Dane crumpled the note in his hand. He would have chucked it, except there was no place for it to go. The hallway was bare, the doors closed firm. Outside was just dirt blowing in the wind. He didn’t have pockets. The guard led him out into the yard where the five walk was milling about with the rest of Housing Unit 4. He climbed the crumbling steps to the highest point near the wall, and sat down to tear the letter into tiny pieces, barely confetti dots that sailed into the air and drifted out toward the river that he could smell but had never seen.
40
High Expectations
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STELLA pulled the plastic off the dress and hung it on the closet door. She stepped back to her bed and sat down, studying it from every angle. Plenty long to meet the length requirements at the prison. Nothing transparent. No cleavage. The emerald green would offset her hair perfectly. Cap sleeves. Cinched waist. The skirt swirled when she turned, as she had done plenty of times at the store. She kept imagining how she would walk up to Dane, seated at a little table, he had explained on the phone, and they could sit across from each other.
He’d be allowed one brief kiss, then they could hold hands and talk. If the room wasn’t too busy, the visit could go on as long as they wanted. He didn’t have work duty, so nothing would cut them off until the visitation hours ended.
Stella couldn’t believe this day had finally arrived. Six agonizing weeks had passed since she’d last seen him at the hearing. Thanksgiving was just a few days away, so she’d get to see him yet again. She was working at the Sinners’ Cafe most of the day, but Rennie was working part of her shift, and Stella part of hers, so they could each get a chance to go up there.
She glanced at the clock. One hour until visitation began. Last time she’d been there, it had been easy to walk up and sign in. Now that she had her papers, it would be a breeze. Stella would smile brightly at the cranky old biddy at the desk, then wait her turn on the benches to be called back.
She grabbed the dress and held it in front of her, spinning around the room. Seeing him this way wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t what she wanted. But it was something. After weeks of waiting, long hours at the cafe, dodging the pinches of strange men and leers of late-night hoodlums, she would get to do something entirely for herself.
*
Stella pulled up to the gates in her green dress. Her hair in the new scrunched style. She checked the matching eyeliner and bright eye shadow. Hopefully Dane would like it. It wasn’t a look she’d had before. She’d gone from eternal teenager to adult while he was away. No doubt he’d changed too.
The guard noted her ID on the clipboard and let her through. Instead of the half-empty parking lot she remembered, though, cars were jam-packed, parking along the ends of the rows and up against the walls.
“What in the world?” Stella cruised slowly along the edges, dodging people thronging toward the door. Why were there so many people here? Her heart began thumping painfully, worried that their perfect visit would be thwarted.
She squeezed the Mustang between two trucks, a spot larger cars couldn’t manage, and could barely open the door enough to slide out. She hid her purse under the seat, removing only her papers, her ID, and a plastic bag with change in it for the vending machines, just as the instructions had told her.
The line forming up to the door was long, snaking along the building for a hundred yards.
Stella walked to the end of it. Everyone seemed jovial and chatty, dressed more nicely than her last visit. She stood behind an elderly woman leaning on a cane. “What’s going on?” Stella asked. “It’s never this busy.”
“Thanksgiving!” the woman said. “The out-of-towners come the weekend ahead, as they can’t make it up on the holiday.”
Well, hell. Stella glanced at her watch. She’d promised Dane she would be there right when they opened, but with so many people in front of her, it would be a long wait. She hoped he didn’t mind.
A chill wind blew through, and she tightened her sweater around her. She could feel the scrunchiness coming out of her hair already. Damn. None of this was going according to plan.
“Might as well settle in,” the woman said. “It’ll take an hour or more just to get in the door.”
“Will they limit everyone’s visits?” she asked.
“Oh, certainly. I’d be surprised if anyone gets more than twenty minutes.”
Twenty! Stella could already feel her good mood deflate. Why couldn’t this have been a week ago? Their horrid luck that she would get approved right before a major holiday.
“Chin up, girl. He’ll be right glad to see you.” The old woman smiled, showing great gaps in her teeth. “My boy is always happy to get a visitor. Breaks up the day.”
Stella leaned against the wall of the building. They hadn’t moved an inch yet. She knew she should be happy with anything she got, but still, she felt miserable.
41
First Visit
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DANE paced the length and width of his cell.
“Take a chill pill, dude,” Alex said. “You’re making me crazy.”
Dane leaned his hands on either side of the window, sun slatting through the bars. It looked directly into another window just like it in the next building over. He couldn’t see anything, but still he peered out, as if his line of sight could turn corners and follow paths, down to wherever Stella might be waiting.
Or maybe she hadn’t come.
The guards had been busy, escorting inmates down the walk in a steady stream. Visitation had begun hours ago, and it had to be getting close to the end.
She wasn’t coming.
He’d just talked to her yesterday, and she’d seemed keen on coming to visit. But she also talked about all the men at the cafe. He hadn’t told her how their tattoos marked them as gangs. But maybe she knew. Maybe she liked one of them. Maybe all this was some sort of front to get to him. Maybe he’d pissed off the wrong person inside, and they were planning something.
