Taking the Heat

“It’s fine,” he growled, because he was too vulnerable to receive any kindness right now, especially from her. The pain lent him strength, fueled his anger, and he needed that. It was all he had. “Tell me you’re not going with us.”

Her jaw dropped. “Does it matter whether I go or someone else does?”

He shrugged as though he didn’t really care, but he did. He didn’t want Officer Hadley anywhere near him. Her decency weakened him, made him yearn for the past, for a better future….

A slight frown tugged at the corners of her full mouth as she told Roddy, in the booth, to let them out. Then they were in the yard, beneath a sun so bright it nearly blinded Tucker.

A patrol car waited outside the front gate. Because he couldn’t use his hands, Tucker thought Hadley might try to help him into the back seat, but she didn’t. She stood aside while he climbed in. Eckland got behind the wheel, and she took the passenger seat. “I can see this is going to be a pleasant drive,” she muttered.

Eckland didn’t respond. Neither did Tucker. Hansen had just come out of another cell block to give him a final, mocking salute.

“We’re gonna miss ya, Tucker. Have fun in hell!” He laughed as Eckland started the car.

Tucker kept his focus straight ahead until they began to move. Then he turned to catch a final glimpse of the hundred-year-old structure where he’d spent the past six months. Painted gray with blue trim, the words Arizona State Prison emblazoned above the central arch, it looked like something out of an old Western. Never had he thought he’d call such a place home.

They went slowly down the drive, stopped for a car inspection, then continued through two fifteen-foot, chain-link fences topped with barbed wire and beyond, into a stretch of dry, packed earth. When they reached the perimeter gate, Eckland paused to speak to the guard stationed there, then turned left onto Butte Avenue, where palm trees towered on their left side and a trailer park sprawled on their right.

The fifth oldest town in the state—or so Tucker had read somewhere—the city of Florence lay in front of them. It had once been a booming silver-mining town and was later known for growing cotton, but now its economy depended on prisons. Florence boasted a pair of state prisons, three private prisons, a juvenile center and a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service center, which meant it had to house at least twice as many inmates as the town claimed in citizens.

An unusual place, Tucker decided, one he doubted had changed much in over a century. He remembered its dusty, sun-bleached buildings from the day they’d carted him there on a bus packed with other inmates, remembered thinking that it looked more like a ghost town.

For him it was a ghost town, haunted by his own shattered hopes and dreams.

“Who’s watchin’ the baby today?” Eckland asked Hadley, breaking the silence.

“Her father.”

So Officer Hadley had a child. And a man, too, from the sounds of it. Of course she would. A woman with a smile like Hadley’s would never lack for male attention. So what was she doing working as a prison guard? What kind of husband would go along with her pursuing such a profession when she had a baby at home?

Tucker leaned forward to see if she wore a wedding ring, but his cuffed and swollen hand protested any movement, and it was difficult to see such details through the metal screen that separated the front seat from the back. He shifted to ease what he could of the throbbing just as Eckland threw Hadley a disgruntled glance.

“Are you happy now?” he asked once they were headed toward Coolidge.

Hadley didn’t look at him. “Happy about what?”

“Your little visit to the warden.”

“He tell you about that himself? Or did Hansen?”

“It’s no secret, if that’s what you mean. And it was foolish as hell.”

“I did what I thought I had to do. I don’t have to explain myself to any of you.”

“Oh, yeah? You’ve been here a week. Not long enough to know the death house from the health center, yet you’ve already been to see the warden. What you did sure didn’t help Tucker any. You like where you’re going, Tucker?” he asked. “You glad Officer Hadley here came to your rescue?”

Tucker said nothing. He’d wondered what this transfer business was all about. Now he knew. He had Hadley to thank, because she was green and idealistic enough to think she could make a difference.

He glowered at the back of her head, but he couldn’t really hold it against her. Not after she’d risked herself more than once to help him. Going to the warden had probably been the gutsiest move of all. Didn’t she know that?

“Tattling doesn’t go over very well with the boys, I gotta tell ya,” Eckland was saying.

“If you’re going to give me Hansen’s survivor speech, don’t bother,” Hadley responded. “He’s already done the honors. ‘It’s only the weak who have to worry, the young, the old, the fairer sex,”’ she said sarcastically. “Frankly, I think his material’s a little dated.”

“You should listen to him. Your life might depend on it sometime.”

Tucker heard the subtle threat in Eckland’s voice and wondered if Hadley had picked up on it. If so, she didn’t say anything. She sat staring pensively out her window while Tucker considered the very real possibility that the guards might somehow punish her for trying to help him. The thought made something in his gut tighten, something strangely possessive and faintly reminiscent of emotions he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

GABRIELLE COULD HARDLY keep her eyes open. They’d been driving through the monotonous desert for nearly three hours and the motion of the car, as well as the hum of its tires, was lulling her to sleep. It didn’t help that Allie had woken her several times during the night. Gabrielle had been so stressed about making this trip, she couldn’t sleep well to begin with.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She just had to survive the day. Then she’d be home with David. He’d arrived late Sunday afternoon as promised and was with Allie now, which was a comfort. She knew he’d take excellent care of their daughter.

Glancing at her window, she fought the pull of sleep by studying Randall Tucker’s reflection, a habit she’d established almost from the moment they’d left the prison. She told herself she was checking to make sure he wasn’t trying to get loose, but deep down she knew she was worried about his hand. At Eckland’s insistence, Tucker still wore cuffs as well as chains. His hand had to be hurting terribly.

If so, he gave no indication. He hadn’t spoken since they’d left.

“How’s your hand?” she asked at last, turning to face him through the metal screen. Because of the way he’d acted, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask about his injuries again, but she couldn’t resist. “You okay, Mr. Tucker?”

He was gazing out the window, a hard, impenetrable expression on his face. After a moment the full intensity of his blue eyes shifted to hers. “Would it make any difference if I said no?”

Eckland chuckled, the coarse sound saying it wouldn’t, but Gabrielle ignored him.

“It might,” she said.

“You saying you’d take them off?”

“I’m saying I could loosen them.”

For a moment Tucker simply looked at her. From his tough, belligerent attitude, she doubted he’d admit to needing anything, but he surprised her with a slight nod.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked.

“What do you think?” He scowled and turned back to the window.

“Pull over,” she told Eckland.

Eckland ignored her. Signaling, he switched into the fast lane to pass a slow-moving U-Haul.

“Did you hear me?” she pressed.

“I heard ya,” he answered. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen.”

“We should check his hand. He hasn’t been out of this car in three hours. Even an unbroken hand would hurt at this point.”

“Then let it hurt. He made his bed, and he can lie in it. That’s what I say.”

Gabrielle had expected this kind of response, but she refused to settle for it. A man was in pain because of Eckland’s petty meanness, and she planned to do something about it. “What are you going to tell them at Alta Vista when we show up with an inmate whose hand is swollen to twice its normal size?” she asked.

“I’m gonna to tell ’em he’s a mean sonuvabitch who won’t quit fightin’, that’s what. That broken hand has nothing to do with me.”