“Go on,” I said, trying to sound intrigued, but couldn’t hold still and wanted to leave.
The guard straightened up and squared his shoulders with me as though preparing to give a speech. And that is exactly what he was about to do, “In completing your release process—” the guard interrupted himself as he sought out my name on his tablet. “—Amy Harris, the Holmesburg prison administration would like to ask for your feedback on your stay with us.”
I furrowed my brow and shook my head, his suggestion feeling absurd. “An exit interview?” I asked, pulling the vocabulary from somewhere in my previous life.
“Something like that. Shouldn’t take more than a half-hour of your time,” he answered, rocking his head undecidedly. “Give or take a few minutes.”
Time. He wanted more of my time. A burn spread across my neck and chest, but I held my cool. I’d just given twenty-years of my life with no chance for parole. There was no way in hell I was about to give another minute. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said, sounding sarcastic. I stood up and made my way to the door, I took in a breath and freshened up my cheeks, preparing myself for my family. Before reaching for the door-handle, I turned around and added, “I’ll tell you what. You can fill it out for me.”
FIVE
I SHOVED THE DOOR OPEN, only to be met by another guard who then escorted me toward the gates. It would be the last obstacle separating me from freedom and my family. With each step, I searched through the layers of metal fences and the spiraled razor wire, looking for poster-board signs, looking for balloons, and maybe a banner with my name, or anything to tell me my family was waiting for me. Before I knew it, I was standing outside of the prison and the gates were being closed behind me. The road was empty. I searched, following the asphalt for as far as I could see. I fixed my stare on the black thread sewn into the landscape and saw only heat rising in a shaky mirage. There was nothing else for miles. My breath hitched, and my heart felt like it was shrinking. I was alone. The disappointment came quickly then. I was crushed.
I had this coming, I thought, suddenly becoming angry at myself for being so disillusioned. Who was I to expect my kids to greet me with smiles and open arms? Who had I been to them? I’d been warned by some old-timers, warned that prison doesn’t just change the person inside, but it changes everyone they know too.
“How fucking stupid,” I muttered, kicking at the dirt, spitting up a cloudy tuft of road dust. “They don’t know you.”
And it was true. They hadn’t known me since they were kids, and I wasn’t exactly open to having visitors either. Thinking back, I hadn’t heard from my husband or children in a long time. Had it been years maybe? Or was it closer to decades? I tried to work the math in my mind, but the calendar days were a jumble. Sadly, I’d lost track—the days melting and becoming spans of time indiscernible from one to the next. But still, it would have been nice to have someone waiting for me.
I searched again, finding the blacktop, finding the heat floating above the pavement. It was midday summer with the sun directly over my head, beaming hot rays as if I were sitting beneath a heat lamp. And while I baked under the sun, spoiling in my disillusionment, I found relief in knowing I was a free woman. I had my life back. It was a smidgen of joy in the face of disappointment. It helped to save the moment a little. With the heat came a welcome freedom I hadn’t experienced in a long time. My debts to society were paid in full. No more stale, tasteless food. No more stiff prison uniforms. No more looking over my shoulder or following the shadows on the ground. I could step into the shade or stay where I was, it was up to me, it was my decision.
A dirt-devil swirled across the road, winding like a toy top and gathering loose trash before falling apart. A breeze came after, sending the dust into my eyes which forced me to turn away. That’s when I noticed the silence. The outside was pin-drop quiet save for a distant cicada buzzing its summer song. I held still and thought I could hear the girls chatting in the yard. For a moment, I wanted to be with them, believing I was missing out on some news or gossip. But the feeling was fleeting and easily dismissed.
While it had been twenty years since I’d last been at the prison’s entrance, I remembered it looking very different. I suppose that was true whenever you’d been away for as long as I have. I leaned over the curb, seeking the source of a new sound, finding one car headed toward me. It’d be a few minutes before reaching the prison, but I already knew it wasn’t my family. My parents were both dead, and I decided to give up on seeing my husband or children.
