Rascal (Edgewater Agency Book 2)

by Kyanna Skye

  Gathering up her briefcase and looking at herself in the mirror that hung on the back of the door she gave herself a second appraising nod. She looked business-like enough to pass muster for one of the legal profession. Her suit definitely gave her a no-nonsense look and it convinced her that she at least presented herself as someone that was not to be trifled with.

  “Right,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s do this.”

  The drive up to Hahn’s Peak was a pleasant one. She had seen only several prisons before and the location in which they were constructed reflected the kind of people that were held within. And from the drive, she was able to get a sense of what kind of prison Hahn’s Peak was to be.

  One prison she had seen was built at the edge of a small town, where there were, of course, the traditional high walls and guard towers. But even those were shorter, where even a man with a ten-foot ladder might be able to scale such obstacles if he so chose. Such facilities usually kept the mildly dangerous contained.

  Another prison that she had seen was more akin to a college dorm than anything else. The facility itself was stacked five stories high and shaped like a large brick turned on its side with blackened and barred windows every six feet. In which she had seen no concrete walls, but row after row of high fences topped with razor wire that could reduce a man to slivers of flesh in seconds.

  The worst of the worst were usually in some facility of stone and concrete walls so high that one would not be able to see in or out, and even those walls were behind several rings of high chain link fence capped in razor wire as well. And those too were usually punctuated by guard towers where men armed with rifles kept a diligent watch for escapees or anything out of the ordinary.

  She looked at the terrain that she passed and saw only rugged mountains everywhere. Though the landscape was beautiful, it was rocky, steep, and looked like even the work crews that had carved the very road that she drove on had had a difficult time in building this paved path. The rocky slopes were so steep that a man on foot would need to keep to this road if he wished to travel faster without the need of any climbing gear.

  She took that into account.

  Adding to that, it had been nearly ten minutes since she had seen any sign of civilization, which meant that the nearest civilian populace was miles behind her. A far removed facility in the middle of high and rugged terrain.

  It was a simple equation that added up to one fact: Hahn’s Peak was meant for the worst kind of inmates.

  “Shit,” she mumbled.

  She had no fear of dealing with difficult clients, men or women. Their behavior towards her was immaterial. But criminals that had a bone to pick for any reason usually grinded their teeth with the person nearest to them for the convenience of it all. In this case, it would be her. And when someone had an ax to grind, it made the work slow up all the more. And already she felt like there was little enough that she had to work with.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she mumbled again as she drove onward.

  The swerving mountain road finally crested she saw Hahn’s Peak correctional facility come into sight. With the brilliance of the sun shining on it, she felt slightly impressed at what greeted her eyes.

  The facility wasn’t the tallest prison that she had seen. It was three levels high, even the guard towers around it were about the same height. It was a shining white, making it look as though it had been crafted from snow that had refused to give way to the summer heat. The facility was surrounded by a single chain link fence, but this one was capped in traditional barbed wire rather than the more aggressive spirals of razor wire.

  The inside of the facility looked as she had expected. Right off she could see that there was an exercise yard that was, at least for the moment, empty of any of the inmates. But dotting the inside of the fence she could see guards walking patrol dogs here and there, and the silhouette of but a single guard occupying the towers above.

  The facility sat squat on the flattest part of this mountain, as though it were a temple built atop some mythical mountain and the beings within meant to be some kind of pagan gods. All around, she guessed, the population within had a panoramic view of the beautiful – but impossible – terrain all around them. Indeed, the only access road she could see was that which she had driven on to reach this place.

  If this place was meant for the worst kind of criminals, then it was a joke to put them here. Jamie, with no real experience in attempting to break out of prison, thought that it would be quite easy for a person to find the means of escape in a place like this.

  Something is very off about this, she thought.

  She followed the road to its only end-point, the front gate of the prison where a security booth had been set. Though the term “security booth” was an overgenerous description for what she saw. It was nothing more than a small shack that looked lavish enough to combat the elements, equipped with what looked like it could function as either an indoor heater or an air conditioner, and a pair of guards sat within behind a sliding window. Facing her car was a simple gate that was held securely shut by nothing more than a lever handle that could be locked with nothing but a padlock. And that padlock, she observed, was presently missing.

  A man intent on escape could almost literally just walk out of this facility. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or panic.

  Bringing her car to a stop at the gate, one of the guards within the entry shack rose up from his seat inside and opened the sliding window. From within she could hear the sound of a television broadcasting some kind of a sporting event. Obviously, these guards were not given over to strict routines and intense watches with military fervor.

  “Help you?” the guard, a pale and pock-marked faced man asked.

  “Jamie Lombardo,” she said, introducing herself before she realized that she wasn’t sure what else to say about why she was here. “I have an appointment with one of your–”

  “Come on in,” said the guard as he stepped away from the window, sounding slightly irritated that he had been taken away from his sporting event to open the gate for her. He pulled the gate wide, allowing her space to drive through.

