“Definitely.”
“Could you transfer to another prison?”
“Not with only six months left in my sentence.”
“What about solitary confinement?”
“The guards are in their pockets. They can get me anywhere inside.”
“And outside?”
“I have more protection.”
Mia clutched the pen, nodding. No wonder he felt trapped. The Aryan Brotherhood was one of the most powerful prison gangs in California. Cole could either act as an informant or take his chances inside. If he failed to cooperate with the investigation, he’d get sent back to Chino to serve the rest of his sentence.
“You were released yesterday. How are you adjusting to the change?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“What have you struggled with?”
“Sounds. I’m used to prison sounds. Harsh noises that bounce off walls. Men shouting. The guards wear rubber-soled shoes that squeak on polished concrete. Even in the exercise field, it’s isolated. Every sound is confined. Out here, there are a million random noises. Traffic and music and open space. It goes on forever.”
“How does that make you feel?”
His brows drew together. “It doesn’t make me feel anything. It just is.”
“You’ve given a vivid description of the way you experience sounds.”
“So?”
“Sounds are difficult to put into words, like emotions. But you express yourself well. I’m sure you can apply that skill to describing your feelings. Articulate people are excellent candidates for therapy.”
He seemed insulted by her suggestion. “I don’t need therapy.”
“What do you need?”
“A ticket to Mexico and a fake ID.”
“You’re wearing an ankle monitor,” she reminded him. An alarm would go off if he tried to tamper with the device or leave the country.
He stared out the window, a muscle in his jaw flexing. Investigator Vargas considered Cole a flight risk. Fleeing to Mexico might be a safer choice than ratting out his uncle or returning to prison.
“Have you seen your uncle?” she asked.
“Not yet. I didn’t go home last night.”
“Where were you?”
“Out with the guys. At a club.”
“All night?”
“Most of it.”
“You left with someone?”
“What difference does it make?”
“We can talk about your prison time, if you’d rather.”
“I left with someone,” he said, drumming his fingertips on the wood armrest. “That’s why I went there. To get drunk and get laid.”
“How did it go?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it. You can describe the whole evening, or just focus on one moment that stands out to you. One feeling.”
“The music was too loud,” he said. “I had to lean in close to hear my buddies. That was annoying. They were talking while some of the girls were onstage, drinking more than watching. They were soft.”
“The dancers?”
“The guys. Men in prison are hard. Not just their bodies, but their faces and their attitudes. They’re on point all the time, defensive. The guys in my crew are more settled. Some of them have families.”
“And that makes them soft?”
“That and a beer gut, yeah.”
“Do you look down on them?”
“No, I envy them. The way they can just relax and not pay attention to every sound or movement.”
“Who did you go home with?”
“One of the strippers.”
“Was she attractive?”
His hands flexed on the armrest. “Yes.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Pretty much.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“It wasn’t my best performance.”
She smiled at the self-deprecating comment. “Are you going to see her again?”
He shrugged, smiling back at her. “Maybe.”
Mia figured he could have a different woman every night if he wanted to. That didn’t necessarily mean her plan would fail. But she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. He was so much more compelling in person. She’d approached the idea of seducing him with a certain amount of detachment. It was another unpleasant task to complete, an indignity to endure. She’d never thought she’d feel the slightest hint of attraction.
Their session was almost over, so she set aside her notebook and they discussed his next appointment. He was supposed to meet with her twice a week at 5 p.m. His “parole officer” was in an office down the hall. Mia was his “life coach.” He was required to check in with DA investigators before his visits with Mia. They’d be keeping close tabs on him but not following his every movement.
“Are you married?” Cole asked, glancing at her hands.
She realized that she’d been rubbing the empty spot on her ring finger. Nervous habit. “No, not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“He died.”
Cole didn’t say he was sorry for her loss. He didn’t say anything at all, and his silence was an overwhelming relief. She hadn’t known she’d wanted that. Needed it. For someone to just accept this news with calm quiet.
“My little brother died a few months ago,” he said finally.
Mia returned his favor and didn’t respond. It wasn’t easy.
“He got stabbed with his own knife and buried in a shallow grave in the badlands.”
“Were you close?”
Cole nodded. “He idolized me.”
She wondered if Cole would end up the same way. Another body in the desert, picked apart by crows. As he dropped his hand to the armrest, the letters on his knuckles caught her eye. T-I-C-K was spelled out across one. T-O-C-K said the other. She was about to ask what it meant when her phone trilled, signaling the end of the session.
“Time’s up?” he guessed.
She stood with him, smoothing her skirt. “Unfortunately, yes.”
He seemed relieved, as if talking to her had been torturous.
“You did well,” she said honestly. “I want you to feel comfortable here. I’m the only person outside of law enforcement who knows about your assignment. In this space, you have nothing to hide.”
“Everyone’s got something to hide,” he said, pinning her with his gaze.
She stared back at him in silent acknowledgment. If he knew what she was hiding, he’d never return to this office. He was a formidable opponent. She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake in selecting him to exact vengeance on her enemies.