There was just one other person who knew I’d be released today. I sensed he might show. Nerd. His name was Brian, and while I’d stayed in touch with him over the years, I never let him visit me, preferring he didn’t see me behind bars.
There’s no knowing for sure who, or if, anyone would pick me up. I was just guessing Brian might, and cast an eye in the other direction, dreading the idea of walking the five miles it’d take to reach the nearest bus station. I had a hundred dollars in my pocket, the last of my money—left over from my commissary’s account—and I had no idea what anything cost on the outside. I sat down, perching my ass on the curb, noticing how boney it felt (I’d lost weight over the years), and waited.
If there was one person who owed me, it was Brian. He was my partner in crime, so to speak, and he was as much a part of orchestrating, and executing our business as I was. I could have easily turned over evidence, dragging him into this and maybe lessening my years behind bars. But I needed him on the outside. And if I was being honest, he mostly stayed behind the computer like the Great Oz behind his curtain.
I killed for Brian once. And for that, he would always be indebted. It’s how my career as a contract killer started. Back then, the Internet had a dark side, a deep web of sorts, where anyone could buy and sell anything. In my case, I sold our service—killing those the world wouldn’t miss. Call it revenge or vigilantism, I did it to feed a need and to send my husband to law school, retiring his dangerous police detective career.
But not all things were as they seemed. My first big score, found in the depths of the dark net, was a contract on one Todd Wilts. He was a young thud who’d been in and out of prison for rape, trafficking, and other atrocities. You name it, he’d probably done it. Todd Wilts was the son of Sam Wilts, who was the leader, the matriarch of the Wilts gang. I’d later learn that the Wilts gang ran the largest moonshine operation on the east coast. Millions of dollars flowed through their tavern, The White Bear. Without realizing what it was I was doing, I’d stepped hip-deep into the middle of a war.
I executed the contract, killing Todd Wilts in the White Bear, leaving his body on the floor of a supply closet as I ran out the front. I thought the job was clean, complete. But what I’d done was to kick off a blazing shit storm that ended with my best friend being shot to death in the doorway of her home, and my husband nearly killed after a gun fight with Sam Wilts. Like I said, not all things were as they seemed. I was over my head. I’d pulled a thread on something I’d no understanding of, and what unraveled after was a mountain of trouble and tragedy that could never be mended. What I’d later come to learn was there had never been a feud between gangs—in fact, there’d never been another gang, no war. There wasn’t even a contract on Todd Wilts. The deep web links I’d followed were all a ruse, a ploy to exact revenge on Todd Wilts for a rape and disfigurement of a young sixteen-year-old girl, Brian’s little sister. Nerd has set up the whole thing.
Was I mad? I nearly killed him—my hands around his neck, his blood-red eyes bulging from their sockets. But when his face turned blue, I stopped and eased back, allowing him to breathe again. I came to realize that he could never have predicted the unfortunate events that unfolded. He could never have known my killing Todd Wilts would have resulted in so much carnage. We waded through the storm, making it to the other side and soon discovered that the business we’d stood up had customers. Real customers. Our company, Team Two, took on contracts and we made a lot of mon
ey.
The rattle of metal on metal grew out of the silence, taking my attention as a blue Ford slowed to a crawl and stopped in front of me. A tornado of dust and debris followed the old car and settled around me. I recognized the model, remembering it as being new before I went inside. What crawled up the road was far from being new and it made me wonder if I was wearing the years as badly as the Ford.
The driver shifted the car into park, sending the engine’s idle high before sputtering and shaking the hood. I waited for a backfire that never came as the passenger window disappeared into the door. I craned my neck, peering inside to see if it was Brian. Would I recognize my old partner? The driver looked briefly toward the prison, his round face carrying a salt and pepper beard while his bald head glistened from the summer heat. I lifted my chin, trying to see if Brian’s eyes were hidden in the older man’s. It wasn’t my partner. This man was a stranger.
Stranger danger, I thought, jokingly, and wondered if that was still a thing.
