
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She couldn’t afford to lose it…not now. If she couldn’t help herself, she wouldn’t be able to help Jed.
She would be of no use to her brother…if she were dead.
HIS HAND SHAKING WITH RAGE, Warden Jefferson James slammed the door to his private office. The force rattled the pictures on his wall, knocking his daughter’s graduation portrait askew. He couldn’t straighten it now; he couldn’t even look at Emily. Her pale blond hair and big blue eyes reminded him so much of her mother. He hadn’t been able to protect his wife from the real world. How had he thought he would be able to protect his daughter?
He turned his back on the wall of photos and stared out the window. The view of a cement wall topped with barbed wire rattled him, so he closed his eyes against it. He could leave here any time he wanted. Now. But he had to damn well keep it that way.
He dragged an untraceable cell phone out of his inside suit pocket and punched in a speed-dial number. “We have a problem.”
“We?” his partner scoffed.
“Yeah, we,” James snapped. “How the hell did you let an undercover DEA agent into Blackwoods?”
“You’re the warden,” he was needlessly reminded.
He knew, and at other times had relished, that he was the man in charge of one of the state’s biggest penitentiaries.
“I can’t turn prisoners away,” he replied, not without raising more suspicions than Blackwoods apparently already had since it had become the target of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.
“You can’t turn them away,” his partner agreed, “but you can get rid of them. We agreed you were going to get rid of Rowe Cusack.”
James ran his hand down his face, feeling the stubble and the lines and wrinkles of age and stress. “He left here in a body bag this morning.”
A breath of surprise came over the phone. “I can’t believe it was that easy for you to get rid of him,” his partner admitted. “Cusack’s one of the DEA’s best agents.”
“I’m not sure how easy it actually was,” James admitted, bile rising in his throat along with fear and regret over what making sure Cusack was really dead had forced him to do. If only there had been another way…
“But you said he left in a body bag.”
“Yeah, I’m just not sure he was really dead.” Doc had declared him dead, but then the old physician had acted so strangely. So suspiciously…
Another breath rattled the phone, this time a gasp of fear. “You better make sure he’s dead, or you have a problem.”
“We have a problem.”
“He doesn’t know about my involvement, but he knows what’s been going on in Blackwoods.”
James glanced out the window again, at that damn cement wall and barbed-wire fence. “How—how do you know that he figured anything out?”
“Because he’s a good agent and you just tried to kill him. He knows.”
“He might be dead.” That had been the plan, but had the plan really been carried out? James had seen all the blood on the floor of Cusack’s cell, but that didn’t mean the man had died from his wound.
“You better make damn sure he’s really dead. Or…”
“Or what?”
“He won’t be the only one dying,” James’s partner threatened.
A ragged sigh slipped through James’s lips. How had everything gone so wrong? “He already isn’t.”
“You killed someone else?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” His phone number was untraceable but he didn’t trust that his partner wasn’t recording the call. James had just learned how far he would go to cover his own ass; he suspected his partner would go just as far.
“You had someone else killed?”
He choked on the bile of his self-disgust. “I had to clean up the loose ends around here.”
“You better concentrate on the biggest loose end. Cusack.” His partner’s voice rose with panic. “Make damn sure he’s dead!”
The call disconnected, leaving Warden James with a dial tone and a pounding pulse. From the moment he had learned who the new inmate was, he’d known the DEA agent would prove dangerous. He just hadn’t realized how dangerous Rowe Cusack was.
Chapter Two
Macy closed her eyes. Maybe this was just another nightmare. It couldn’t be real. A dead body couldn’t come to life. She had imagined the whole thing.
Dreamed it.
But when she opened her eyes, the prisoner was still there, his blue gaze trained on her face. “I’m going to take my hand away,” he told her, his deep voice pitched low, “but I need you to stay calm.”
He wasn’t the only one. She needed to stay calm for herself, so she could figure out how to get the hell away from him and call authorities to apprehend him.
“Can you do that for me?” he asked.
She
