The Tears of Odessa (An Atlas Hargrove Thriller Book 1)

by Ryan Schow

  “She doesn’t look too happy.”

  Atlas got to his feet and offered up his wrists. When he arrived at his visitation booth, Atlas saw Jade on the other side of the Plexiglas partition. She looked so beautiful. Before that exact moment, he felt like dark clouds had been circling him, drilling him with golf-ball-sized hail. Now, seeing her face, he felt a sliver of sunlight pushing through the darkness, giving him a surprising moment of happiness. When his restraints were removed, he and Jade picked up their phones at the same time.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s good to see you,” he said, his eyes pooling, his heart overflowing with joy.

  Jade’s less sorrowful eyes tracked the damage on his person. Without saying a word, her empty gaze fell to his hands—the swollen knuckles, the split flesh, the dried blood.

  Like him, her eyes began to water. “I barely even recognize you.”

  “I’ll admit, I’m not looking my Sunday best,” he joked.

  She wiped her eyes, then set the phone down and stood up. Is she leaving? He tapped the partition with the phone, couldn’t help the panic overtaking him. She turned to him with a long pause. The pain he felt, how it was wrecking his face, must have changed her mind. She sat back down and picked up the phone, the sounds of her sniffling hurting his soul.

  “I knew this would be hard,” she said. “Seeing you like this…”

  “I’m glad you came. Please don’t leave. Not yet.”

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, pulling out a Kleenex and patting her eyes so as not to ruin her makeup. “This will be my last visit. I can’t do this to you, and I can’t do this to me. Hope in this capacity feels debilitating to us both.”

  He clenched his jaw, exhaled through his nostrils. He was bracing himself for bad news about Alabama, or divorce paperwork. But this? Abandoning him now?

  “I’ve been seeing someone,” she said, looking down.

  “I know,” he replied, sad.

  “You did?” she asked, looking up. He nodded. “How long have you known?”

  Just speaking of it made it real. He’d had his suspicions, followed by the photos Truitt had given him a couple of years ago. Now he had actual confirmation.

  “I found out the day I shot those kids. I hired Foster Truitt to look into your activities, to see where you were going. He took pictures of you two in Napa. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but the way you were looking at each other, the way he was looking at you—that’s how we were once. That’s how I knew things were over between us.”

  Her face fell slack. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Would that have made matters any better, or just a whole lot worse?”

  “Worse,” she admitted, the tears starting up again. “If you would have asked me all those years ago in Belarus where we’d be in fifteen years, never in my life would I have said we’d be here. I mean, who falls in love and dreams of a stolen child, or a murdering husband?”

  “Or a cheating wife?” he countered, his heart starting to close again.

  Just saying those two words together, cheating wife, did something to his physiology. He tried to pull back from the edge of this emotional cliff, but he didn’t think it was possible. Where before there was hurt, now there was rising anger, and worlds of hostility.

  “After Alabama, we just sort of lost each other,” she said, seemingly unaware of his elevated heart rate, his burning cheeks, those dark eyes and clenched fists. In his mind, there was never a right reason, or even a justifiable reason, to cheat on your spouse.

  “Had I not received those pictures on that day,” he said, his voice icy, bitter, “I would not have lost the last thing in this life that mattered to me.”

  “You can’t blame me for what you did.”

  “And yet here I am, doing just that,” he said, his emotions turning on a dime. “So you may be done with me, but I’m not done with you.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said, stifling her anguish.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, Jade. If I need a place to lay the blame, I’ll lay it on myself. Ninety percent of it. But the rest is on you. Because you gave up on us first.”

  He felt the explosion of emotion in his chest as he hurled out the next five words.

  “You gave up, NOT ME!”

  “I never gave up,” she said, weeping.

  He took the phone and slammed it against the Plexiglas partition like a madman.

  “YOU GAVE UP ON HER! YOU GAVE UP ON ME!”

