Shady kicked a wrench off his seat. “What do you mean by that?”

“Ink’s becoming too much of a liability. Attracting that kind of attention endangers everybody.”

Horse wasn’t the only one leery of Ink. Ink was crazy enough to frighten them all. “In some ways, he is a liability. In other ways, he’s an asset.”

Pursing his lips, Horse stared at the carpet. “They put the lot of us in prison, who’s gonna take care of business on the outside?”

“It comes to that, we’ll serve him up. We won’t go down because he’s too stupid to know when to keep his pistol in his pants.”

Seemingly satisfied, Horse raised his eyes. “What about Pointblank and Pretty Boy?”

“They stay. Have Pretty Boy find a C.O. by the name of Eddie Glover who works at the prison in Florence.”

Horse walked to the pool table and racked the balls into the plastic triangle. “You think Glover might know where Skin is?”

“If anyone knows what happened to him, it would be Glover. Word is they were pretty damn friendly.”

Studying one cue and then another, Horse decided on a stick. “Skin was friends with a C.O.?”

“Part of his change of heart.” Shady chafed at the fact that he hadn’t been able to convince other members of The Crew that Virgil wasn’t as great as they thought. Virgil was the kind of leader other men naturally followed. But he’d never been one to take orders. He was an independent son of a bitch and refused to back down even when it was in his best interests. That made him difficult to manage and as dangerous to the organization as he was to its enemies. Shady had been worried about Skin ever since he heard Skin might be cleared of his stepfather’s murder. Who wouldn’t be tempted by a clean break? Skin wasn’t the gang type—not at heart.

Remembering how determined he’d been to walk his own path whether the rest of them liked it or not, Shady shook his head. There’d been times when he’d flat out refused a command. Anyone else who’d done that would’ve been killed. But everyone admired a man who could fight like Skin. They let him slide whenever he acted up because he was so damn good when he did get involved.

“How are they supposed to find Glover?”

“I just told you. He works at the prison.”

“A lot of guys work at the prison. You don’t have his address?”

“I can get it.”

“What about a description?”

“He’s five foot eleven, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds. Red hair cut short. Freckles everywhere. That tell you enough?”

“It should. I know someone on the inside who can get me his shift, which will also help,” Horse said. “But what if Glover won’t talk?”

Shady wasn’t about to let Skin make him look like a fool. He had to prove he deserved the leadership role he’d fought so hard to obtain. “Everybody talks,” he said. “You just have to give them enough incentive.”

The pool balls broke with a loud clatter. “How far do I tell Pointblank to go?”

Wishing he could kill Skin himself, end the rivalry between them the right way, Shady eyed the guns in his cabinets. “Tell him to do whatever it takes.”

“Then maybe Ink should stick around Colorado a while longer, don’t you think?”

“Why?”

“He’s already wanted. Might as well have him do the dirty work.”

See? Horse was smarter than he looked. “Good idea. He can fly home when it’s over.”

“And Laurel?”

“Give me a few days. I’ll find her.”

Horse lined up for another shot. “How?”

“I’m gonna call a private investigator who’s done some work for me in the past.”

Closing one eye, he sent the thirteen rocketing into the left corner pocket. “A private investigator who can gain access to the police world?”

“She can gain access to any world,” he said smugly.

“What’s her secret?”

“She doesn’t look like anyone who’d ever be connected to us, and she’s willing to get creative.”

Clearly intrigued, Horse forgot about his solitary game of pool. “Where’d you meet her?”

“She’s a friend of a friend of a friend. Meeting her isn’t the point. Money is. She’ll do anything for the right price.”

“You said she gets creative.”

“She does.”

“How?”

Shady started picking up the objects he’d tossed onto the floor. “You let me worry about that.”

All during dinner Peyton wondered why she couldn’t be more attracted to John. Or not John, exactly—someone like him. Someone without any rough edges, someone easygoing and civilized. Shelley, her assistant, thought he was a real heartthrob. The warden’s assistant tittered about him, too. But Peyton felt none of what they seemed to feel, nothing that compared to the excitement of being with Virgil.

Was it danger that attracted her? Her way of rebelling against the strictures that governed her life? Or was it some kind of self-destructiveness, the tendency that drew some people toward the edge of a cliff?

Trying to make sense of it all, she kept asking herself those questions. But being self-destructive was too simple an explanation. She had no history of falling for bad boys. In fact, the opposite was true. She picked men who fit safe parameters, then tried to feel more than she did.

The problem was, she hadn’t “picked” Virgil, didn’t want to like him more than any other inmate. She just couldn’t help herself. The decisions that had previously been controlled by cognitive function had been lost to instinct and hormones, a far less logical approach to selecting a lover.

After dinner, she went into the kitchen to rinse off the dishes and felt a measure of relief at being able to escape her guest, even for a short while. The time they’d spent together had dragged by. The clock on the wall indicated it hadn’t been an hour. She wished John would leave, but she didn’t ask him to go because having him around stopped her from visiting Virgil.

When he walked into the kitchen carrying their glasses, Peyton mustered yet another smile.

“I heard Wallace was in town on Friday.” His tone suggested this was idle chitchat, but it made Peyton uncomfortable all the same. The associate director hadn’t visited the prison. How had John learned he was in town?

“Who told you that?”

“Sandy saw him at Raliberto’s.”

“Sandy?”

“My sister.”

Before quitting a year or so ago to be a stay-at-home mom, Sandy had worked as a nurse at the prison. Embarrassed that she’d been too preoccupied to recall his sister’s name, Peyton ducked her head over the sink and kept washing dishes. “Oh, right. Of course.”

“He had some guy with him she didn’t recognize. Somebody in a baseball cap.”

“Really?”

He scowled when she did nothing to further the conversation. “You didn’t see Wallace while he was here?”

He knew there’d be some reason for Rick to visit Crescent City and that she’d most likely be aware of it. “Briefly.”

“Oh, boy.”

This made her turn. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He usually doesn’t show up unless something big’s coming down. Or there’s trouble brewing. I’m almost afraid to hear what it was this time.”

“Nothing. He had a meeting with the warden. That’s all.”

“That’s where it starts,” he joked. “Any idea what it was about? Or will we hear at the weekly meeting?”

His interest struck her as too intrusive until she remembered that a couple of weeks ago, while breaking up a fight, he’d inflicted harm on one of the inmates. The case was under review to see if he’d acted appropriately or let himself get out of control, so he was probably worried about the outcome and whether he’d face disciplinary action.

She decided to tell him just enough to relieve his anxiety. “Thanks to the recent media reports that the Hells Fury might be responsible for the murder of Judge Garcia in Santa Rosa, the CDCR wants us to step up our efforts to curtail gang activity. He didn’t say but I’m pretty sure it had to do with that.”

“How can we step up our efforts?” he asked. “To do that, we’d have to build a SHU big enough to accommodate everyone in gen pop. And then we’d have to answer to all the activists who are crying that isolation’s cruel and unusual punishment.” He shook his head in obvious disgust. “No one likes the problems we’re dealing with, but they don’t like the solutions, either. Not the ones that actually work.”