Song of the Blackbird (Albatross Prison #1)

by DB Michaels

  PRAISE FOR SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD

  “Debut novelist Michaels, a doctor herself, brings verve and veracity to this smooth-flowing hybrid romance/suspense tale. Emma’s clinic scenes, which showcase both prisoners’ manipulations and their mitigating circumstances, are particularly realistic and resonant. Michaels also weaves in lovely, literary through-lines . . . a captivating story. . .”

  –Kirkus Reviews

  “There are plenty of romances on the market and plenty of novels about prison experiences; but combining the two under one cover in a prison romance is a different approach, indeed, and so Song of the Blackbird provides a powerful saga of the unexpected.”

  –D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

  “With compelling characters, a unique setting and a sweet love story, Michaels introduces her debut series, Albatross Prison. The characters are skillfully crafted, drawing readers in with their opposing opinions, belief in their actions and strong familial values . . . this is a gratifying tale of forgiveness, compromise and love.”

  –Romantic Times Review Source

  For Poppy

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Other Books by DB Michaels

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Prison at last.

  A trickle of fear slid down Emma’s spine as the metal gates slammed shut behind her. She swallowed down her anxiety. For years she’d been waiting. She couldn’t back out now. Beyond the entry gates, long vertical steps shot toward the top of the hill. She climbed up, remembering the general layout of the prison from the tour last week. The main clinic lay down on the other side of the hill, a full fifteen-minute walk away and the sooner she got there, the better.

  At the top, Emma veered left and hiked yet another slope to a locked gate. As she opened the gate, a shrill whistle pierced the air of the Sensitive Need Yard. A horde of guards seemingly from nowhere stampeded toward a dilapidated building to her right. The guards ran, clutching their batons, screaming, “Down! Down!” to the men wearing blue loitering in the yard.

  The inmates dropped to the ground, their eyes riveted to the commotion. Emma cowered back, her heart racing. Should she follow them? Better to head straight to the clinic. Suddenly a loud cheer burst forth with chants of “Kill him! Kill him!”

  Someone was being beaten. What if it was Sam? Emma followed the last guard around the corner of the building and screeched to a halt. A massive grim-looking man in a blue suit was stomping on a frail elderly inmate on the ground. At least twenty guards surrounded the group, urging the huge man on.

  “Kill him!”

  “He deserves it!”

  “Harder! Harder!”

  The man in the suit seemed oblivious of the jeers. He was enormous, at least six foot four inches tall with a wide, muscular body. His set mouth and grim face twisted in savage satisfaction as he repeatedly kicked the man on the ground. “You have a death wish? Get up or I’m going to beat the hell out of you,” he said to his victim.

  The old man’s body jerked a few times before he stopped moving altogether.

  “Get up, you filthy bastard,” the huge man yelled. He lifted his boot to deliver another blow.

  “Stop it,” Emma shouted, running into the group. The attacker’s head swiveled in her direction, his eyebrows flying together in a deep frown.

  Up close, he looked younger than she’d thought, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties at most. Black hair framed a formidable, stern face. The man’s strong square jaw jutted forward and his mouth compressed into a thin line.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked, straightening to his full intimidating height. His bright eyes glared down at her, their silver color accentuating his striking face.

  “Please stop hitting him.” The inmate lay motionless on the ground. Was he already dead?

  “Stay out of this,” the brute said, clenching his fists.

  “He needs help.” Emma dropped to the ground to check on the poor victim.

  “Don’t touch him.” A grip of steel clutched her arm. For a big man, he moved as quickly as lightning, for there he was, kneeling right beside her. A tag with the name Chambers was clipped to the front of his suit jacket.

  “Please, let go of me.” Emma shook off the man’s grip and grabbed a stethoscope and penlight from her bag. She listened to the victim’s chest. Breath sounds were present but faint and slow. His pupils were a little small but reactive. A jagged scalp laceration oozed out a steady stream of blood. Emma pulled out a handkerchief and pressed down hard on the wound.

  “So you’re a nurse?” Chambers’s silver eyes bored into hers.

  “No. I’m the new doctor.” Emma shook her head. The poor man may be dying right now and all because of this brute. “Listen, he needs help. Can you call an ambulance?”

  Someone snickered behind her. Emma turned. A sea of blue, at least fifty inmates, kneeled at the periphery of the crowd.

  “Code 1 already called,” a guard yelled.

  “Is that 911?” Emma asked. The handkerchief was already soaking a deep red color, emitting a faint metallic smell. “He needs to go to the emergency room.”

  “No hospital,” Chambers said. “You’ll take care of him here.”

  “He needs the hospital. They can do a CT to make sure there’s no head bleed.”

  “I said no hospital. My orders.”

  “Call 911, please.” Emma turned toward the nearest guard. “We can’t let him die here.”

  “Sorry, Doc.” The young guard flicked a nervous glance at Chambers. “You heard what he said. No 911.”

  Emma waved the bloody handkerchief in front of Chambers’s face, deciding more action was needed. “This man is hurt, Mr. Chambers. Who’s in charge here? Can I talk to him?”

