Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2)(56)

She loved Connor.

Fuck, there it was again. His face. I won’t let him near you, Erin. You have to know I’d die first.

Dammit, think about something else. Something less painful. No, more painful. The only thing that would stop Connor’s pleas from ringing in her head would be to replace them with a harsher memory. Kind of like hobbling yourself to detract pain from a broken arm. Might as well make it something useful. Memories could be a powerful motivator if you picked the right one.

As she pilfered a Chicago Cubs hat from a street vendor and tucked her hair up inside it, she thought back to her twenty-first birthday. She’d been one week into serving her first sentence in Dade. A visitor had been the last thing she’d been expecting. An inmate had the right to refuse a visitor, but she’d been suffocating. The promise of sitting in an open room without having to watch her back constantly was too tempting an offer to pass up. So she’d sat down with the bastard and watched him smirk at her ungroomed appearance. Her limp hair and eyebrows in need of plucking. Sure, she’d been wearing a genuine f*ck you expression, but it only had so much effect when she was the one behind bars.

“I have to say I’m disappointed, Erin. I had such high hopes for you.”

She’d tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah? I have high hopes for this reunion being over sooner than later.”

He’d clucked his tongue. “That’s no way to talk to your father. Especially when you need money added to your commissary account.”

“Stepfather,” she’d corrected him. “Keep your money. I’ll get by.”

“We’ll see.”

Fingers drumming on the table danced through her memory. She couldn’t remember whose. “Is there a point to this visit?”

“You didn’t think I’d show up without a present, did you?”

Since he had no bags with him, nor did his lime-green polo shirt allow him to conceal anything, she’d only stared back warily.

He’d leaned forward and lowered his voice. “So many times you asked me why. Screamed it, really, from your room.”

Bile had risen in her throat. Her room. How he’d always referred to the closet.

“Well, your gift is me finally answering your question.” His voice had been full of glee. She could still hear it. “Ever wonder how your mother died, Erin? Yes, I can see that you have. Every girl does.” The glee had fled, fading into a sneer. “She thought I didn’t know about her extracurricular activities. She didn’t care what it might do to my career.” A short pause, full of anticipation. “It was a mixture of painkillers and wine. Her lover called me in the middle of the night, after the accident. The last place I saw her was in his bed.”

A choked noise had fallen from Erin’s lips, too late to snatch back. She hadn’t wanted to know. Had wanted to go on assuming her mother had died doing something worthwhile or that her young life had been unfairly cut short. Tragic she could deal with, but not senseless. Worse, this information could have been spoken years earlier. He’d saved it up. Waited for the right time to make weapons out of it. Her twenty-first birthday.

“You’re just like her,” he’d continued, giving her white prison gear a disgusted once-over. “I did society a favor by keeping you away from it. Too bad I couldn’t do it forever. I guess it’s somebody else’s job now.” His smile had caused Erin’s lungs to seize. “Or maybe not.”

She’d watched dumbfounded as he pushed back from the metal table in a hurry. He’d jogged toward one of the guards, gesturing wildly. All she’d heard through a yellow haze were the words “threatened” and “weapon.” She’d been rushed on both sides and thrown over the tabletop, the guards shouting at her to drop the weapon. They hadn’t listened when she tried to explain she had nothing, their hands burning through her clothes to scorch her skin. Her protests had died with her ability to move. She’d frozen as the touches grew more intimate, searching and finding nothing on her person. Convinced the law-abiding psychiatrist had been telling the truth and she’d just found a way to get rid of the threat, they’d hauled her off to solitary with the stepfather’s words still ringing in her head.

You’re just like her. Weapon. Threatened. Weapon. Threatened.

That week in the dark had been her first and worst experience. The hands reaching through the slot at unexpected times, accompanied by the howls of misery around her, had f*cked with her head. She’d felt changes taking place, felt darkness and irrational fear taking root, but she couldn’t stop it from happening. From becoming a part of her. Sometimes the hands would grab on to her through the sliver of light, clammy and calloused. Yank her up against the steel door, tell her she’d better eat. Warn her she better stop screaming or they’d add time to her stay in the shoe.

There. Erin caught sight of her stepfather across the street in the park adjacent to the courthouse, as if he was waiting for her. He sat on a bench beneath a tree, one ankle propped on the opposite knee. Reading the newspaper. So casual, as if he hadn’t just sent her newly constructed world into an epic tailspin. From her position behind a newsstand, she saw Bowen and Sera exit the courthouse. They were holding hands, but looking up and down the sidewalk, probably for her and Connor. God, where was Connor? She needed her stepfather to move before Connor came back or he would do something drastic. As if her stepfather had the very same worry after seeing them together, he took one last look at the courthouse and stood, heading toward the Madison/Wabash transit stop.