LITMIR.BIZ

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      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 nodded.

      “Not that you’ve been irrational,” he admitted. “In fact you’ve been quite resourceful.” His blue eyes narrowed as he studied her. Then he slid his hand down from her lips to cup her jaw, his palm warm against her skin. “You’re smart.”

      She nodded again but remained silent. No one had heard her scream, so when she opened her mouth next, she needed to speak calmly and rationally and engage him in conversation without arousing his anger or distrust. She had to stall him until someone came—either Bob or Dr. Bernard.

      After clearing the fear from her voice, she praised him. “You’re smart, too. Very smart.”

      His lips curved into a slight grin, as if he were totally aware and amused by her tactic. “How do you know that?”

      “No one has ever escaped Blackwoods before.” She hadn’t believed it possible or she might have considered using this ploy to help Jed escape.

      “I didn’t do it alone.”

      She glanced down at the empty body bag. “Someone else escaped with you?”

      “Not with me. But he helped me.”

      “How?” she asked. “Tell me every detail.” And in the time it would take him to brag about his successful plan, Dr. Bernard or Bob might return…if she were lucky.

      And if she were very lucky, she might figure out a way to help her brother as well as herself. Maybe her helping apprehend an escaped convict would award Jed more privileges in prison, like more meetings with his lawyer in order to work on his appeal.

      “You would like that,” the man said, his grin widening, “you’d like to stall me until someone else shows up, someone who actually might hear you scream this time.”

      Was he going to give her a reason to scream? Did he intend to hurt her? Fear rushed back, choking her so that she couldn’t deny the truth he spoke.

      He nodded as if agreeing to something. “You are as smart as your brother said you are, Macy Kleyn.”

      Her pulse leaping at her name on his lips, she gasped. “Jed? You’ve talked to Jed?”

      His handsome face twisted into a grimace, and he touched the bloodied bandage on his ribs. “Who do you think did this to me?”

      She shook her head in denial, knocking his hand from her face. “Jed would not have

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