Trust Me (13 page)

"I'm not talking about Burke--not exclusively, anyway. I'm talking about living our lives the way we do."

Skye was about to throw out a sour cream container but hesitated in midmotion. She didn't see what they did at The Last Stand as getting carried away; she saw it as survival. Each case meant a lot to someone--health, safety, life and limb. She nearly said, "At what point do we decide a life is too much trouble to save?" But Sheridan's tortured expression quelled the impulse.

"Is it too much for you, Sher?" she asked. "Are you having second thoughts about The Last Stand? The sacrifice and risks involved?"

Sheridan didn't deny it as quickly as Skye had expected. She actually seemed to consider the question.

"Sometimes." A spark of defiance brought her chin up. "I know we're providing an important service. I believe in our cause. But I'd be lying if I said I don't wish I could be as oblivious as all the people out there who've never been touched by violence, who don't have the kind of memories we do, or..."

Skye tossed the sour cream container in the bag. "Or who simply don't care?"

"Exactly."

Understanding what was at the root of Sheridan's comments, Skye offered her a sympathetic frown. "Sher, you have to quit torturing yourself."

Skye had to live with the consequences of Burke's actions--and now, his imminent release--but at least she didn't have to live with the belief that she was somehow responsible for an attack that had cost the life of a friend and nearly killed her, too. "We've talked about this before, millions of times.

What happened to Jason wasn't your fault."

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"He wouldn't have been there without me." There was no detectable emotion in her voice--but, obviously, the tragedy still weighed heavily on her heart. Sheridan always came back to the same issue. She couldn't get beyond it.

"You were just talking to him, getting to know him," Skye said. "It was completely innocent."

"Innocent? I was trying to make his older brother jealous. Cain was the one I really wanted, Skye. Instead, I cost him his only sibling and he hasn't spoken to me since."

"Tom didn't cost him anything! You were barely sixteen, Sher! You meant no harm. You were playing normal boy-girl games when a man showed up with a gun, opened the door of the truck and shot you both. Out of the blue. For no reason. It was senseless and random and could've happened to anyone."

"Jason wouldn't have been there without me!"

"Sher--" Helpless in the face of her friend's pain, Skye didn't know what more she could say. Their pasts intruded again and again. It was their reality, the kind of reality they wanted to help others avoid.

With a sniff, Sheridan sat straighter. "I'm sorry. I'm okay." She'd gone pale talking about it, but she was moving again, cleaning up Jane Burke's garbage. "I'm tired, that's all. I don't think about Jason unless I'm tired."

It was a lie. Skye knew Sheridan thought about him all the time.

Usually, she just covered it better. "Let's get rid of this so we can go to bed."

Sheridan nodded, but when Skye came back from taking out the garbage, she found her friend sitting in the same spot, staring into space.

"Sher?"

She blinked, then focused as if she hadn't realized Skye had ever left.

"Don't you want to spray some sanitizer?"

"Of course. It's under the sink." She stood to get it, but even after they'd finished cleaning, Sheridan wasn't herself. Skye was so worried about her she brought up the one subject she really didn't want to talk about, only because she knew it might cheer up her friend.

"I have a date for the fund-raiser."

An expectant smile curved Sheridan's lips. "Who?"

"Guess."

"You asked Detective Willis?"

Skye could see the ghosts of Sheridan's past being forced back into the shadows of her mind and felt a measure of relief. "Yes."

"He's not back with his wife, then?"

"I'm sure he isn't or he wouldn't have agreed to go with me."

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"What's happening with his ex?"

The question dimmed Skye's excitement. David wasn't in love with Lynnette--Skye was positive of that. He hadn't been for a long time. But neither could he seem to let her go. "We don't talk about her." They hadn't talked much at all, not since he'd gone back to Lynnette after the first divorce.

"Maybe there's nothing to say. Maybe she's history."

"I doubt it." Skye knew it couldn't be that simple or David would've come over last night. She could tell he'd wanted to. "So who's going to be your companion for the evening?"

