Baby Breakout

A board creaked behind him, alerting him to someone else’s presence. Had he been set up again?

He grabbed Erica, wrapping one arm around her waist and his other around her neck, so he could threaten to snap it if her backup had a weapon. Then he whirled toward the intruder.

And pain clutched his heart with all the force of a gunshot. But he hadn’t been shot; he’d just been shocked by the appearance of the child who stumbled down the hall, wiping sleep from her dark eyes.

“Don’t hurt her,” Erica pleaded in an urgent whisper. “She’s just a baby.”

The child was actually two—probably almost three years old. She blinked and stared blearily up at him and Erica.

“Mommy?”

“Sweetheart, you need to go back to bed,” Erica said, her voice tremulous despite her obvious efforts to sound calm and reassuring.

The little girl’s lips pursed into a pout. “I wanna a drink,” she stubbornly insisted.

Suddenly aware of how tightly he held her, Jed dropped his arms from around Erica’s delicate frame. “You can get her the drink.” He pitched his voice lower, so only she could hear him. “I won’t hurt her.”

Erica glanced from him to her daughter and back, obviously reluctant to leave him alone with her child.

But this kid was his, too. She was the spitting image of his sister, Macy.

Erica must have taken him at his word because she left the little girl standing in front of him. But the refrigerator was only steps away, through an open archway. Erica watched him carefully as she backed into the kitchen.

He dropped to his knees in front of the little girl and asked, “How old are you?”

Her chocolate-brown eyes widened as she studied him. She was as fearful as her mother had seemed of him. But his size had even intimidated violent criminals enough that during his three years in one of the most dangerous prisons in the United States, not very many inmates had been brave enough to try to mess with him. So of course he was going to scare a small child.

But she lifted her pointy little chin, as if forcing herself to be brave, which made her even more like his feisty kid sister. Then she held up two fingers.

“You’re two years old?”

“I’ll be thrwee soon,” she replied with a slight lisp, like the one his sister had had until the speech therapist their parents hired had corrected it.

His parents had constantly been hiring specialists to fix Macy, so that she could be as perfect as they had considered their firstborn: him. But he had only been perfect until he had been charged with double homicide; then they had stopped considering him their son entirely. They’d forgotten all about him just as Erica had apparently tried to forget him.

“What’s your name?” he asked the child.

“Isobel,” she replied. “What’s yours?”

Dad. I’m your father.

Sure, Erica had been engaged before that night she’d spent with him—the night she claimed not to remember. But Isobel was not Brandon Henderson’s daughter, or she would have been blue-eyed and blond-haired like both her parents.

Instead she shared his coloring and looked exactly like his sister. She even sounded like Macy had at her age. Jed didn’t need a DNA test; he was certain. But before he could open his mouth to utter anything, Erica interrupted.

“Here’s your water, sweetheart!” She pressed a sippy cup into her daughter’s small hand and lifted the child into her arms. “Now let me tuck you back into bed.”

Jed could have vaulted to his feet and stopped her from carrying the child off down the hall. His reflexes were quick or he wouldn’t have survived three years at Blackwoods, not to mention his tour in Afghanistan.

But he let them go.

Then he slowly drew in deep breaths, steadying his racing pulse. The apartment was small, so he overheard their conversation, no matter how softly they spoke.

“Who is that man?” the little girl asked her mother. “What’s his name?”

“Jed,” Erica replied.

“But who is he?” The little girl persisted as stubbornly as she had demanded her now-forgotten glass of water. “I never seen him ‘fore. And he’s so big.”

“He’s just a friend,” Erica murmured. And he was surprised she didn’t choke on her lie.

But that proved just how consummate a liar she was. She was obviously lying about not remembering that night, and now he had the proof. No matter what she claimed about her child, he knew the truth.

He had a daughter.

So whoever had framed him, obviously with Erica’s help, hadn’t just stolen years of Jed’s life. He had lost precious years of Isobel’s life, as well. He had missed his daughter being born, taking her first steps, uttering her first words …

Somehow, that person would have to pay for what he had taken from Jed.

THE BLACKWOODS COUNTY JAIL offered the same basic amenities that the prison once had—before it had been destroyed during the riot. Former warden Jefferson James had a cot on which to sleep. He went to the cafeteria for meals and a recreational area for entertainment. But what he’d just seen on television hadn’t been entertainment, so he’d demanded to return to his cell.

The DEA agent continued to make Jefferson’s life difficult. If only Kleyn had killed him, like Jefferson had ordered the inmate …

But instead of killing him, he’d helped the DEA agent escape Blackwoods. Now the DEA agent wanted to return the favor and prove Kleyn innocent of the crimes of which he’d been convicted. He probably was innocent—that was why he’d disobeyed Jefferson’s order to kill. But his innocence made him even more dangerous to Jefferson. If proved unjustly convicted, his testimony would carry more significance. That was why he couldn’t testify …

A shadow, sliced by the bars, fell across the floor in front of Jefferson. “You wanted to see me?”

No. He could barely look at Sheriff Griffin York. The young lawman was everything Jefferson despised—self-righteous, honorable and law-abiding as well as law-enforcing. But he did want to talk to the man.

“Took you damn long enough to get here,” Jefferson griped.

“Kind of got my hands full cleaning up the mess from the riot,” York bitterly remarked.

“Did you round up all the escapees yet?”

York’s gaze hardened with resentment. “It’s only been a few days.”

“So you haven’t apprehended any of them?”

“Some of them,” the sheriff claimed and then goaded, “and some of your guards, as well. They’re already talking. They have a lot to say about you.”

Jefferson’s lawyer wasn’t worried about the testimony of coconspirators who had benefited from the crimes of which he was being convicted. It was Kleyn he worried about; he was the one who couldn’t talk.

“What about the cop killer?” he asked. “He still at large?”

The sheriff’s nostrils flared. “You don’t need to worry about him.”

Hope lifted Jefferson’s spirit. “He’s dead?”