The Inmate (30)

When I’m six feet away from my car, a large hand closes around my arm. I instantly go on high alert, whipping myself around to confront whoever grabbed me. But when I turn, I come face-to-face with Officer Marcus Hunt.

Outside of the prison walls, he looks even more imposing. He towers over me, his lips curled into a perpetual sneer, and his biceps are about the same circumference as my thighs. He doesn’t have any weapons on him at the moment, but he doesn’t need them. He could crush me with one hand.

And we’re the only two people in the parking lot.

“Brooke,” he says. “I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” I hiss at him.

“Don’t be like that…”

My purse is flung over my shoulder. I’ve got a bottle of pepper spray in there, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to it with him restraining me. “You need to let go of me.”

“Brooke…”

“Let go of me or I’ll scream!”

Hunt’s eyes widen as he finally gets it in his head that he needs to let go of me. He releases my arm and holds his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just want to talk.”

He didn’t mean to scare me? Does he have a clue how scary he is? I can’t imagine what it’s like for Shane to deal with this guy every single day of his life.

“Please, Brooke.” He takes a step back, his hands still in the air. “I just need to talk to you.”

I don’t want to talk to Hunt. I want to go home, have dinner and possibly a bubble bath. But I need to work with this guy—I can’t be his enemy. And I’m admittedly curious about what he has to say.

“Fine,” I say. “What is it?”

“Brooke.” His forehead crinkles. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened with Nelson today. It wasn’t like I meant to hurt him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I didn’t.” He shakes his shaved head. “But you know what, even if I did, he deserves it. Do you have any idea what that guy did to land himself in here?”

I have some idea. “All these men have committed crimes…”

“This is different. Nelson is different. He’s… he’s really manipulative.”

It’s the same thing Elise wrote in his chart. And she underlined it. “I haven’t seen him act that way.”

“Right, because he’s manipulating you. He’s making you trust him, but you shouldn’t.”

I crane my neck to look up at Hunt’s face. Whatever else I can say, I don’t think he’s making this up. He seems to really believe it. But the question is, do I believe it?

“I’m not going to let him manipulate me,” I say.

“That’s what Elise said. Now she’s probably going to prison herself. Or at the least, she’ll lose her license.”

What is he saying? That Shane tricked Elise, and that’s the reason she got in trouble? I find that hard to believe, especially after what she wrote in his chart. And Shane hasn’t manipulated me. I even offered him pain medication last week, and he refused. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried.” He glances over my shoulder at my Toyota. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this in the parking lot. Why don’t we go get a drink together and we can, you know, talk about this more?”

Oh. I get it now.

“No, thanks.” I adjust the strap of my handbag on my shoulder. “I have to get home. The babysitter is waiting.”

“Another night then?”

The concern on his face has vanished, and now he has a hopeful expression. So this is his game. He’s torturing Shane to impress me and get a date. It’s despicable, but I don’t want to outright humiliate him. I do have to work with him, and I’m also counting on him to protect me if I’m ever in a dangerous situation.

“Maybe sometime next month,” I say vaguely. “I’m just really busy now. And my sitter can’t stay late.”

“Oh, right, sure.” Hunt rubs his shaved head. “Yeah, I have a busy month this month too. We’ll have to do it next month. Or the month after. Whatever. No big deal.”

“Yeah…” I reach into my purse for my keys. “Anyway, I’m going to get going. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure.” He nods. “And Brooke?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”





Chapter 20


I can’t sleep.

It’s much quieter here than it was when I was living back in Queens. The block that we lived on had a lot of traffic at night, and at least once a week I could be guaranteed to be woken up by a car horn, or worse, an alarm that wouldn’t stop sounding off for the better part of an hour. But on this quiet block in our small town, the only thing you can hear at night is a few crickets chirping.

So I don’t know why I’ve slept so terribly since I’ve moved out here.

Part of it might be how strange it is sleeping in my parents’ bedroom. I was reluctant to take the master bedroom at first, for this very reason. But it was the largest of the three upstairs bedrooms by far, and the only one with a queen-sized bed. So I tried to redecorate it to make it my own. I took down the seaside painting my parents always kept over their bed, swapped out the bedspread for my own royal blue down comforter, and replaced nearly all the framed photographs on the dresser.