A little color returned to Sheridan's cheeks as she laughed and threw up her hands. "I'm determined to come up with someone, but I haven't figured out who. The only men in my life are the ones I'm trying to help other women escape. I might have to hire a paid escort!"

"Maybe you should ask your divorced neighbor," Skye teased. "He provided me with such a wonderful time at the Christmas party."

"No way. Charlie drops by often enough as it is."

"Maybe you should suggest him to Jasmine."

"I don't think she'll be back by Saturday."

Skye sobered instantly. "Things aren't going well in Ft. Bragg?"

Sheridan's brief flash of happiness disappeared. "They found the girl's dress."

A knot formed in the pit of Skye's stomach. "Anything else?"

"Not so far."

"How's Jasmine managing?" "Jasmine's convinced she's dead." That said it all. "So.. .not well." Sheridan's mouth formed a straight line. "No different than us, I guess."

Oliver Burke waited patiently for Victor Romey to make his way through the fifty or sixty men who were playing basketball, lifting weights or milling around in the yard. He didn't like Romey, but during the past three years they'd done a fair amount of business together. How else was he going to manage in a prison so violent it had been nicknamed The Arena? And Romey had contacts, could get things Oliver couldn't. Extra paper. Pens.

Chocolate. Information. It was the information Oliver craved most. It made him feel powerful despite his incarceration. But he had to pay handsomely for every tidbit.

"You find it yet?" He glanced up at the elevated catwalk bolted to the outside wall, where several guards watched all the inmates, rifles at the ready. "The badges," as the other inmates called them, had to be particularly vigilant in the yard. If there was trouble, it was usually here. Because of the 84

potential for violence, Oliver preferred the library or the small office in which he performed dental work for the other prisoners. That was the reason he'd been sent to San Quentin instead of somewhere else. He only came out to the yard if he needed to talk to Vic.

Vic spat at the ground. "I'm still working on it."

It didn't sound as if he was trying very hard. "What's going on? I paid you for the information two months ago."

"It's not easy. She's not listed, and she uses a post office box for her mail."

"I thought you had ways of getting around that."

"Takes time. I can give you her office address, if that helps."

Oliver rolled his eyes. "I can get that through directory assistance.

Why would I pay you?"

"As long as you can find her, why do you need her home address?"

"Because I do. What is this, twenty questions? What happened to discretion?"

Victor chuckled softly. "Discretion. That's a good one."

"So you'll get it?"

"When I can."

Fighting the hatred that suddenly washed over him, Oliver gritted his teeth. He'd already paid Vic. "Are you stalling?"

Vic's eyes narrowed and Oliver nervously stepped back. He had to watch himself. Avoid making enemies. Especially now.

"Did you just call me a liar, Ollie?" Vic breathed.

"No.. .no, of course not," Oliver said, but the placating words tasted bitter in his mouth. Ollie? He was better than Vic, better than all the rest of the prisoners and even the guards. He'd graduated from dental school, had established a successful practice. These guys were losers--dope addicts and thugs. Most had never even been able to hold down a job.

But he'd get back at Vic later. If a man had enough patience, there were ways. He always evened the score.

"I'm anxious to get what I paid for, that's all." Oliver's gaze roved over the crowd as he tried to determine whether Vic had any friends close by who might spring at him with a homemade weapon. "I'm out in two days."

"And you're still worried about her damn address? Shit, man, she must be pretty important to you."

She was important. Extremely important. Skye had cost him everything. He wouldn't forget that. "I owe her... some money."

"Right." Vic laughed again, then quickly sobered. "Tell you what, Ollie. I'll get you her address--as soon as you give me a little something in 85

return."

Oliver eyed him warily. "I've already paid."

"I'm afraid it's gonna cost you more than we originally agreed."

Standing with his back to the cinder-block wall, Oliver studied the men around him even more carefully.

"Not money," Vic went on. "That's not good enough this time."

"What, then?" Oliver asked. "Smokes?"

Vic leaned in close and whispered, "Get me a boulder."

Oliver stiffened in surprise. "Crack? You want me to get you drugs?"

Vic's eyes remained hard and glittery. "Don't sound so shocked."

