by Anne B. Cole
“Armed robbery pours power and excitement through the veins. Stupid cops are always a step or two behind. The gang protected me. Their leader named me. Maggie. There you have it. The story behind my name.” She continued the stare down.
“Too bad the story ends with you stabbing two civilians during a robbery that went bad,” Kurt added.
“Don’t forget the off-duty cop who came in and pointed his silly gun at me. The fool said my boyfriend must have killed the other two before he fled. I proved him wrong.” A smile crept over her face as she recalled the stabbing. “I watched him die. Savored every minute.”
“And that was your downfall. You enjoyed the moment a bit too long.” Kurt folded his arms across his chest. “Your boyfriend abandoned you.”
“Not abandoned. He followed the code.” And Derrick is not my boyfriend.
“Do you understand the state doesn’t care about gang codes or your real name? You’re sentenced to die as Maggie Jane Doe.” Kurt placed full emphasis on her name. “They’re going to execute you.” His blue eyes softened. “What’s your real name?”
Squelching the urge to rip his tongue out, she smiled. “My name is whatever you want it to be, baby.” She needed to stay in control. Kurt could prove to be useful in getting what she wanted.
“Get cleaned up, Maggie.” Kurt pushed her through a door to a private shower room.
Three guards stood inside, two female, one male. They avoided eye contact and steadied nervous feet. She hissed at the stooges when Kurt freed her arm.
“Had a shower three days ago, but if you want to watch . . .” She unzipped her jumpsuit, letting it slide to the damp floor.
Kurt swallowed hard and looked away.
She made her point. The other male guard’s gaze lingered a bit longer before he, too, turned his back. She twisted the water faucet. Water poured over her.
Three weeks remain until all appeals expire.
Her mind raced.
The governor hates me. Somehow he had a connection with the cop I had killed. No matter. I hate the governor, the crummy state of Indiana, and especially the people who lock me in a tiny cell twenty-three hours of each and every day.
“Your new lawyer is here, Maggie.” Kurt kept his back to her.
Maggie cranked the shower, deciding cold would be best since she needed to stay sharp. Counsel would be some pro bono moron sent in against his will, or a stupid young idiot struggling to make a name. All lawyers were the same. She had lost track of how many different ones she had, sometimes intimately, over the years.
“Thinking about how you’re going to prove to him that you killed in self-defense?”
She observed the three guards whip their heads in Kurt’s direction. One gaped at him, her mouth open. All were wise enough to remain silent.
“It’s plain and simple, Kurt.” She poured shampoo into her hands and began to lather her hair. “I needed cash to pay for the drugs my gang shared. The register happened to be practically empty, and it pissed me off. I had to stab the cashier, for she claimed she had emptied it an hour earlier. I stabbed the manager because he called the cops. The off-duty officer called me weak, so I proved him wrong.” She eyed one of the stooges. “More shampoo.”
Without hesitation, the guard ran to a closet and returned with several travel size shampoo and conditioners.
“Thank you.” Maggie took her time with her hair before rinsing under the frigid water. Her gasps rose above the sound of the squeaky spigot, causing Kurt to look her way. She moaned in delight.
Before he returned his gaze to the door, she caught a glimpse of his face, full of need and desire. He will come through for me.
Simply thinking about a new lawyer pissed her off. It ruined her one hour, the single hour they permitted her out of her cell each day. Today she would spend it with a lawyer.
In one hour outside of her cell, a lot could be accomplished. For the last six months, she had been working on swaying Kurt from the straight and narrow. He must be tentative because of the last guard, Jerome, her mule.
“Remember Jerome?” She noted each of the guards’ reactions. Jaws dropped. Eyes squeezed shut. Feet shuffled in nervous unease. “Jerome and I had a nice relationship.”
“I heard he screwed you in more ways than one,” Kurt boldly announced.
One of the female guards gasped.
Maggie laughed at her before facing Kurt squarely. “In the beginning it was an even trade. Jerome needed physical attention, I need my letters.” She didn’t add the letters included drugs which she traded for things needed to accomplish her ultimate plan.
“On Jerome’s final visit, I took care of him but he didn’t have a letter for me, only a smile on his smug, satisfied face. A mistake which left him writhing in severe pain at my feet.” Maggie grimaced.
"Rumor has it he went to the hospital with appendicitis,” Kurt countered.
She smiled at the memory. “I believe an appendix is located a bit higher than the origin of his pain.”
She knew Jerome would never admit she had squeezed his boys in a grip so violent, her stubby nails tore his flesh. He was guilty as hell, smuggling in drugs, and knew she wouldn’t hesitate to tell the warden. Everyone knew. No one had the guts to do anything about it. Jerome resigned the next day.
