“So what do we do?” Pointblank asked. “Do we go back to Skin’s sister’s or not?”

Before they could answer, Pointblank’s cell phone rang. “It’s Horse,” he said, checking the screen, and answered.

Pretty Boy walked to the window, parted the drapes and stared outside while listening to Pointblank’s side of the conversation.

“She’s there. She never goes anywhere but work…. She doesn’t know anything, hasn’t heard from him…. Ink went inside, confronted her. I don’t think she’s lying—he had a gun to her kid’s head…. We’ll do whatever you say, but…What? Who told you that?…Shit!” He threw down his phone.

They turned to look at him as he jumped to his feet, took his gun out of the drawer of the nightstand and began loading it.

“What’s going on?” Ink asked.

“Skin’s cut a deal with the feds.”

Pretty Boy couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“You heard me. Shady knows a woman inside the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He’s had her doing some research. She says she doesn’t know where Virgil Skinner is, but she heard his name mentioned in the hallway after a high-level meeting between the bureau and some guy called Rick Wallace from the California Department of Corrections. She claims a federal marshal attended one last week.”

“That means someone’s going into the Witness Protection Program.” Ink’s tone and his hatred stabbed at Pretty Boy.

“Skin?” Pretty Boy asked.

Pointblank shook his head. “No. A woman and two kids.”

“Laurel.” Virgil was trying to protect her. “But why didn’t the feds act sooner?”

“Who knows? They’re acting now. Word has it someone’s coming for her.”

“And?” Pretty Boy said.

Pointblank shoved his gun in his waistband and lowered his shirt. “We need to make sure she’s dead before they can take her.”

Pretty Boy’s breath caught in his throat. “And the kids?”

“A rat’s a rat,” Ink muttered. “I say we kill them, too, and really make him pay.”

Pretty Boy scrambled to find some way to stave off what was about to happen. “Wait! We kill them, Skin’ll talk for sure. He’ll tell ’em everything he knows. No one will be spared.”

Ink started out of the room ahead of them. “He’s talking, anyway, man. What don’t you get about that?”

“But why would the CDC be involved? Something’s up.”

“Whatever it is, we don’t have time to figure it out.” Pointblank again.

Pretty Boy grabbed Pointblank’s arm. “So you’re going to kill three innocent people?”

Jerking away, Pointblank doubled his fist as though he was about to take a swing. “That’s enough, do you hear? The feds don’t spend the money to put people in the program unless they’re getting something worth the expense. What does Skin have to offer except our heads?”

Pretty Boy had no answer to that, but he still couldn’t believe it had come to this. Skin wouldn’t rat them out.

Apparently willing to let their skirmish go, Pointblank stalked outside. “You coming or not?”

Was he? Pretty Boy wasn’t sure he could go through with the slaughter. He’d killed other men, but never a defenseless woman. And he couldn’t even imagine hurting a child.

But if he didn’t fulfill orders, he’d soon be lying on the ground, bleeding out, himself.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He went outside and got in the car. But his heart was racing and his palms were sweating and he was deeply conscious of Ink’s thirst for blood as they tore out of the lot.

What the hell, Skin? What am I supposed to do now?

10

Peyton didn’t get it, Virgil thought. She had no idea that her kindness, her beauty, even the sanctuary of her house didn’t help him. On the contrary, it gave him something fresh and memorable to miss when he went back inside come Tuesday. But he didn’t expect her to understand. Someone who hadn’t been through what he had couldn’t grasp how necessary it was to remain aloof and detached. Having encounters like the ones they’d been having tempted him to soften. And he couldn’t afford that. His first few days in prison would be rough—and make or break all the days after.

He should’ve refused to come here tonight, for that reason and others. But he hadn’t. Instead of whiling away the hours at the motel, he was wandering around her house in the dark, hating the passage of every minute. Fatigue dragged at him, but he remained on his feet, studying what he could see of her pictures and furnishings—cataloging every detail while pretending he wasn’t dying to slip inside her bedroom.

He’d have this night at her house and two others. Then his freedom would be stripped away from him yet again. But the memory of this place, of her, would fuel his dreams for days, weeks, months…who knew how long? Memories of the girl he’d known in high school had been a focal point for more than a decade, undoubtedly much longer than she’d been thinking about him.

The floor creaked behind him. Turning, he spotted a dark shadow—Peyton dressed in a T-shirt and sweat bottoms—at the entrance to the room. He’d left the lights off, been as quiet as possible. He wasn’t sure what had awakened her.

“You realize it’s three o’clock in the morning,” she said.

His bare feet sank into the padded carpet of her office as he continued to walk around the room. He liked the feel of the heavy pile, the scent of lemon furniture polish that hung in the air. Her home was so warm and comfortable—the exact opposite of the concrete walls, floors and fixtures he’d become accustomed to. “Is it that late? I haven’t been keeping track.”

She came inside and snapped on a lamp. “Would you like a sleeping pill?”

Now that they could see each other clearly, he became ultraconscious of two facts. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. And she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Being constantly forced to strip for various searches had made him indifferent to his own nudity. But he would’ve liked to shield the scars and tattoos on his torso from her view. Prison tattoos weren’t like other tattoos. For one, they didn’t have the pretty colors. Securing the ink was too much of a problem. His had been done with various “rigs” constructed of tape recorder motors, a pen barrel and guitar string. The ink came from the carbon residue of burning plastic mixed with an aftershave solution. They were all blue or black and some of the symbols were standard jailhouse stuff. “No, thanks. I’ll go grab a shirt—”

She raised a hand to stop him. “Don’t bother. I’ve seen a man’s chest before.”

No doubt that was true. But he didn’t want to be lumped in with the prison population and he couldn’t imagine that she saw the proof of his history in a positive light.

“It might help you relax.”

“What might help me relax?” Certainly not what he saw. That made it difficult to even think.

“A sleeping pill.”

He forced himself to focus elsewhere—on her degree, which was framed and hanging on the wall, a wood carving of an owl that decorated a side table, the stack of work awaiting her attention on the desk. On anything except the soft mounds of flesh that acted like a high-powered magnet to his eyes and his hands. He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to relax.”

“Why not? Isn’t that why I brought you here?”

“I’m not sure why you brought me here,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure that out. But if I’m keeping you up…” He would’ve returned to the small guest room she’d outfitted for him, but she stood between him and his only escape route.

“You’re not keeping me up. I was already awake.” When her eyes ranged over him, he again wished for a shirt—but wouldn’t insist on it. He was what he was and wouldn’t hide from anyone, even a woman who made him wish he could be more.

Her breasts swayed slightly as she leaned on the back of a chair. “I’m surprised to find you in my office.”