  Feeling a nervous chuckle within her, she drove forward. The road emptied into a large parking lot, in which she saw a number of vehicles sitting in the only parking lot in the whole of the prison. Among them were mostly SUV’s marked with correctional facility license plates, likely these were the personal conveyances of the guards. There were a few minivans, one or two coups, and a single Cadillac that she immediately registered as the warden’s vehicle as it sat in a marked parking space.

  This is a new one, she thought, never having seen a prison layout like this before in the whole of her life.

  She parked her car and as she stepped out she saw the entrance to the white building ahead. A set of glass double doors that looked like they could have been taken off of a department store entrance and placed here beckoned her forward. With her briefcase in tow, she entered into the facility proper and found a reception desk waiting for her.

  Behind it was the first real resemblance to a secure prison that she had seen. A plate of glass, looking to be about an inch thick, stood between her and the small office space beyond. In which, she could see the flutter and flicker of numerous TV screens with a dull gray backwash on the wall behind them, on which she was certain that the feed from security cameras could be seen.

  Sitting at the desk that controlled such devices was a short and elderly man of perhaps fifty or so. He was dressed in a short-sleeved gray shirt with rank tabs on his shoulders that Jamie could not read. Across his chest was the usual embroidered emblem of a badge marked with the prison’s name on his right breast. On his left was a name tag that read, “Simmons”.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  The older man within the small office looked up and smiled warmly at her. When he spoke, his voice was lightly fuzzed as though filtered through a speaker, through which she was certain she too must have sounded to him. “Can I
help you?”

  “I’m Jamie Lombardo. I’m here to see one of your prisoners.”

  The old man, like the guard outside, nodded as though she had been wearing a sign that told why she was here and that he’d been expecting her all day. “Yes, come in please.” He tapped a switch on his desk and to her right, a glass door buzzed with the sound of an electronic release and the door swung open less than an inch. “Follow the hall to the very end,” Simmons instructed. “Turn left at the fork, the receiving area is there. Your client will be down momentarily.”

  “Thank you,” Jamie said, uncertain as to what else to say and for the third time today she followed the instructions that guided her to her next meeting place. She followed the hall, turned, and found herself in the most peculiar of receiving areas that she had ever seen.

  In other prisons she had visited, she had learned what to expect from receiving rooms. She had anticipated seeing cold and unfeeling concrete floors with metal tables, chairs, and chain hooks bolted to the floor where inmates could be shackled to their seats to prevent any notion of escape. Additionally, she had thought to see armed guards standing stoically with their backs to the wall, ready to draw side arms and fire at unruly inmates at a moment’s notice.

  It was not so with this place.

  The room was as warm and inviting as the lounge in a winter ski retreat.

  In the center of the room, there was a large fire pit, which now sat cold and unused. It was a handsome thing, carved from a single piece of white marble if she was to guess and large enough so that people could use it as a bench if they chose, sitting nearer a pleasant fire. Surrounding it, was a plush carpet that – like the building – looked as white as un-melted and untouched snow. Small tables brilliantly carved from oak, mahogany, cedar, and other fine woods dotted the room in no particular order. Accompanying those were plush chairs and couches that only the rich would be allowed to sit upon.

  The room was flooded with light from a wide window that, she noticed, was without bars. Not even the doors she had passed through to get here save for that at the reception desk, had used any kind of security. No keypads, no thumbprint readers, not even a skeleton key. None of the technology meant to keep dangerous men caged had been employed here. This place, she suspected, was genuinely some kind of a joke.

  Uncertain of what else to do she slipped into one of the nearest chairs. It was soft and comfortable and she easily felt relaxed just sitting in it. But the moment of comfort was not to last as on the far side of the room another glass door opened and in stepped a lone figure.

  Jamie’s breath nearly caught in her throat at the sight of the figure that emerged.

  He was tall, just over six feet, she judged. His hair was long and brown reaching down to the bottom side of his ears, and parted down the right side so that one side of his scalp looked longer than the other. His locks hung down in his face in sharp tendrils, as if he had just emerged from a shower. His face looked rugged, covered in several days’ worth of bearded growth. His eyes matched the color of his hair, his shoulders were wide and broad, and the housecoat he wore did little to hide the bulk of his body.

  Through the barely-parted folds of that coat, she could see a faint outline of muscle. He wasn’t rippling with toned mass, but from what she could see he was – she imagined – pleasant to look upon. She managed to compose herself just enough by the time he crossed the room to where she sat and she stood to meet him.

  “Jamie Lombardo?” he asked, his voice as smooth as an aged port.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice nearly a squeal of delight. “I’m your new attorney, Mr., uh… I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name,” she admitted heavily.

  He smirked at her and somehow, that smirk too was charming. “Dominic Rizzuto,” he said, extending a hand forward. Gently, he took her smaller hand in his larger one and she felt his grip was gentle but firm. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, not shaking her hand like she had expected he would. Instead, he brought her knuckles to his lips and he laid the gentlest of kisses upon her skin. The touch of his lips was moist and warm and so soothing that it could have been made by a puff of air.