He smashed his hands against the frame of the window, once, then twice. The pain in his palms felt good.
“Hey, if you’re going to go mental, I want out of here.” Alex backed up against the bars of the door.
Dane spun around. “I’m just waiting. That’s all.” He forced himself to lean on the wall, kick up a leg, cross his arms. Casual. Low-key.
“For what? Santa Claus? Think the Macy Day Parade is gonna march right up the five walk?” Alex laughed to himself and lay back down on the bed. “You expecting someone? Visitation is nearly over.”
Dane clenched his jaw. “No.”
“I never seen you act this way. You must be expecting something.”
God, he could not get away, could not escape talking. He felt the walls acutely now. Stay calm, he told himself. You have to keep it down.
A guard approached, and Dane tensed. He didn’t slow down, though, and Dane turned back to the window. Looking out was the only way he could keep it together.
But the bars behind him screeched. “Scoffield. Visitor.”
Alex kicked the wall, sending loose paint raining on his bed. “I knew it! Damn, I never seen anybody.”
Dane turned around and followed the guard out and down the corridor. He forced his shoulders to relax. She was here. By God, after all this time, she was here.
“’Bout time someone came to see you, Scoffield,” the guard said. He was a bruiser, one of the real assholes.
Dane ignored him.
They exited the unit, and the guard unlocked the cage that led out to the other buildings. “Thought maybe you never talked to no one on the outside neither.” He laughed, and they entered the cage.
“Still not talking, are you? So who is it? Your sister? Your mama?”
Dane kept his eyes on the ground.
“You’re a fucked-up piece of work, aren’t you?” At the exit to the cage, the guard turned to him. “You want to see them, right? You don’t want to get roughed up right here a
t the last lock and end up having to go back in?”
Dane set his jaw. “No, sir, I do not.”
This seemed to placate the guard, so he opened the last door. “All right, let’s go see what you’ve got.”
They walked along the path past the other housing units, and Dane could see they were heading back toward the red-brick administration building. Visitation must be in the same place as he met Maggie. Made sense. He felt calmer knowing he’d been in the building. It wasn’t too rough. Nothing that would frighten Stella, not like the cracking and peeling cells.
They passed through the usual entrance, but another guard waited with a metal detector. He waved the wand around Dane, then sent them on through. Instead of turning down the long hall where he’d met Maggie, they walked down a corridor, turning and twisting until Dane was sure he would never find his way back on his own. At last he heard some noise, and they approached a room where several guards waited. One held a clipboard. “Inmate?”
Dane rattled off his number. Back here, his name was irrelevant. Behind the man was a door with a window, and in the room dozens of round plastic tables with flimsy chairs were filled with inmates and families. Guards were posted every few feet to watch over the din. He’d had no idea there would be so many people.
The ceilings were low, made of those foam squares to absorb sound, with an occasional plastic section for the lights. Vending machines filled one entire wall, many of them with kids in front, hands splayed on the glass fronts.
“Saw your woman,” another guard said. “Quite the looker.”
Dane clenched his fist, willing himself not to listen.
“You hear me? Where’d a punk like you score a bimbo like her?” He laughed and turned toward the door. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you in. Maybe I should keep her for myself.”
He walked in the door, and Dane followed, trying to stifle his rage. He spotted her in the back corner, in a green dress that flowed around her like Marilyn Monroe. Her blond hair was different, but it was her. Some punk was trying to chat her up from the next table. “Looks like she’s already found someone,” the guard laughed, and shoved at Dane’s shoulder.
Dane forgot everything about where he was and how he had to be. He shoved back at the guard, who twisted to avoid stepping on a kid sitting on the floor. The mother snatched up the child, sending the guard off balance, and he fell into an empty chair, knocking it aside with a crash. Two other guards rushed forward and grabbed Dane’s arms. Stella turned to him as the room hushed.
“You’re done here.” The two guards whipped him around and cuffed his wrists before he could say anything else.
Stella moved forward. “Dane! What happened?”
The first guard found his balance and took her arm. “Back away, miss.”
Dane craned his neck, trying to see her. He’d waited all day. He had to see her.
He dragged his heels to slow them down, but this infuriated the guards, who lifted him up by the shoulders and flung him through the door. “Administrative write-up,” one said to the man with the clipboard.
Dane still tried to turn and look through the doorway. Stella stood in the room, her hands on her cheeks. Her hair stood out like a halo, the green dress bright and vibrant in the chaos of people.
A guard grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “That’s going to cost you three months of visitation.”
Dane wanted to argue. He hadn’t meant anything. But this was how things kept going for him. This was just how things were.
42
Defeat
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CAYENNE entered the kitchen as Stella stuck her purse and jacket on a shelf.
“So how’d it go with your man? The big reunion?”
Stella yanked the apron down and rapidly tied it around her waist. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Stella searched around for an order pad and shoved one in her front pocket. She wanted to lie about the whole thing, say it’d been perfect, ideal, and she couldn’t wait for Thursday when she’d see him again. But truth was, she’d been crying for three hours and her face showed it.