  A muffled roar of laughter erupted from the group of inmates behind them. The young guard coughed into his hand and gave her a sympathetic look.

  Chambers’s silver eyes hardened into a slate gray. He pulled out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it into the young guard’s hand. “Smith, hold pressure until Code 1 comes. Looks like the doctor is forgetting some basic first-aid training.”

  Another roar of laughter rose from the crowd of inmate spectators. Emma knelt next to Smith, too upset to give the brute a piece of her mind. At least the bleeding seemed to have slowed somewhat with the new handkerchief.

  “Get those inmates out of here.” Chambers shot up from his sitting position. “Where the hell is that Code 1 team?”

  The majority of guards dispersed to clear away the sea of blue. One by one, each inmate filed out in a single row, some of them darting covert glances Emma’s way. All of them wore identi
cal light-blue shirts and pants with the California prison logo imprinted down the front of the right pant leg. Emma scanned the crowd for Sam’s face and bit back a sigh of frustration when no one looked familiar.

  The poor man on the ground groaned, drawing Emma’s attention.

  “Am I in heaven?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  “No.” Emma felt his racing pulse. His breath became shallower and quicker while his skin remained cool and clammy. Was he bleeding internally? Why wouldn’t they call 911? “What’s your name?”

  “Roberts,” the man croaked out. He raised his arm to try to touch her hair.

  “Hands down,” Chambers ordered from above.

  “It’s okay.” Emma squeezed the man’s hand. “Do you know where you are, Mr. Roberts?”

  The inmate cowered away and curled into a fetal position. “Don’t hurt me,” he whimpered.

  “He needs some space, Mr. Chambers.” Emma tried to be as polite as possible but Chambers only stepped closer and glared down at his pathetic victim.

  “No one is going to hurt you, Mr. Roberts,” Emma stressed. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  Chambers’s grim look darkened even more. He glowered at her, his silver eyes glinting like bullets ready to raze her down. “Stop being so naïve, Doc, or you’ll be the next one on the ground.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Chambers’s eyes widened a fraction before they snapped together in a ferocious frown. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Emma shivered and leaned back. He wasn’t going to harm her, was he?

  “Oh, for God’s sake, woman. I was talking about your precious Roberts down there. He’s the one who would hurt you, not me.”

  “He’s unconscious, Mr. Chambers. I don’t think he’ll be doing anything right now.” Emma checked on the wound again.

  An ambulance’s siren suddenly pierced the air. Emma smiled up at the guards, thinking they’d obeyed her after all. Chambers clearly wasn’t as in charge as he wanted to be. Her smile fell the instant she saw the ambulance, or what passed for an ambulance. The rickety vehicle that rolled up the hill sounded like an ambulance but looked like a faded rescue van from the 1950s. And to make it worse, instead of EMTs, two middle-aged women in scrubs came out, each slowly moving along at a sedate pace.

  “Hello, Mr. Chambers.” The woman in pink smiled, showing uneven white teeth. “How are you today?”

  “Good.” Chambers looked even tenser than before. “Where’s the rest of the Code 1 team?”

  “There’s another code down the hill,” the other nurse said, batting her eyelashes. “You need help, sir?”

  “Yes,” Emma interrupted. Were they flirting with the man? Emma shook her head in disbelief. A more uncaring beast she’d never met. “I’m Dr. Edwards, the new prison physician. Can you help me over here?”

  “The new doctor,” the nurse in pink exclaimed. “We’re so glad you’re here. I’m Ms. Bryant and this is Ms. Carter. We’re the Urgent Care nurses.”

  “Oh, great.” Emma swallowed down her anxiety. How the heck were these two women going to help her load the patient into the van? They were old, older than her mom had been when she’d died. She shook their hands and prayed for a miracle. “Can you check his vital signs? I need an O2 sat and an ACCU-CHEK too.”

  A moment of silence stretched to a few seconds too long. “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” the nurse named Ms. Bryant finally said.

  “What?”

  “We have to bring him down to the treatment area,” Ms. Carter said. “Our portable blood pressure machine isn’t working right now.”

  Emma swallowed again. How backward was this place?

  “Smith. Jones. Load the inmate in the van,” Chambers ordered. “Quickly, so they can stabilize him.”

  Emma’s jaw almost dropped. This coming from the man who had savagely beat her patient?

  “What?” Chambers’s silver eyes flashed at her. “I want him out of my yard, Doc. The sooner, the better. Less commotion to stir up the rest of the inmates.”

  “Of course.” She should’ve known. All he cared about was the perfect order of his yard. Who the heck was he? Some bombastic yard supervisor, no doubt.

  Emma followed the two officers into the ambulance. Inside she didn’t find any IV set or equipment except for an AED machine and an oxygen tank with a mask. She fastened the mask on Mr. Roberts’s face as he lay strapped on the stretcher. The two nurses got into the front of the van. Emma settled in the back, sitting alongside the stretcher with Officer Smith.