  How he’d lumped Alabama in with his wife’s infidelities, he didn’t know. But he had. The guard grabbed him from behind, tried to restrain him. This enraged him further. He snatched the C/O’s hand, twisted it, stood and spun around fast. He was wincing, going for his gun, a radio…something. Atlas drilled him in the solar plexus, shoved him on his ass, then whirled back around to Jade who was standing there scared and crying.

  She’d never seen the violent side of him before. It wasn’t a side he’d even known he had until Alabama had been taken, or those kids had been run over. This was the dog he let loose in solitary confinement. This dog had no leash. Not even a collar. And this dog wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  A pack of guards hit him, but he lost himself to the rage, throwing elbows and trying to jerk his head backwards into the guards restraining him, thrashing and screaming.

  He lost himself entirely in that moment and was only grounded again when he was hit with a stun gun. He went down hard, his body stiffer than a plank of wood. Even after he’d had enough, the juice kept on coming.

  Spit and blood shook out of Atlas’s mouth, coating his lips and beard, getting in his eyes. But he refused to tear his gaze from the man electrocuting him. He watched him all the way to the end. And then they hit him with the pepper spray. The burning in his eyes and on his skin was legendary, and wholly incapacitating.

  The brutes dragged him to his cell, hitting and kicking him along the way. They couldn’t resist, and he deserved it. When they threw him inside his cell, he slammed into his bed, then fell and struck his head on the floor. That’s when he realized he’d both crapped and pissed himself.

  An hour later, the warden arrived at his cell. Standing there in his JC Penney best, with thick, curly hair cut down low and a face now seeing the ravages of age, Fabian Dicampli looked like the kind of dog who would eat his own crap.

  “You’re going to be my problem child,” Warden Dicampli said.

  “I suppose I am,” he replied. His eyes and skin still burned.

  For a long time, the warden merely appraised him. What was he thinking? What was he deciding? Then he chose to speak, and thank God, because Atlas was ready to go back to sleep.

  “I’m sure you’d like to spend your entire life in solitary confinement. And I understand why. The men here hate men like you. They blame you, as if you’re the reason they’re here. It’s not them, or what they did. Heaven forbid any of these vermin actually take responsibility for themselves. But you…you get to be the reason all over again. So they want you. They want to beat you, rape you, kill you. It’s all about payback for them. Righting the wrongs that society, and especially the cops, have heaped upon them.”

  “Let them try.”

  “I’m told they’ve already begun.”

  He sat up and looked at the man on the other side of his cell door. “This ends one way,” Atlas said.

  “Indeed it does, Mr. Hargrove,” the warden replied, new life in his voice. “It ends my way.” To the guards, he said, “Get his ass back to solitary confinement. He’ll be there for an indeterminate period of time. And relieve him of his clothes and personal belongings.”

  The C/Os opened his cell door, and then they moved in on him.

  “On second thought,” the warden said before they dragged him out of there, “leave him with a sock. We’re about rehabilitation here, not torture.”

  “Sure you are,” Atlas growled.

  He glanced up at the three guards, stood, then gave
them his wrists. They decided it was easier to beat him than take a chance on him flipping bitch again. The punches came in hard and fast, catching his ribs and kidneys, one of them striking his balls. He thought about telling them they were violating state law, but it seemed pointless in the moment. When he went down, he curled up and let it happen. He figured his submission would be enough. It wasn’t. The first clean kick to his head rattled him, the second dazed him, and the third put him out.

  When he woke up on the way to solitary confinement, it was without an ounce of fight left in him. He tried to pick up his dragging feet. It was no use. And the big hands gripping him under his armpits? Not the least bit comfortable.

  In the solitary confinement wing, at his cell, they stripped him of his clothes but allowed him the one sock.

  “You get to keep that,” one of the three guards said. “That way you know we’re not complete heathens.”

  Before he could respond, they hit him with a burst of electricity, weakening his knees. Just before he fell over, they shoved him in the dark hole with force. He hit the ground hard, skidding to a stop on his shoulder and hip.