“Fresh out?” he asked turning back to face me. He smiled, his yellowing teeth peered through his thick beard. He nudged his chin in the direction of the road. His eyes fell on me and slowly looked up and down, taking me in as if I were some kind of prize. “Ya want a lift, Cutes?”
I didn’t like the way he was staring. I sat stiffly, suddenly feeling vulnerable and wished I’d been standing. “Nah. I’ve got someone picking me up,” I answered, lying to him. If he hadn’t given me the creeps, I would have laughed, realizing my first words as a free woman were a lie. “My boyfriend will be here any minute.”
His expression changed at once and I could sense his disappointment. With the mention of a boyfriend, I’d expected as much. “Well, all right then,” he said, rolling up his window. “Stay cool cutes, and best of luck to you.”
“Thanks anyway,” I said, happy to hear the gears shift and to see his car roll away. For all I knew, he may very well have been the only chance of a ride I’d see all day. It was a chance I was willing to take. I wiped my brow of sweat, feeling the sun’s burn on me. I’d give it a few more minutes before creeping back toward the prison’s entrance to sit in the shade. I scanned the road and saw another car in the distance. The shimmering heat told me the car wasn’t real, but it was. And though I can’t explain it, my gut also told me it was Brian.
Our company, our Team Two was hugely successful. On the outside, the business was a cover, a successful cover that turned a sizable profit. Brian had a lot to do with that, washing the income, laundering it, giving us each a hefty paycheck. He also gave us the freedom to take on any kind of contract I wanted. I set the rules on what cases were worthy to ensure we provided a valuable service to those in need.
To most, I would have been considered a monster—an evil person with a cancer on my soul, and drooling Hell Hounds waiting for me at the end of my days. But to others, I am an angel, delivering a justice that would have been lost. I’ve done some very bad things, but that doesn’t make me a bad person. Tumorous sins on my soul or not, I’ll go to my grave believing I helped those who could not have helped themselves.
Everything was good, great even, until Detective Garret Williams came into the picture. After my husband had been shot, he’d transferred to a desk job in the Cyber-crime division, leaving homicide and going to law school in the evenings. Garret Williams was his replacement and upholding the law was about as far from what he wanted to do. Instead, he wanted the good life. The family he’d married into was one of the richest in the country, and it was his wife’s money he wanted to call his own. Garret had no means of accomplishing his goal. That is, until he’d somehow hooked into what Brian and I were doing. We were careful—we operated like surgeons, leaving zero traces of our work—but Detective Williams had enough suspicion to put his eyes on our business. His solution, have me kill his wife. I refused. I only kill those the world won’t miss.
As it turned out, the Detective didn’t need us at all to get what he wanted. While I thought he’d blackmail me or Brian, or both of us, that wasn’t his strategy at all. It was what he could do to my husband that finally forced my hand.
I’d been sloppy in a previous murder. What was self defense, had ended in murder, I’d killed a man and it changed me forever . . . it changed everything. My mistake was not waiting for the police or calling Steve. Instead, I covered it up. It was my first, and it would turn out to be the most fatal of them all. It was the murder of a homeless man, a rapist, and it was investigated by Steve’s department. Although Steve didn’t know the truth—or didn’t want to know the truth—he sat on evidence when he discovered it was me. The evidence placed me at the scene, leaving nothing to question. He protected me, protected us, and had let the case fall into the drek of unsolved crimes.
What I didn’t know at the time, Steve’s actions, that simple removal of evidence implicated my husband. Garret Williams knew this and was going to turn Steve over, have him investigated, prosecuted. At best, my husband’s career would be gone, his aspirations of becoming a lawyer and working with the district attorney’s office destroyed. And at worst, he’d go to prison. I couldn’t let that happen.
Taking a page from my past, from when Brian had tricked me into killing Todd Wilts, I set up a ruse of my own. It was a stupid plan, now that I’ve had twenty years to think about it. The idea was to fool Garret Williams, have him believe I’d followed through with killing his wife. In my ruse, Detective Williams would believe he’d seen a body, and it was then I’d put the fear of God into his soul, acting as if I was going kill him. But I underestimated him, and things fell apart in a way that were disastrous. I don’t remember very much, but I remember his body on top of mine and his hands locked around my neck. I felt my life slipping away, and it was luck that I’d survived. To live, I had to kill Garret Williams. And while I saved myself, I’d lost my family.