  It sent a jolt of wild electricity down her spine that she could feel in the tips of her open-toed shoes. She hadn’t been greeted by a client like this before in the whole of her life, either professionally or personally.

  “Uh… I’m pleased to meet you as well, Mr. Rizzuto,” she said, trying to retain her professional demeanor.

  “Dominic, please,” he corrected her. “We’re going to be working together, are we not? And I find that keeping formality is nothing short of dismal for a relationship like ours. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Oh god, yes! she screamed in her mind. Aloud she said, “I don’t think that I can do that, Mr. Rizzuto.”

  His smirk lingered on his face, as though he was pleased by her response. “I admire your dedication. But please, I insist that you at least allow me to call you ‘Jamie’. Or would that make you uncomfortable as well?”

  She thought back to her schooling theories. Part of what made a lawyer successful was putting their client at ease. Some professional protocols had to be observed, but she couldn’t stop him from doing anything if he really wanted to, like using her first name for instance. Sometimes, a first name basis did speed up the work. But she felt it best to keep her professionalism intact.

  “That would be fine, Mr. Rizzuto,” she agreed.

  “Please, sit,” he said, offering her the chair that she had so recently occupied. She sat again and she was pleased to see that he waited for her to fill her seat before he planted himself in the chair adjacent to hers. He crossed his legs, very formal and businesslike, and she got a hint of the sense of old-world manners about him. And not just the kiss on the hand, either. Waiting until she was seated… formal introductions… yes, that smacked of old-world habits that went largely unseen nowadays.

  Except those that have money, she realized.

  “Shall we begin then?” he asked his voice calm.

  She licked her lips and felt that familiar chill of uncertainty creeping inside her belly. To stall for time she replied, “Yes, lets.” She turned and opened her briefcase, her movements slow and deliberate, vying for time to make it seem as though she knew exactly what she was doing. She removed the leather-bound legal brief that Mr. Desoto had given her this morning and one of her blank notepads. Setting her briefcase aside, she opened the brief and settled the pad inside of it, using it to hide the redacted files within.

  “So…” she began, sensing that her stall had expired though her mind had arrived at no conclusions.

  Dominic’s smirk turned to a full smile. “You have no idea what you’re doing here, do you?”

  She felt her lips tremble for the briefest of instances. The desire to say something – anything – that would give him confidence in her filled her up like champagne in a crystal flute. But after only a moment’s deliberation, she recalled her own theories. Dishonesty at the outset was never a good thing; it could turn a client’s trust into a peril pretty damn quick.

  “No,” she admitted, feeling her chest sink again. “I don’t.” Way to start my first big case, she thought with a heavy heart.

  His smile didn’t falter and he folded his hands in his lap. “No matter. I often find that the unknown is a thrilling way to start, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yes, of course,” she agreed.

  “Then why don’t we start with our setting?” he said, gesturing to their surroundings. “What do you think of Hahn’s Peak?”

  She spared a moment to look around, still not believing what it was that she was looking at. She gave an honest assessment. “If this is a prison, I think it’s a joke. I’ve seen the guards… I’ve seen the towers… the dogs… the security locks at the lobby… the front gate… it’s all a joke. Hell, if I were a prisoner here I could walk out without anyone to stop me.”

  He nodded. “I like your analysis, and you’re quite correct.
A man bent on escape from a place such as this would find it most easy indeed to slip out unnoticed. But within a half-hour’s time, he’d be right back here with some of the precautions that they have in place here. Moreover, a man would have to want to break out of here at all.”

  She took that in and weighed it. She thought about everything that she’d seen. The drive up, the sweeping view, the simple – and slightly irritated guards – at the front gate, the reception desk, the single door chime that had admitted her here, this lavish receiving room, her well-kempt client, and his comment about a man ‘wanting’ to escape.

  It all made sense to her in the span of a heartbeat.

  “This is a White Collar prison,” she reasoned aloud.

  “Colorado’s first,” Mr. Rizzuto, confirmed. “It only existed on paper up until about five years ago. A year after that the land was purchased and construction began. You’ll find no murderers, rapists, molesters, or violent offenders here, Jaimie. The men that are here are relatively harmless, and there are only fifty or so of us, that I heard at last count. This facility is strictly for those who have committed, shall we say, victimless crimes of an electronic nature.” He put his hand on his chest, almost bowing to her, “Like myself.”

  She made a quick note of that on her pad and sensed an opportunity that she could not afford to pass up. “Mr. Rizzuto, I read the brief of your court transcript of why you were sent here. But it wasn’t altogether enlightening. I’m afraid a few details were withheld from me.”

  He nodded. “I’m not surprised. Not at all.” He wiped his forehead. “They did tell you that I’m a few weeks away from being released, did they not?”

  She felt like a knife’s edge had just been pressed against her throat. She knew that this man had information that she needed to gather for them, though hell if she knew what that information was. But being open with her client and establishing the early trait of open conversation could save her a tremendous amount of grief.