  “In reality, the sock can be used to wipe your ass, or your nose,” one of the guards told him. “Or maybe you just need a soft spot to lay your head at night.”

  The men snickered.

  “Nighty-night, kid killer,” one of them said as he closed the door, blocking out all forms of light or heat.

  Atlas dragged himself into a dark corner in the already pitch-black cell. There he sat, hugging himself against the cold, wearing a single sock. He closed his eyes, tried to rein in his mind.

  When he was able to clear his head of most of the chaos, he found himself thinking of Jade, about what she’d done to him. He was also thinking about Alabama. This brought him to brink of tears. He couldn’t stop wondering what had happened to her. Is she dead? Alive? When he found himself pondering all the ways she could have died, he began to weep. But then he got ahold of himself, told himself this wasn’t the way.

  Standing up, getting his stances right and straightening his back, he balled his fists and started to punch the walls. Right, left, right, left, on and on and on. He then threw kicks, did pushups, sit-ups, planks and burpees. When he slept, his dreams filled with nothing but chaos, disappointment and betrayal. When he woke, he didn’t know the time or the day, if it was night, morning or afternoon. And more times than not, there was no food, just a pot to piss in and a sock to sleep on.

  Trapped in the darkness with his thoughts, his regrets and his remorse, he told himself that in this weightless, immeasurable world, he would find his inner beast and unleash it fully. Soon, he became obsessed with this thought.

  Atlas suspected the warden wanted him to spend his entire life in solitary confinement so he could collect a check without problems. But someday he’d be let out of the endless night. And when that day came, he would willingly commute his own sentence.

  He’d told the warden there was just one way; the warden said it was his way, but he was wrong. For Atlas, everything ended with death. It wasn’t ideal, but he was sure that would be the way.

  Chapter Nine

  LEOPOLD WENTWORTH

  Leopold Wentworth lounged in the comfort of his Gulfstream G650. As the private jet cut through the national airspace in relative peace, he luxuriated in the lingering scent of last night’s date, Alia. He could still taste her on his skin. She was a subtle mix of jasmine and lingonberry, with just the right touch of Sicilian lemon. He closed his eyes and smiled. Oh, how he loved that smell!

  When he first encountered this Moroccan thirty-something in Buddakan, one of Philadelphia’s finer restaurants, he’d suspected Alia was wearing Flowerhead perfume, a delectable scent by Byredo. She wasn’t the best-looking woman he’d ever seen, but there was something in the way she smelled that plunged him into fits of need. He only had to walk by her once to know he wanted her.

  Later, after successfully separating Alia from her date, he took her to his home, where he eventually confirmed the essence was indeed Flowerhead. By then, she was wearing nothing but her perfume and a smile.

  Now, reclining in his seat at just over forty-thousand feet, lost in the broad brushstrokes of the California landscape below, he realized it was time to put the previous night’s events behind him. By the time the Gulfstream descended into San Francisco International Airport, his thoughts were firmly on the task ahead. Turning to his traveling companion, a capable blond, he said, “Are you ready for this?”

  Twenty-eight-year-old Cira Kingsley stirred from her reverie, her eyes clearing. “Let’s hope I even have a reason to be here.”

  “What about my generosity, or my charisma?” he asked jovially.

  “That alone still leaves me wanting,” she joked, closing the magazine she was reading. Her smile was somewhat restrained, as if she were reflecting on something greater than this trip alone. “Then again, I suppose we could be on a commercial jet with some out-of-shape old guy eating peanuts next to me.”

  “Silver linings,” Leopold purred.

  A rare smile touched her face. She looked at him with an appraising eye. “Why have you never seduced me?”

  “You want to ask me that now?” he asked, motioning toward the fast-approaching airport runway.

  “I’ve harbored the curiosity for far too long.”

  “Your skill set is far-reaching, and as lovely as you are, I cannot risk who you are simply to take advantage of what you are.”