Cayenne handed her a pen. “It’s Thanksgiving week. It was probably a madhouse, right?”
Stella nodded, tucking the pen in her pocket.
“So you only got to see him for what, five minutes? That upset you?”
Stella walked over to the stack of clean dishrags, threading one through her waistband. “Yeah. Wasn’t what I expected.” She filled a pocket with sugar packets and Sweet’N Low, then a handful of paper-wrapped straws.
She could feel Cayenne’s eyes on her as she walked past. Rennie pushed through the doors, eyes lighting up when she saw Stella. “You got to see him! How did it—”
She cut off, and Stella guessed Cayenne had done something behind her to tell her to.
Rennie enveloped Stella in an awkward hug, making her suddenly homesick for Beatrice. “I’m sorry it didn’t go grand, lovey. Those visits. They aren’t much.”
Stella cleared her throat. “It’ll be better next time. I’ll know what to expect.” She didn’t want to tell them about the guard’s stumble, and how Dane was blamed, dragged out by two security men in handcuffs. She still couldn’t get over the sight of it, like the morning they’d taken him from Grandma Angie’s house. Her heart squeezed so tightly she could scarcely breathe.
“Maybe she should get the evening off,” Rennie said. “Do you think we can cover?”
Cayenne came up from behind, assessing Stella’s face. “We could do that.”
Stella shook her head. She’d spent all afternoon avoiding calls from Beatrice and Janine, wanting to know how the meeting had gone. “I’d rather be here. Work until I drop.”
She pushed through the red doors and out into the din of the early dinner rush. There’d been a lot of people visiting the prison, which meant a lot of diners at the Sinners’ Cafe.
43
Consequences
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DANE paced the length and width of his cell. He’d been moved to Unit 2, which had all single-person cells. The smaller room suited him fine if that meant no Alex to put him at risk for contraband searches. No one had said anything to him about why he was moved, just to pack up his things and be ready to move out in ten minutes.
He had no idea how the schedule on this hall differed, if rec time was the same or if they had the same set of phone booths. He was closer to the yard now, and the window overlooked the sports field and the covered weight station. Prisoners milled around. With no clock or watch or schedule to keep time by, Dane had no idea what time of day it was.
A guard approached finally, slipping a sheet of paper between the bars. Dane took it and unfolded it slowly. Hopefully it wouldn’t be worse news.
But it was. Across the top were the words “Suspension of Visitation.”
He almost crumpled it. But he had to know the deal. He scanned the page.
Reason for suspension: Assault of security personnel.
Assault. That was going to cost him. He sat on his bed.
Six months’ revocation of contact visitation.
Damn. Longer than they’d threatened. He’d have to call Stella, let her know. He read on.
Thirty days’ suspension of phone privileges.
Hell. He couldn’t call her either.
Removal from honor dorm.
He had been in an honor dorm? No one had told him that. The A-Hall was one of the oldest. Who would have guessed it was considered the best?
He lay back on his bed. The ceilings were low. Unit 2 was newer, the same red brick as the administration building, with typical plaster walls and a bed bolted to the wall, unlike Unit 4, with its domed ceilings and carved windows. Still, prison was prison, and if Unit 2 meant he could be alone, that was fine by him.
He’d write Stella a letter. It was time to cut her loose. Worrying about her, wanting her, this was his problem. She set off something in him that h
e couldn’t control.
He had a niggling suspicion that the A-Hall had been easy on him. If a simple shove of a guard landed him here, his first unit was probably a walk in the park compared to what he’d find at rec time. His gut twisted, but he clamped down on his unease with resolve. He couldn’t have anything to lose. Which meant Stella had to go. That was the only way he’d get through these twelve years in one piece. His only chance at it, anyway. Whether or not he succeeded had little more to do with circumstances than his determination. All he could do was make his life as simple as possible.
He jerked his box off the floor, looking for the sheets of paper Maggie had sent on his first day. The bit of hot pink flashed from inside a crumpled page. He allowed himself to pull it out for a moment and run the fabric through his fingers.
He should toss it, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He crumpled it back inside the paper and shoved the wad in the corner of the box. The writing papers were stuck together, and it took some concentration to separate a single page. He stared at the blank sheet. On it, he had to tell Stella good-bye. He dug around for the pen and hoped the right words would come.
44
Finality
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STELLA dropped the letter to the floor. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving Day. She’d hoped to go back to the prison, see if she could get in to Dane. At least she’d have information if she went up there. He hadn’t called since the botched visit.
But the silence had been better than this. Dane didn’t want her to visit anymore. He’d told her to leave. Not to wait.
She let her arm hang over the edge of the bed, fingers grazing the carpet. She had to work a double shift to help cover for Rennie, who had family coming. She didn’t think she could get up.
The phone rang, but she knew it wasn’t Dane, so she let it ring. Probably Beatrice. Or Janine. Nobody else had her number. She didn’t want to talk to anybody.
Tangled: A New Adult Romance Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle of Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Royalty) Page 135