"But.. .I am shocked. I'm not involved in the drug trafficking that goes on in here. I never have been, and you know it. Why are you asking me?"

"No one's really watching you right now. You're a short-timer, eh?

Anyway, it's the only way you can redeem yourself, snitch."

"Snitch" made Oliver's pulse race. How did Victor know about his deal with the San Francisco police? The detectives had promised they wouldn't say a word or make a move until he was free. Informing on someone, especially while he was on the inside, could get him killed.

Or was that the point?

Oliver couldn't trust anyone not to turn on him. Except Jane.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, feigning bewilderment.

Victor's mouth twitched. "Right. You're walkin' outta here on Friday

'cause they like you."

"I'm getting out on parole." But he wouldn't be going anywhere, even to work in the prison dental office, if they caught him with drugs. They'd revoke his parole, maybe send him to the Adjustment Center on a rule violation, and he'd rot there for as long as they wanted.

He couldn't let that happen. San Quentin was killing him a day at a time. The stench of the place already seemed to seep from his pores. He wondered if he'd ever wake without the memory of it.

Victor scuffed the dirt, spat again. "See that smokestack over there?"

Oliver glanced at the green pipe protruding from the roof of North Block. He knew it originated from the infamous gas chamber. Everyone did.

"What about it?"

"That's the only way I'm gettin' outta here."

"You're not condemned."

"I will be. They're bringing new charges against me. And these will stick."

Oliver didn't care. The sooner they killed Vic, the better. As far as he 86

was concerned it'd save him the trouble. "They don't gas people anymore,"

he said, unmoved. "They use lethal injection."

"What's the difference, smart guy? They gonna kill me, right? I got nothin' to lose."

Oliver was smaller than Vic, smaller than most guys. He shrank back to make Vic believe he was frightened of him. "We've always had a good relationship. I've paid you a lot over the years."

"So? Now someone else is paying me more." He kicked a pebble that hit Oliver's shin. "Get me what I want."

The stinging pain spread through Oliver's body. As he watched the rock roll to one side, he almost didn't notice that Vic was walking away. "I can't," he called after him. "I don't even know how."

"You'll figure it out."

But that would risk everything! "I don't understand. Why are you turning on me?"

"Turning on you?" He laughed without mirth. "Who turned on who, Ollie? Wasn't Johnny Pew your friend? Didn't he trust you when he told you what he done?" He made a tsking sound. "It's a damned shame you have no loyalty, that's what it is, a damned shame."

Oliver's mind stumbled over itself, searching for a solution. Vic was setting him up. If he got the drugs, someone would tip off the guards, he'd be caught and his parole would be suspended. If he didn't get the drugs, someone would stab him before he could walk out the front gates. 'This isn't right," he yelled after Vic. "I didn't snitch on anyone."

"Just be sure you don't snitch on me, or the only way you 're gettin'

out of here is in a body bag."

87

Miranda Dodge had a Web site.

David skipped lunch with Tiny and one of the other detectives to view the photos she had posted, most of which were taken years earlier, while she was at the height of her modeling career. Tall, with auburn hair, Ms. Dodge had a face and figure reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's. Very curvy. Big-busted. A build that hadn't always been an asset. She'd been trying to break into modeling during the nineties, when Kate Moss set the standard and women were starving themselves to achieve the "waif look.

She hadn't gotten as far as she would've liked. The spread in Playboy was extensive--five pages of her in various stages of undress, standing beneath a waterfall, swimming in a tropical pond, lying on the beach covered only in sand. But she hadn't appeared in any other major publications. David guessed she kept her Playboy pictures on her site, despite the fact that they were rather dated, simply to build demand for what she was doing now-- selling a workout video and diet plan with her own label.

He read through her guest book, which contained entries from the visitors to her site. Most were men, drooling over the nude pictures. One comment came from a teenage girl interested in being introduced to Hugh Hefner and getting her own "start in the biz."

Ms. Dodge had a blog, too, which she used to promote her weight-loss products. She wrote about the number of calories burned in her daily workouts, what she did during each session, even listed the foods she ate.