  “Which is?”

  “An enchanting young woman.”

  She smiled, then said, “What makes you think our professional relationship would change if we stretched the boundaries of our personal friendship?”

  “Sex between co-workers always changes things, especially if you do it with someone you like. And I don’t just like you, Cira, I adore you. Truly and honestly.”

  Waving a dismissive hand, she turned away. “That’s a cop-out, Leopold.”

  “You should know me well enough by now,” he replied as the wheels touched down. “Certainly enough to know when I’m telling the truth and when I’m being coy.”

  She returned to him again, studied his face. He felt the weight of her physical scrutiny, and the even greater press of her putting him under a much tighter microscope. She wanted to see honesty in his expression. But for her, he knew it would not be enough. For this moment in time, however, it would have to suffice.

  “You really think I’m enchanting?”

  “Yes, but also gorgeous, competent and brave to boot. Do you know how rare you are, my dear? Truly one of a kind.”

  “It’s feeling a little sunny in my colon,” she teased. “How’s my hair?”

  “Every bit as delightful as your makeup. Your outfit is on point as well. And to your implication that I’m blowing sunshine up your ass,” he said, wagging his index finger at her and grinning, “well, that’s not exactly my MO.”

  “I was being facetious.”

  With her attention now on the California landscape, he took a moment to study her features longer than usual. Her platinum-blond hair was in a tight ponytail, her makeup sparse and flattering, her eyes liquid and hypnotic. As for her attire, she’d chosen crème linen tie shorts, a fitted black tank top, and summer heels that were less Broadway and more Rodeo Drive.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you’ve become so good with women you’ve put your charm on autopilot,” Cira said, turning back to him. “Other times I wonder if there’s not something more between us. An unacknowledged interest, perhaps.”

  “With you, I am always present, honest and in the driver’s seat,” he replied, sitting up as the plane cut its speed. “But let’s not talk about us right now. Atlas is going to like you, and in the end, I’m sure he’ll come to respect you. Just as I do.”

  “Guys like Atlas Hargrove don’t respect anything. Did you see his outburst in court? Truly despicable.”

  “The severity of the crime, matched with his inability to feel re
morse and his need for closure in a certain matter, makes him the perfect weapon, and a man with the perfect alibi.”

  “Is that what you said about me?”

  “Women’s prison never really suited you.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  The overhead speaker came to life, the line open. As the plane drew to a stop, the pilot informed them their car was waiting.

  “Are you ready?” he asked her.

  “Of course.”

  The two of them descended the G650’s staircase, then stepped into the waiting limousine. The drive was less comfortable than the flight, but that was to be expected. The limo was merely a car, not a forty-million-dollar jet.

  They shared a bottle of champagne, neither speaking. Cira was slow to consume her drink; Leopold was more ambitious. When they arrived at NorCal State Prison, they entered the private property, which happened to have been built on some of the most expensive land just south of Lafayette.

  After gaining clearance through the gates, they drove into the serene property. Taking in the gently rolling hills, the lush countryside and the abundance of trees bordering the property, Leopold was struck with the certainty that God was frowning down on the prison’s owners. A landscape as enchanting as this one did not deserve something as soulless as a prison slapped down in the middle of it.

  When they parked, Leopold leaned over to Cira, kissed her lightly on the cheek and said, “If all goes well, I’ll be back in half an hour. An hour tops. If I return any sooner, then I’ve failed and we’ll be eating an extremely expensive dinner in the city.”

  “Good luck,” Cira said, still nursing her champagne.

  With the manila folder in hand, he stepped out into the California heat, then suffered the nuisances of the prison atmosphere as he waited for Fabian Dicampli. He’d expected as much, for they took security very seriously there, and Leopold Wentworth wasn’t even his real name. Fifteen minutes later, after a veritable eternity in such a dismal, crushing place, he was shown into Warden Dicampli’s office.