She might lose her career, her assumed identity—even her life. But this existence she’d eked out for herself wasn’t living, anyway. She was an empty shell of a person. She’d been numb for almost three years, burying herself in unsatisfying work. There was no joy. No peace. No solace.
Only her thoughts of retribution kept her going. She wanted the men who’d killed her husband and left her for dead to bleed out in the streets. And the weapon she’d chosen for the job was Cole “Shank” Shepherd.
CHAPTER TWO
MIA ESCORTED COLE to the door and opened it for him. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
He touched his fingertips to his temple in a mock salute.
Senior DA Investigator Damon Vargas was leaning against the wall in the hallway, scrolling through text messages on his phone. Damon straightened as Cole passed by, as if he anticipated trouble.
“Nice,” Cole said to Damon, indicating Mia.
It was a simple taunt, meant to needle Damon about his choice of psychologist. Damon’s eyes narrowed in warning but he said nothing, maybe because Mia was watching. She wasn’t surprised by Damon’s openly antagonistic relationship with his informant. Cole had called Damon a prick. He kind of was.
After Cole disappeared around the corner, taking the staircase instead of the elevator, Mia retreated to the office.
Damon foll
owed her in. “How did it go?”
“Fine.”
“Was he disrespectful?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?”
“I can manage him,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“If he lays one fucking hand on you—”
She kept her expression cool, though she was startled by his vehemence. Damon was the only person who knew her true identity outside of WITSEC. He acted as liaison between the program and their employer, the Riverside District Attorney’s Office. He was obsessive about his work, almost manic in his intensity. She suspected him of doing everything to excess. Drinking, womanizing, investigating. His attitude toward Cole went beyond that of an overzealous cop. He sounded possessive.
Like Mia, Damon was skilled at staying in control. He regained his composure, relaxing his bunched shoulders. He was tall and lean, with dark hair and brown eyes. His face was a combination of traits from a Mexican father who’d never been around and a white mother who’d died young. He probably needed therapy more than Cole.
“You don’t have to stand guard outside the door,” Mia said gently. “He won’t relax in here if you do.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Ken is right down the hall,” she said. There was a real parole officer in the building, which helped Cole’s cover. “I’m perfectly safe.”
Damon studied her for a moment, appearing conflicted. He didn’t comment on her stylish clothes or careful makeup. Maybe he had meant to dangle an attractive woman in front of Cole. She wouldn’t put anything past Damon, not even police brutality. He was ruthless in his pursuits.
“Do you have dinner plans?”
She gathered her belongings from the coffee table and walked behind the desk. “I thought I’d visit Mom for a few hours.”
He stuck his hands in his pants pockets and jangled his keys. His pent-up energy made her anxious. She was afraid he’d notice her unease and guess what she was up to. He had a way of examining people, looking beyond the surface.
“What you’re doing isn’t going to bring him back,” Damon said.
She paused in the process of stashing items in her satchel. Did he know? Had he been tracking her internet searches, reading her mind?
“Staying true to him isn’t healthy, Mia. You have to move on.”
He was talking about her refusal to have dinner with him, not her plot to avenge Philip. Releasing a slow breath, she placed her cell phone inside the leather pocket and secured the satchel straps. She had to get a grip on herself. “Screwing anything that moves isn’t the same as moving on.”
He shrugged, guilty as charged. “You’re the psychologist.”
“I appreciate your concern,” she said, softening her tone. He’d asked her out several times since she’d returned to California, and she always said no, even though she found him attractive. She wasn’t turned off by his promiscuity or his dirty investigative methods. What did she care if he roughed up some lowlife for tips? She was in no position to judge. He might not be a good man, but she wasn’t a good woman. Not anymore. What prevented her from accepting his dinner invitation had nothing to do with professional ethics or personal distaste. It was a simple matter of transference. Every time she looked at him, she saw her dead husband’s face.
Damon had investigated the home invasion robbery, and she’d known him for years. He was one of her only links to her past life, and that was comforting, but she would always associate him with loss, horror and trauma. She also wasn’t sure she could trust him. He’d sell out his own mother to solve a case—if he’d had one.
She donned a hat and sunglasses before they walked out of the building together. He said goodbye in front of her beige Prius. She glanced in her rearview mirror as she drove away, wondering if Damon’s interest in her would become a problem. The last thing she needed was him sniffing around her. He had an eye for bad girls and a nose for trouble.
She followed procedure by calling WITSEC before she left Indio. Her mother lived in a retirement community on the outskirts of Palm Springs, about thirty miles away. Mia rented a condo in nearby Cathedral City. There was a cluster of bustling desert towns in the area, which made it pretty easy to disappear here.
She stopped at an underground parking garage to switch vehicles. Then she continued to the retirement center. The precaution might be unnecessary, but she was happy to comply. Active members of the program weren’t allowed to see their loved ones at all. They couldn’t work in their choice of professions or live wherever they wanted. As a transitional member, Mia had more freedom. She didn’t need twenty-four-hour protection or constant check-ins anymore. After five years, she might be able to leave the program for good.