“How’s your appendix, Kurt?” Maggie eyed his backside as water rolled down her back. With three weeks before her sentenced death date, she needed help in finalizing her plans.
Every afternoon for the past six months, she allowed herself two hours to run possible escape scenarios through her head. When Derrick contacted her, she would be ready with the perfect plan and several alternates.
Maggie shut the shower off and grabbed the offered towel, comparable in size and consistency to a worn out welcome mat. The dingy cloth scratched her skin.
She grew angrier by the minute over meeting another stupid lawyer, who would inform her that all the necessary motions and papers would be filed in an attempt to keep the state from ending her life.
So unnecessary.
She remained confident Derrick would come back for her and together they would go to where no walls held her in. No one would tell her what she could and could not do. No bologna sandwiches, orange jumpsuits, rubber shower shoes, or cuffs and leg chains. She would get the hell out of this state, out of this country.
But first, she would make the governor pay.
Until then, she would play the game.
One of the female guards tentatively held out a clean jumpsuit.
“How considerate. Thank you,” Maggie drawled, but she focused on Kurt.
“Touch me, baby.”
“Zip up, Maggie.”
“Your words don’t match your thoughts.” She read any man’s mind as easily as the newspaper’s headline. “I’m all yours.” She offered her arm to Kurt after lowering her jumpsuit zipper to capture his full attention.
“I’ll request your free hour to be moved to after dinner,” he stated as they walked the short distance to a conference room.
A grin swept her face.
Maggie paused at the closed door, wondering if her new lawyer would be as inept as the last. Nerves fluttered within the pit of her stomach. The warden had explained lawyer visits would become more frequent as the end neared. Her unwavering confidence remained high, but something deep inside caused her heart to race.
Kurt let go of her arm. His hand grazed the small of her back and lingered.
Warmth melted through her and weakened every toned muscle in her body. For one second, she didn’t desire to be strong or in control. Needing desperately to fall into his arms and be comforted, she leaned into his touch.
What am I doing?
Hopefully, Kurt didn’t notice the moment of weakness. No one had e
ver seen her like this.
No one.
She stiffened under the continued pressure of his hand against her back. The tenderness, support, and encouragement she received from his touch sent a tremor through her body. Never before had she felt this way. Maybe the girl she used to be had, but not ‘Maggie.’
It scared her to death.
“Knock when you’re ready.” Kurt’s composed voice cut through her jitters.
“Baby, for you, I’m always ready.”
His upper lip twitched before he removed his hand. He could have drawn it downward, caressing her bottom, but he didn’t.
Instead he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the wall, over her head. Kurt’s body pressed hard against hers, forcing the air out of her lungs. His face, not an inch away, showed a passion as strong as his arousal. She held her breath at this unexpected move.
“Damien is in. I’m on your side. Knee me to make this look good.” Kurt’s whispered words registered instantly.
Maggie hit her mark with the force of a Mack truck.
Her weakness vanished, replaced with confidence, arrogance, and hope.
Kurt crumpled at her feet.
Two nearby guards cuffed her hands and shoved her through the conference room door. The door locked shut.
Maggie found herself alone. Before the guards returned, she assumed three things.
One. Derrick had contacted Kurt. Derrick’s code name was Damien.
Two. Kurt was either getting paid very well or wanted her so badly, he would take the risks involved. Maggie had not held back once he ordered her to knee him. The cup he wore merely softened the blow. His face had riddled with both pain and the need to make her understand he wanted to help. She felt no remorse. He had told her to make it look good. Any man asking her to do that was mentally deficient or had the balls of an elephant.
Snickering at the thought, Maggie moved to her third and greatest assumption.
Three. Plans for her escape were in motion.
Chapter 21
Counsel
Maggie
“There is work to do, Maggie.” The clean cut, extremely handsome, thirty-something lawyer who took a seat across the small table from her appeared brave.
Stupid, but brave.
She assumed the guards told him what she had done to Kurt, then offered to stay. He returned alone.
“May I?” He held out a key to her cuffs.
Without words, he promptly removed them from her wrists.
Who does he think he is?
On any other day, she would have pressed her breasts against the table, plunging cleavage through the top of her jumpsuit to offer counsel a view hardly any man could tear away from. Instead, Maggie folded her hands. She had much to think about and needed to rid herself of this stupid lawyer.
“Yes, I have work to do. Tell me something, counsel,” she began in her sweetest voice.
“Shoot.”
“I would but I don’t have a gun.”
“You kill with a knife.” He dared to correct her.
“I loved that knife.”
“Ask your question, Maggie.” His voice remained as strong and confident as her own.
A challenge.
“When was the last time you had sex?”
“This morning, six-thirty.” He didn’t blink.
“Girlfriend or hooker?”
“Wife.”