Brian and I went on as if nothing happened, but the case about Detective Williams’ murder was front-page news, especially with the fame of his wife and her family. And like the homeless man, I’d been sloppy. I’d left behind a key piece of evidence—a ring. It was an assassins ring I’d used to deliver the poison. Steve had seen it before, only he didn’t know what it was. When the ring surfaced again, my husband knew it was mine, and he knew, I’d killed the detective. The news media went crazy with stories of how a lover’s quarrel had gone horribly wrong. A sentence of twenty years would be considered the worst part of what happened. It wasn’t. The worst part? I broke Steve’s heart. He’d forever believe I was having an affair. And to protect him, I could never tell him the truth.
A feathery ball flew across me, letting out a sharp chirp as it landed by my feet. A tiny, beady-eyed gaze fell on me, the bird trying to decide on whether I was real. The bird had seen enough and continued to inspect a small stone, mistaking it for food.
A house sparrow, I thought, but couldn’t be sure. I’d throw it a crumb if I had one to give, but I was empty. My stomach turned, reminding me it’d been a full day since I’d last had anything to eat. With Wilma coming to my defense, she’d been locked away in the hole. I could’ve gone to chow before my release, but I didn’t want to risk any retaliation. Roxanne was in the infirmary, nursing her privates, but her cronies would be on the lookout for an opportunity to settle the score. An image of the bloody snowflakes smeared on the shower floor came to me, I cringed, but smiled with satisfaction too. I skipped on chow, playing it safe.
A tiny puff of air came from the bird’s wings as it took flight. A reaction to a black limousine pulling up in front of me. I faced my warped reflection in the shiny metal, saw the wavy image and watched it disappear as I stood.
“Which way you headed?” I asked, yelling against the rear passenger window, feeling in my heart it was Brian on the other side. After all, he’s the only person I’d imagine arriving at a prison in a full-stretch limousine. I stepped back when the door clicked, unlocking, and then opened. A breeze caught the road dust, spinning it upward until it reached me
. I covered my eyes, shielding as I tried to make out the face of the man exiting in front of me.
“Been a long time.” I opened my mouth to say something witty, but no words came. I’d heard Brian’s voice and dropped my chin toward the ground, my body filling with a flood of emotion. I hadn’t expected the sudden feeling. Brian spoke the words for me, “It’s good to see you, too.”
“It is,” I managed to answer, my voice cracking as I reached out blindly to take him into my arms. While the sun’s glare kept his face from me, I wrapped my arms around him.
“You look good, Amy.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning us around so I could get a better look at my old friend. Although he wrote a letter every month—keeping me informed about my family—I never let Brian visit me in prison. But now, as I looked at the face I’d once known as a young man, I regretted not seeing him. Maybe it was my pride, or my ego or some other deep-rooted sense of dignity, but I couldn’t let anyone see me inside. Not like that. Not like a caged animal. Brian had put on a dozen years, wearing them like an expensive coat. But hidden beneath the thick cover of his age, I found the boyish face I’d met in a library twenty years earlier. “Well, haven’t you grown to be quite the looker.”
“Shall we?” Brian asked, motioning to the car and holding my hand like a gentleman escort.
“Yes,” I answered and slipped into the limousine, welcoming the chilled air. In front of me, centered in the luxury car, a carafe and a bottle of champagne. It was corny, but a very nice touch, and not so untypical for Brian. He was, and always would be, the awkward nerd I knew. The car door across from me opened, and he shuffled his legs inside, folding his tall frame into the seat. He poured a glass of champaign and offered it. I shook my head.
“No?” he asked, sounding disapointed. “Can I get you something else?”
Grave Mistakes: A Deadly Vigilante Crime Thriller (Affair with Murder Book 3) Page 3