Tracy turned to face him, and when he saw the look in her eyes, he hastily decided not to pursue it.
The guard walked Tracy upstairs and turned her over to a matron.
The matron sniffed. “Jesus, you stink. Go in and take a shower. We'll burn those clothes.”
The cold shower felt wonderful. Tracy shampooed her hair and scrubbed herself from head to foot with the harsh lye soap.
When she had dried herself and put on a change of clothing, the matron was waiting for her. “Warden wants to see you.”
The last time Tracy had heard those words, she had believed it meant her freedom. Never again would she be that naive.
Warden Brannigan was standing at the window when Tracy walked into his office. He turned and said, “Sit down, please.” Tracy took a chair. “I've been away in Washington at a conference. I just returned this morning and saw a report on what happened. You should not have been put in solitary.”
She sat watching him, her impassive face giving nothing away.
The warden glanced at a paper on his desk. “According to this report, you were sexually assaulted by your cell mates.”
“No, sir.”
Warden Brannigan nodded understandingly. “I understand your fear, but I can't allow the inmates to run this prison. I want to punish whoever did this to you, but I'll need your testimony. I'll see that you're protected. Now, I want you to tell me exactly what happened and who was responsible.”
Tracy looked him in the eye. “I was. I fell off my bunk.”
The warden studied her a long time, and she could see the disappointment cloud his face. “Are you quite sure”
“Yes, sir.”
“You won't change your mind?”
“No, sir.”
Warden Brannigan sighed. “All right. If that's your decision. I'll have you transferred to another cell where —”
“I don't want to be transferred.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You mean you want to go back to the same cell?”
“Yes, sir.”
He was puzzled. Perhaps he had been wrong about her; maybe she had invited what had happened to her. God only knew what those damned female prisoners were thinking or doing. He wished he could be transferred to some nice, sane men's prison, but his wife and Amy, his small daughter, liked it here. They all lived in a charming cottage, and there were lovely grounds around the prison farm. To them, it was like living in the country, but he had to cope with these crazy women twenty-four hours a day.
He looked at the young woman sitting before him and said awkwardly, “Very well. Just stay out of trouble in the future.”
“Yes, sir.”
Returning to her cell was the most difficult thing Tracy had ever done. The moment she stepped inside she was assailed by the horror of what had happened there. Her cell mates were away at work. Tracy lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling, planning. Finally, she reached down to the bottom of her bunk and pried a piece of the metal side loose. She placed it under her mattress. When the 11:00 A.M. lunch bell rang, Tracy was the first to line up in the corridor.
In the mess hall, Paulita and Lola were seated at a table near the entrance. There was no sign of Ernestine Littlechap.
Tracy chose a table filled with strangers, sat down, and finished every bite of the tasteless meal. She spent the afternoon alone in her cell. At 2:45 her three cell mates returned.
Paulita grinned with surprise when she saw Tracy. “So you came back to us, pretty pussy. You liked what we did to you, huh?”
“Good. We got more for you,” Lola said.
Tracy gave no indication that she heard their taunting. She was concentrating on the black woman. Ernestine Littlechap was the reason Tracy had come back to this cell. Tracy did not trust her. Not for a moment. But she needed her.
I'm gonna give you a tip, querida. Ernestine Littlechap runs this place….
That night, when the fifteen-minute warning bell sounded for lights out, Tracy rose from her bunk and began to undress. This time there was no false modesty. She stripped, and the Mexican woman gave a long, low whistle as she looked at Tracy's full, firm breasts and her long, tapering legs and creamy thighs. Lola was breathing hard. Tracy put on a nightgown and lay back on her bunk. The lights went out. The cell was in darkness.
Thirty minutes went by. Tracy lay in the dark listening to the breathing of the others.
Across the cell, Paulita whispered, “Mama's gonna give you some real lovin' tonight. Take off your nightgown, baby.”
“We're gonna teach you how to eat pussy, and you'll do it till you get it right,” Lola giggled.
Still not a word from the black woman. Tracy felt the rush of wind as Lola and Paulita came at her, but Tracy was ready for them. She lifted the piece of metal she had concealed in her hand and swung with all her might, hitting one of the women in the face. There was a scream of pain, and Tracy kicked out at the other figure and saw her fall to the floor.
“Come near me again and I'll kill you,” Tracy said.
“You bitch!”
Tracy could hear them start for her again, and she raised the piece of metal.
Ernestine's voice came abruptly out of the darkness. “Tha's enough. Leave her alone.”
“Ernie, I'm bleedin'. I'm gonna fix her —”
“Do what the fuck I tell you.”
There was a long silence. Tracy heard the two women moving back to their bunks, breathing hard. Tracy lay there, tensed, ready for their next move.
Ernestine Littlechap said, “You got guts, baby.”
Tracy was silent.
“You didn't sing to the warden.” Ernestine laughed softly in the darkness. “If you had, you'd be dead meat.”
Tracy believed her.
“Why di'n' you let the warden move you to another cell?”
So she even knew about that. “I wanted to come back here.”
“Yeah? What fo'?” There was a puzzled note in Ernestine Littlechap's voice.
This was the moment Tracy had been waiting for. “You're going to help me escape.”
Chapter 08
A matron came up to Tracy and announced, “You got a visitor, Whitney.”
Tracy looked at her in surprise. “A visitor?” Who could it be? And suddenly she knew. Charles. He had come after all. But he was too late. He had not been there when she had so desperately needed him. Well, I'll never need him again. Or anyone else.
Tracy followed the matron down the corridor to the visitors' room.
Tracy stepped inside.
A total stranger was seated at a small wooden table. He was one of the most unattractive men Tracy had ever seen. He was short, with a bloated, androgynous body, a long, pinched-in nose, and a small, bitter mouth. He had a high, bulging forehead and intense brown eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses.
He did not rise. “My name is Daniel Cooper. The warden gave me permission to speak to you.”
“About what?” Tracy asked suspiciously.
“I'm an investigator for IIPA — the International Insurance Protection Association. One of our clients insured the Renoir that was stolen from Mr. Joseph Romano.”
Tracy drew a deep breath. “I can't help you. I didn't steal it.” She started for the door.
Cooper's next words stopped her. “I know that.”
Tracy turned and looked at him, wary, every sense alert.
“No one stole it. You were framed, Miss Whitney.”
Slowly, Tracy sank into a chair.
Daniel Cooper's involvement with the case had begun three weeks earlier when he had been summoned to the office of his superior, J. J. Reynolds, at IIPA headquarters in Manhattan.
“I've got an assignment for you, Dan,” Reynolds said.
Daniel Cooper loathed being called Dan.
“I'll make this brief.” Reynolds intended to make it brief because Cooper made him nervous. In truth, Cooper made everyone in the organization nervous. He was a strange man — weird, was how many described him. Daniel Cooper kept entirely to himself. No one knew where he lived, whether he was married or had children. He socialized with no one, and never attended office parties or office meetings. He was a loner, and the only reason Reynolds tolerated him was because the man was a goddamned genius. He was a bulldog, with a computer for a brain. Daniel Cooper was single-handedly responsible for recovering more stolen merchandise, and exposing more insurance frauds, than all the other investigators in the organization put together. Reynolds just wished he knew what the hell Cooper was all about. Merely sitting across from the man with those fanatical brown eyes staring at him made him uneasy.