In a way, she was lucky she’d been left for dead. Because she was dead, legally. They’d buried Jane Doe in a coffin alongside Mia’s husband. Michelle Ruiz had been reborn as Mia Russo, aka Mia Richards.
Her husband, Philip, had stayed dead.
She turned off the air conditioner and lowered the windows as she drove down the lonely desert highway. It was still hot, but she wanted to feel the wind and the warmth of the setting sun on her skin. She wanted to feel something.
Her mind drifted back to the day she’d lost him. She usually tried not to think about it, but the session with Cole had jogged her memory. Cole had lost the person he loved most, too. For a moment, he’d shared her pain, and the weight of it had shifted off her heart. Lifted up to let her breathe again.
She’d regained consciousness in the guest room, nauseous and disoriented. Philip didn’t come for her, and that was terrifying. At some point, she rolled over and crawled into the hall. She felt like a ghost, or a zombie. Her hair was matted with blood. One of her eyes didn’t work, her head ached and her ankle throbbed. She didn’t trust herself to stand, so she continued down the hall on her hands and knees.
Philip was on the floor in the study. He’d been shot in the head. He was unmoving, unresponsive. She used his desk phone to call 911. Then she’d curled up next to his dead body and wept.
The first twenty-four hours after the robbery went by in a blur. She’d been interviewed by two detectives at the hospital. She was suffering from traumatic brain injury, in addition to post-traumatic stress. The details of the attack were fuzzy. After the third or fourth round of interrogations, she realized that she was their prime suspect. Philip had taken out a significant life insurance policy. As his wife, she was the sole beneficiary. The police seemed to think she’d hired a pair of hit men to murder her husband. Then Damon Vargas of the Riverside District Attorney’s Gang Task Force took over the investigation—and he believed her.
Damon arranged for her to have a cognitive interview, which was a psychological process designed to help witnesses remember details. She’d been able to form a clearer picture of her assailants. They were both big men, Philip’s age. One had salt-and-pepper hair. The other had dark, close-set eyes and a cursive tattoo on his wrist that began with the letter E.
“I don’t think they were gang members,” she’d said to Damon, after that interview.
“Why not?”
“They were white.”
“Most motorcycle club members are white,” he’d explained. “Some are organized criminals, like the mafia. They’re involved in everything from weapons dealing to armed robbery.”
She’d had no idea.
Damon had inquired about the antique motorcycle display Philip had hosted at the gallery the month before. It had attracted a large crowd of hard-core bikers. Hell’s Angels types. Tattoos and alternative lifestyles were common in Southern California, so Mia hadn’t been disturbed by the guests. The previous year’s display of historical vibrators and vintage BDSM equipment had drawn an equally colorful group.
According to Damon, the masks she’d seen on the perpetrators were protective gear worn by motorcycle riders. He showed her pictures of men involved with Riverside’s White Lightning Motorcycle Club. She immediately identified one of i
ts members.
“That’s him,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’ll never forget his eyes.”
Damon came back with another set of photos. Mia recognized her attacker in all of them. “His name is Gordon ‘Gonzo’ Lowe, and he’s the president of White Lightning.”
“He’s their leader?”
“Yes.” Damon nodded, showing one last photo. It was a recent shot of Gordon Lowe displaying his wrists. They were bare.
“Oh my God,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand. Had she imagined the tattoo, or gotten the two men mixed up?
“I believe this is the man who attacked you,” Damon said. “It fits his MO. He does home invasions. But you only saw half his face, and eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. Yours might not hold up in court.”
“What does that mean?”
Damon leveled with her. “We need more evidence, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get it. Until then, it’s better if he thinks you’re dead.”
And that was how she died alongside her husband. They’d even had a double funeral, and buried an unidentified body in her grave.
The evidence Damon was looking for never materialized. Mia spent two years in Arizona under WITSEC. They’d allowed her to pursue a doctorate in forensic psychology. She’d been working as a mental health counselor before the robbery, and she already had a degree. After she completed her studies, she’d begged to come back to California. Her mother lived in a facility in Palm Springs, and her health was failing. Mia had lost her father when she was twenty. She wanted to reunite with her mother before it was too late.
The program relented, and Mia became a transitional member. She returned to California with a new look, a new degree and a new identity. She was able to visit her mother once a week. She kept a low profile, counseling law officers and female inmates. But she didn’t feel recovered. If anything, she’d grown more and more disconsolate.
She couldn’t go on like this, waiting for justice. She refused to be passive and cower in fear forever. What did she have to lose in pursuing the men who’d killed her husband? Nothing.
She had nothing.
A few weeks ago, Damon had handed her a solution in the form of Cole Shepherd’s file. Damon coordinated with WITSEC to ensure her safety on the job. He was one of the reasons she’d been cleared to return to California. He hadn’t cleared this particular assignment with WITSEC, however. He’d known they wouldn’t approve. She’d studied the file, pausing at the list of Cole’s enemies: the Aryan Brotherhood and White Lightning.
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