by Kyanna Skye
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 me.”
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.
“Yes,” she decided. He knows he’s being released soon and obviously, he knew that I was coming… I have to find out what else he knows first. “I do.”
He nodded. “Wonderful. Well, then let us begin with the most obvious question you have, now that the mystery of this prison has been solved.”
She readied her pen. “Why are you here, Mr. Rizzuto?”
He straightened himself up as though stiffened by a sense of self-importance. “Quite simply, I embezzled over $10 million dollars from my former employer.”
She made a note of that. “Why did you do it?”
He shrugged. “The challenge of it, if nothing else,” he said, reminding her of a boy sh
e had known in high school. That boy had fancied himself the ultimate daredevil of the school simply because he was bored and wanted attention and went to tremendous lengths to capture it.
“I see. And who was your former employer?”
“Lester & Desoto, they’re a legal firm in New York.”
Jamie’s hand trembled as she wrote his response.
***
It was close to nightfall when she left and she had only left because the guards had advised her that the drive down the mountain was treacherous after dark. Unable to stay she agreed, her mind exploding with questions. When she got back to her car the first thing she did as she drove away from the prison was dial up Lester & Desoto. She went through several switchboards until she finally arrived at the familiar voice of Mr. Desoto on the other end.
“Ms. Lombardo,” he said familiarly on the other end, “successful so soon?”
She bit her lip. “No, Mr. Desoto, I’m not,” she admitted but quickly pressed on before she lost her momentum. “Sir, are you aware that this Dominic Rizzuto was a former employee of our firm?”
Desoto sighed with aggravation, but patiently replied, “Yes, Ms. Lombardo, we were well aware of that.”
“Sir, I feel that that was something that could have been left inside my brief… or that you could have told me firsthand. A detail like that–”
“Is of no consequence to anyone outside of our firm, do you understand?” Desoto said, his voice rising to the point of being a warning.
Jamie had studied the law long enough to know how to read between the lines when someone was talking to her that way. The meaning of Desoto’s words was clear: Yes, we know, but we don’t want anyone else to find out about it. The reason for her being sent here was also clear. Dominic Rizzuto had embezzled ten million from her firm and she had been sent to find out what he’d done with it.
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Good. So you’ve made contact with him, I expect.”
“I have, sir.”
“Then you know what to do. Show us that our confidence in you has been vindicated and learn what we need you to find out. Do that, and your reputation within our firm will be solid.”
Before she could say another word there was a familiar Click!
She sighed as she drove back to her hotel. Her client used to work for her new employer. Right off she could see that as a conflict of interest. She had thought it strange to wonder why she would be sent in now to consult with a man who was weeks away from freedom. If he had the information necessary to reveal where he had hidden the firm’s money, why not bring in someone else? A forensic accountant? A tax attorney? Either of these would have been a more accurate ploy… but that still didn’t answer the question as to why they wanted her.
“Because I’m expendable,” she reiterated for what felt like the hundredth time. Yes, that still remained the most logical conclusion. But a part of her clung to the hope that she had been singled out for this task because they believed that she could do something that another lawyer could not. She had the ability to get inside a person’s head and learn their secrets from the inside out. She had said as much in school… she had written papers on it… she had even done it a couple of times in practice. But this, this, certainly was not practiced. And the stakes here were $10 million strong.
“This is going to be a long job.” She drove to her hotel, anxious for rest.
***
Over the next few days, Jamie fell into a kind of pattern, although in fairness to mathematical precision the only things about her day that resembled any kind of predictability was that she would rise in the morning, shower and dress, have breakfast at one of the dozens of mom and pop diners that this quaint little town offered. In the evening when she returned to her hotel room, she would research what little she could from the tidbits that she managed to pry out from under her client’s awareness, and usually fall asleep without realizing it.
Everything that occurred in between was more of a difficult thing to predict. Each day was different and every trip to the prison yielded something new and oftentimes enlightening about her task. But insofar, nothing had proved to be what she might term as ‘groundbreaking’. And Mr. Rizzuto’s release date was only drawing closer. Though she still had weeks to accomplish her job, she already felt the pressures of failure weighing down upon her.
Little by little she learned more about Dominic Rizzuto. Everything that she had learned of him reminded her of a great brick wall being built and she was watching it go up brick by agonizing brick. Watching grass grow would have seemed the faster element and she felt as though she was still no closer to solving the mystery of the strange man.
