“I’ve got more than I can handle on my plate already. You’ll take over from here.”

Irritated by a strand of hair that’d fallen from the knot at her nape, she tucked it behind her ear. “Which means…what, exactly? I’ll be the liaison?”

“That’s right. You’ll meet with Bennett whenever it’s safe to do so, and you’ll relay his progress to Wallace. This is your baby. All of it.” But she was the one who had a problem with the operation. And she’d just strained her relationship with Wallace, to say nothing of alienating Bennett. Why would—?

And then it dawned on her. Warden Fischer was purposely distancing himself. He was as nervous about this investigation as she was and didn’t want to be anywhere nearby if it blew up in their faces.

Now she understood why he’d invited her to attend such a clandestine meeting, even though she was far from the patsy Joseph Perry was. She was his “fall guy.” He could pacify the Department of Corrections by acquiescing to their wishes, and sidestep the blame if it all went to hell.

“Do I have any choice?” she asked.

He smoothed down his sparse white hair. “Not unless you’d prefer to tender your resignation.”

Peyton drew a steadying breath. As tempting as that sounded at the moment, she’d invested sixteen years in her career. She wasn’t about to throw it all away without a fight. Especially when there was a chance, albeit a small one, that Bennett could come through and make them both heroes.

She imagined the pale blue eyes of the man who’d sat across the conference table from her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen irises that exact shade of blue, certainly none that so closely resembled shards of ice…. “No, sir.”

Fischer smiled. “Glad to hear it. Good luck to you and Bennett,” he said, and left her standing in the conference room.

Dropping her head in her hands, Peyton cursed Fischer and his reluctance to take responsibility for what had just happened.

Was Bennett as good as Wallace thought?

She hoped so—because if he went down, so did she.

2

Wallace had provided a one-page background sketch on Simeon Bennett, nothing more. Peyton understood the need for secrecy, the danger of putting too much in writing, but this supposed “bio” revealed nothing they hadn’t been told. It was a formality, a pretense, and that made her uncomfortable. She spent five days a week with some of the most cunning liars, thieves and murderers in California. She knew when she was being played, and that was what the meeting at the library had felt like.

What was the CDCR trying to pull? She’d never dreamed she’d have to worry about the people on her side of the law, especially those in the chain of command above her.

A soft knock sounded at her office door.

Peyton slid the sheet of paper she’d been reading back into the envelope, then stuck it under some files on her desk. “Come in.”

Shelley, her administrative assistant, poked her curly brown head into the room. “I’m heading home. Is there anything you’d like me to do before I go?”

Peyton glanced at the clock. Four-thirty already? She was so busy the days flew by. Maybe that was why she didn’t have much of a love life—in addition to the fact that she refused to date anyone who worked at the prison, which ruled out most of the men in Crescent City. “No, thank you. I’ll see you on Monday.”

Shelley paused. “Uh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?” Peyton asked.

“You’ve got ‘the crease of concern.’”

To keep her hands occupied, Peyton straightened her stapler, pen holder, calendar. “The crease of concern?”

“Yep.” She pointed to her own forehead. “Right there. You get it whenever you’re worried. What’s wrong?”

Peyton smiled to clear away that crease. Regardless of how she felt about what the department was doing, she wouldn’t risk Bennett’s life by letting on that something unusual was afoot. “Just another inmate in gen pop claiming to be suicidal.”

“What does his psych report say?”

“That he’s a malingerer.”

“A what?”

“Faking it,” Peyton clarified.

Stepping into the room, Shelley crossed her arms over her large breasts, which strained against a dress that was far too tight, and leaned against the wall. “What’s he in for?”

Briefly allowing herself to be distracted by the business she’d been dealing with before Warden Fischer’s little meeting eight miles away, Peyton took a sip of the coffee that’d nearly grown cold on her desk. “Molesting three boys.”

“Then he’s in the hat, isn’t he?”

In the hat meant he was marked to be beaten or killed by other inmates. Rapists, molesters and child murderers weren’t well liked, even in prison. “I’m not so sure that’s the only reason he’s saying he wants to exit the land of the living,” she said.

Bracelet jangling as she walked, Shelley approached the chairs on the other side of Peyton’s desk. “Come on, you know how many of these guys try to get themselves into the Psychiatric Services Unit. But with only one hundred and twenty-eight beds, you can’t send them all there. I’d put him back in gen pop.”

“Without a second thought?”

She adjusted her dress, which had started to ride up. “Why not?”

“What if he really goes through with it? What if he hangs himself in his cell? Would you want to be responsible for that?”

“No.” Straightening, she hitched up her giant handbag. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

Big bucks? Peyton made $120,000 year, but money didn’t help her sleep at night. She’d been so idealistic when she’d chosen this profession, so certain she’d be able to make a difference. But, more often than not, there wasn’t a good answer to the dilemmas she faced. She couldn’t put this guy, Victor Durego, in the SHU. The SHU was reserved for behavioral problems; keeping inmates in total isolation cost taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money. If Victor had no mental disorder, she couldn’t keep him in the PSU, either. It didn’t make sense to waste the valuable time of the mental health professionals who worked there or take up a slot that was legitimately needed by someone else. For a week or two, she could move him into the Transitional Housing Unit, where they put the gangbangers who decided to debrief, but returning Victor to general population would leave him vulnerable to what had made him claim he was suicidal in the first place—probably another inmate who’d threatened him.

“There’s always the other philosophy,” Shelley said.

Peyton pushed the coffee to one side so she wouldn’t be tempted by it. “What philosophy?”

“That a guy who molests children deserves whatever he gets.”

She knew Shelley wasn’t alone in her ambivalence toward Victor’s safety. But Peyton believed it was humanity that separated the caregivers from the inmates. If the caregivers appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner, they were no better than the people they imprisoned. “As far as I know, physical injury wasn’t part of his sentence. And we don’t have the right to embellish it.”

“I’m just saying…. You can’t see into the future. What he did landed him in prison. Now that he’s here, all you can do is make the call and hope for the best.”

Shelley was right on that count. Peyton had made many such “calls.” Some turned out as she’d hoped. Others didn’t. Which was why the responsibility weighed so heavily.

“I should get going,” her assistant said. “Good luck with it.”

“Thanks.” Peyton waved. Then the door closed, leaving her alone with Victor’s file, a stack of others on which she had to make some decision or other and the manila envelope on Simeon Bennett.

Removing Simeon’s bio, she read it again. Then she got on her computer and searched the internet for “Department 6, Los Angeles.”

A webpage came up. It provided only general information, as she’d expected, but there was a contact number.