About That Night (FBI/US Attorney #3)(34)

She pulled a legal pad and pen out of her briefcase. “Well, I can tell you one thing it didn’t tell me: why you were in disciplinary segregation.” She clicked her pen and poised it over the legal pad, ready to go. “Perhaps you could explain that?”

Kyle fought back a grin, wondering if she knew how oddly enticing she looked when she went all official on him. “All the times I was in disciplinary segregation, Ms. Pierce, or just the time I was locked up next to Brown?”

She blinked. “How many times were you in disciplinary segregation?”

“Six.”

Her eyes widened. “In four months? That’s quite an accomplishment.”

The lights suddenly flickered back on, and some of the diner’s other patrons cheered approvingly.

“There we go,” Rylann said with a warm, easy smile. “All part of the ambience.”

Hmm.

Kyle remembered that smile. He’d once walked up to a complete stranger in a bar because of one just like it. And had then been thoroughly sassed.

“You were about to tell me about the six times you were in disciplinary segregation?” she prompted him.

He sat back, casually stretching his arm along the booth. “I guess some of the other inmates thought a rich computer geek would be an easy mark. From time to time, I needed to defend myself to correct that misimpression.”

Rylann jotted something down on her legal pad. “So you had problems with fighting.”

“Actually, I did quite well with the fighting. It was the getting caught part that I had problems with.”

Kyle smiled innocently when she threw him a look. He couldn’t help it—something about Rylann Pierce and her suit and no-nonsense legal pad made him want to…agitate her.

“Any noteworthy fights I should know about?” she asked.

“I once shoved a guy’s face in a plate of mashed potatoes.”

He was pretty sure he saw her fighting back a smile at that one.

“Tell me what it was like being in prison,” she said.

“You’re a prosecutor. You must have some idea what it’s like,” he said.

She acknowledged this with a nod. “I’d like to hear you describe it in your own words.”

“Ah. So you know what I’ll say when I testify on the subject.”

“Precisely.”

Kyle thought about where to start with that one. Interesting that Rylann would be the first person to directly ask about his prison experience, instead of dancing around the subject the way his friends and family all had. “Most of the time, it was boring as hell. Same routine every day. Wake up at five a.m., breakfast, wait in your cell for a head count. Leisure time if you passed inspection. Lunch at eleven, another head count, more free time. Into your cell for yet another head count, dinner at five o’clock, free time until nine, and then—you guessed it—another head count. Lights off at ten.” He pointed. “Not much to write about that on your legal pad.”

“What about the nighttime routine?”

He shrugged. “The nights were long. Cold. Gave a man a lot of time to think.” He took a sip of his coffee, figuring there wasn’t much else he needed to say about that.

“You mentioned you had some issues with the other inmates. How about the guards?” she asked.

“Other than the fact that they kept tossing me in segregation for defending myself, no.”

“Would you say that you resent the fact that they kept putting you in segregation?”

Kyle saw where she was going with this—already thinking ahead to what a defense attorney might bring up on cross-examination. “I have no ax to grind against prison guards, counselor. I understand they were just doing their jobs.”

“Good,” she said with a nod. “Now tell me about Quinn.”

“Quinn’s a different story. That guy is one mean son of a bitch.” He watched her. “You’re actually writing that down?”

“Yes. And feel free to say it exactly like that to the grand jury.”

Kyle was glad she’d brought that subject up. She may have been confident about her case, or at least she seemed to be, but he had his doubts. “You really think the grand jury is going to believe what I have to say?”

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I believe you.” When she finished writing, she looked up from her legal pad and saw him staring at her. “What?”

It was nothing, really, that she believed him. Just words. “You’ve asked a lot of questions about me. Now it’s my turn.”

“Oh, sorry. But that’s not how this works,” she said sweetly.

“It is this time, counselor, if you want to keep me sitting in this booth,” he replied, just as sweetly.

She shook her head. “You are just as annoyingly cocky as you were nine years ago.”

“Yes.” Kyle’s gaze fell to her lips. “And we both know how that turned out.”

Much to his surprise, she actually blushed.

Well, well. Apparently the unflappable Prosecutrix Pierce could be…flapped after all.

Interesting.

She recovered quickly. “Fine. What’s your question?”

Kyle thought for a moment, wondering where to start. He decided to go right to the heart of the matter. “Why did you leave San Francisco?”