And though it was interesting to meet him in the setting of the prison, she was surprised to find day after day that it was less of a prison and indeed more of some kind of a social or athletic club. It had everything that an ordinary prison did not have and even a few things that a high society social club did not. And Dominic insisted that she meet with him to sample what was available that the prison could offer.
There were tennis courts, which they abandoned after the first time when she proved what a horrible player she was. “Nothing to worry over,” Mr. Rizzuto had told her. “I haven’t played since I was about ten or eleven myself. So I believe that our skills are at the least, evenly matched in that regard.”
His words offered her no comfort as she had played so terribly that she couldn’t have hit a single ball if she had been swinging a door instead of a tennis racket.
There was a pool set in the prison yard, which even came equipped with a lifeguard that Jamie was surprised to see was not a guard but a civilian employee. Bet he gets paid a lot, she mused, having heard that the pool was made use of rather infrequently and the lifeguard was only summoned when someone had signed in for use of the pool.
She had found the swimming hole easy enough to make use of but was surprised to see that the prison offered her a complimentary swimsuit. “I didn’t think that there were any women here,” she had remarked when she slipped from her bathing robe – also complimentary – and into the slightly chilled waters with Mr. Rizzuto.
“There aren’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “I asked the quartermaster to have one made especially for you. A very nice mine does fine work.” He paused and an admiring eye looked her over. “I’ll have to be certain to give him a generous tip.”
At that point, Jamie was glad for the heat of the Colorado summer as it helped to hide the redness of her cheeks.
There was a gaming room that the prison had been outfitted with. It was filled with the latest versions of almost every game that one could imagine in the console or old-style arcade formats. There were even some venues available that she had not ever seen outside of Las Vegas, having gone there once with friends during her pre-law school years. Some of that which was included were V.R. games that required the use of vision goggles, gloves, and the strange padded vests that would allow a player to feel everything that was happening around them as well as see.
“I’ve grown fond of these games,” Mr. Rizzuto had said to her after he’d paid nearly $50 for them to play a game that simulated very near-to-life hunting scenarios. “It saves the trouble of having to go home and shower and clean one’s weapons afterward.”
As the days wore by they made use of the other diversions that Hahn’s Peak permitted its inmates. There was a sauna that they made use of more than a single time. The towels were again, complimentary, and Jamie found that she had grown eager to use the sauna whenever Mr. Rizzuto suggested it.
Each time they had gone, she had worn a towel that wrapped tightly around her chest, covering her down to knees with a supplementary towel that covered her head and kept her scalp from growing into wild entanglements.
Mr. Rizzuto, alternately, was more appealing to see. He wore only a towel around his waist that covered his pelvis down the knee. But in the true old-gentlemanly fashion, he had a second towel draped over his right sh
oulder that he would, occasionally, use to mop the sweat from off of his brow. That added to her earlier estimations that he had come from old money and likely had enjoyed this kind of a temptation outside of prison, but she still could not pry any more details from him on the matter than he was willing to give.
But even so, the sight of him reclined on a wooden bench in a steam room with his eyes closed and resting his head on the backside of the bench with nothing but steam between them was as intoxicating a sight as any that she had seen. The vision of Mr. Rizzuto with sweat glistening on his hard body sent shivers down her spine that the steam of the sauna could do nothing to combat. And with his eyes closed and resting, almost angle-like, she found that she could admire him in a capacity that was most certainly unprofessional. But she managed to hide her brief moments of interest with the reliable cloak of her job.
“You seem like you’ve done this plenty of times before, Mr. Rizzuto,” she had probed delicately one day.
“I have,” he’d replied without opening his eyes. “There was a sauna not far from where I grew up back home. The owner was a friend of my family’s. Every so often, he would give us a family pass and we would indulge.” He sighed deeply as if lost in the memory. “Some of the first friends that I ever made were in those steam baths.”
A sauna not far from where he grew up, she thought with some contriteness, that could be anywhere.
More diversions that the prison offered were indulged. Of all of the things that Jamie had expected to find in this place, the largest of the surprises were a lounge and a bar – though she learned that nothing better than 2% alcohol was served. “This is a prison after all,” Mr. Rizzuto had said with a wink at her.
Despite the strangeness of the lounge and bar, which had been named after the prison, she found that offered a rather enjoyable atmosphere. It was the first chance she’d had to see how Mr. Rizzuto interacted with some of the other inmates, who also frequented this establishment.
At any given time there was never more than a half-dozen of them allowed within the bar and she observed that they were at least kept on either strict timetables or were limited to the number of drinks that they were permitted to enjoy.