  A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived at the bottom of the hill next to a group of old bungalows. Several wild black cats lounged close by. On the opposite side of the bungalows lay rows of dilapidated buildings labeled with the numbers 200s and 300s, which Smith pointed out as inmate dorms.

  “Come this way, Doc.” Ms. Bryant led Emma up a ramp into the nearest bungalow. Inside to the left, at least five officers sat laughing and chatting with one another. They congregated around a large wooden desk facing a room labeled Men’s Clinic.

  “Another Code 1?” A large dark-skinned guard flicked sunflower seeds out of his mouth as he stood to see Mr. Roberts wheeling by on the stretcher. “What is it? Seizures or another 7219?”

  “Altercation.” Smith grinned. “With the boss himself.”

  “Shoot, man,” the dark man said. “How many is that? The third this month?”

  “Hey. Whatever works.” Smith cracked his knuckles before heading into the clinic. Emma rushed after him and helped lift Mr. Roberts onto an empty gurney.

  “Okay. I need an IV, monitor, and some O2.” Emma stripped off Mr. Roberts’s shirt to look for further injuries. “Someone get the vitals.”

  Ms. Bryant plopped her heavy frame into a chair and wiped perspiration from her forehead. “I need a break. Carter, you want to do the honors?”

  Ms. Carter rolled her eyes and dragged herself from the portable AC unit. She slapped on the blood pressure cuff and shoved a temperature probe into Mr. Roberts’s mouth. He coughed and snapped his eyes open, flailing his arms and legs.

  “What the hell?” he mumbled.

  “Relax.” At least he was moving all extremities. Emma put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “We’re trying to help you. Does anything hurt?”

  “Go away. Wanna sleep.” The man began snoring within a few seconds.

  “Track marks.” Ms. Carter lifted the inmate’s arm, revealing two faint red pricks. “Better get the Narcan ready.”

  “Remind me to order some more. We’re almost out.” Ms. Bryant heaved herself out of the chair and pulled up some Narcan in a syringe.

  Emma shined a light into the patient’s eyes. The pupils were now pinpoint. His breathing had slowed and some goose bumps appeared on his arms. Amazing. An opiate overdose. Maybe these nurses weren’t so bad after all.

  “Good job.” Emma flicked the two nurses a grateful glance. Over the next half hour, Roberts continued to breathe on his own without the need of Narcan. Emma cleaned and stapled the head laceration. Other than a few bruises on his chest and thigh, he wasn’t as injured as she had feared. No need to call 911, as his neuro exam was pretty normal. After giving him two liters of saline, she took a brief tour of the Urgent Care.

  A crash cart with a defibrillator lay on one side of the room and an old monitor screen dangled over the gurney. Several signs about what to do in a code hung on the faded peeling walls. Adjoining the main clinic was a small inner room, the doctor’s office, housing a desk and a large computer.

  “I know. Everything looks a bit run-down,” Ms. Carter said. “The state has no money for renovations.”

  “Must be different where you’re from, Doc,” Ms. Bryant said as they settled down around the gurney. “What made you decide to work in a prison?”

  “I like working with the underserved. And the government is paying off half of my student loans for being here.” At least she could tell the truth about that part.

  “You’
re kidding me, right?” Ms. Bryant pulled out a granola bar from her coat pocket. “I never heard of that.”

  “The feds want more doctors to work in public service jobs, so they assist with the loans,” Emma explained. “It’s a great help.”

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here.” Ms. Bryant beamed. “We really need a new doctor now that Dr. Cassidy is retired.”

  “And Dr. Ross is cutting back his hours, too. Something to do with his family,” Ms. Carter said before tossing her empty coffee cup in the nearby trashcan.

  “Chop, chop. Get to work, ladies.” A tall, chubby bald man in a white coat bustled into the room, rubbing his hands together with waterless soap. “What have we here? Another OD?”

  “Dr. Brown.” Ms. Bryant smiled. “Glad you’re here. Clinic wasn’t that bad, was it?”

  “Bad enough.” He grinned, turned Emma’s way, and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, my God, you’re the new doctor, right? I totally forgot you were coming today.”

  “It’s okay.” Dr. Brown looked young, his friendly ruddy face dominated by a large nose and an easy smile. She gave him a firm handshake. “Emma Edwards. Nice to meet you.”

  “Julien Brown. How do you do?” His light-blue eyes smiled at her. “I’m the chief. I think you toured while I was on vacation.”

  Mr. Roberts suddenly emitted a loud groan before falling back to sleep.

  “What’s up with him?” Dr. Brown pointed his large shiny head toward the patient.

  “Elderly inmate beat up by one of the staff here,” Emma said. “Vitals stable, getting fluids. Probably shot some heroin too.”

  “Custody beat him up?”

  “Custody?” Emma asked.

  “The guards. That’s what they’re called here. You know, the men and women in green.”

  “Oh. I’m not sure if Chambers is Custody, but the man is way out of control.”

  “Chambers?” Dr. Brown asked with a quizzical expression.

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “Tall, rude brute. Really rough around the edges. You know him? Who’s his supervisor?”