He wore no ring. Maggie leaned forward, against the table, on her elbows. “Any good?”
“Phenomenal.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
“Did you please her?”
“Twice.”
“And she, you?”
“Completely.”
A real challenge.
Maggie shifted in her metal folding chair. Its scrape against the worn tile floor rivaled nails clawing a chalkboard.
His eyes never left hers. They remained as cold and hard as the chair.
“Convince me it was the best sex of your life,” she demanded.
With a shrug, he removed his wire framed glasses and began.
His tantalizing narrative shamed the best erotica ever smuggled into the prison. He mesmerized her, aroused her, and gained her respect.
Stay. In. Control. Maggie never looked away from the pools of his cobalt eyes. Saliva filled her mouth, but she refused to swallow. When he finished, she held back applause.
“Liar.”
“How so?” he countered, raising one eyebrow.
“You said twenty-three minutes.” She pointed to the clock on the wall. “Your version took twenty-two.”
She watched him gaze at the clock. The second hand ticked annoyingly.
“Point taken.” He raised one brow.
“Let me finish for you.” Without blinking, she licked her lips. In sixty seconds, she verbally extended his morning of passion to heights one might consider unattainable.
Neither spoke for over a minute.
Without words, he acknowledged her victorious. Maggie leaned back in her chair and laughed. He joined her for a minute. Seconds later his face hardened.
“There’s nothing funny about what they want to do to you, Maggie. I don’t believe in it, and I promise I’ll fight them with as much passion as your twenty-third minute.”
She believed his fierce, yet tender words.
You’re the best damn lawyer I’ve ever met.
“Where were you eight years ago?” Maggie demanded, as if her conviction could be blamed on him.
“Law school, the University of Chicago. I followed the trial of a triple homicide in which the killer had no intent.”
Maggie’s heart dropped.
You believe in me.
Without an explanation, interrogation, or spoken word about the incident, this man believed her. Something no one had done in her life.
“Time is limited, Maggie. There’s a lot to accomplish.” He slid the unopened file into a briefcase and replaced his glasses in an indication he had finished for the day.
She rose, torn between the options presented to her in the last hour. Kurt and Derrick or—she glanced at the lawyer’s visitor badge—Mitch.
Needing time to think, she opted to explore both opportunities.
“Less time than you think, Mitch.” She noted he didn’t stand with her. He might be a damn good lawyer, but all men had weaknesses.
“I’ll be back tomorrow, Maggie, and every day until they remove you from death row,” he called.
His words grabbed her heart and wrenched it. She gazed into his incredibly handsome face.
“Tell your wife she’s pretty. You didn’t tell her this morning.”
Mitch blinked unbelievingly at her.
She had no idea what possessed her to encourage the compliment so she quickly pounded on the door.
Three guards entered with cuffs and leg irons. She stared at Mitch as the restraints clicked.
Mitch’s eyes held hers. “Tomorrow, one o’clock.”
“I look forward to it.” She realized the truth in her own words as the guards led her back to her cell.
Chapter 22
Escape
Maggie
“Timing is important, Maggie.” Kurt’s fingers dug into her arm. “You want me to go over anything?”
Keeping her face forward, she walked beside him, cuffed, but without leg irons.
“I’m good.” In her mind, she had played out every step, every possible scenario. Including getting caught.
Kurt led her into the corridor as he did every day the past week to meet Mitch. Today, they were thirty minutes early. The janitor’s closet loomed a few feet ahe
ad. The red light on the overhead security camera clicked off. Kurt released her.
“Thirty seconds.” He removed her cuffs.
“Sure you don’t want to join me?”
Kurt swallowed hard, twice. “Twenty-five seconds.” He guided her into the closet with a firm but lingering hand. The door shut.
Maggie groped in the dark. A mop bucket at her feet contained a small backpack. In less than ten seconds, her jumpsuit fell to the floor. Nimble fingers fastened uniform pants and shirt. A perfect fit. She slid her feet into real shoes for the first time since her trial.
In the outer pocket of the bag, she found a cloth wrapped bundle about the size of a large potato. She carefully removed the towel, revealing a slim cell phone which she gently nestled between her breasts.
Tearing the pant leg of her orange jumpsuit, she removed her stash of plastic explosives. With great care, she pocketed them into her borrowed pants.
Three items remained in the backpack; a black wig, a piece of broken brick, and another cell phone.
Placing the bob cut wig on her head, she transformed into Marsha, one of the guards she despised. Marsha matched her height and they had close to the same petite build.
The second cell phone slid into her left pocket. Picking up the brick, she thought about using it on Marsha.
Without warning, Kurt opened the closet door. Maggie fell into step at his side as she had done hundreds of times, but with one exception. She missed feeling his grip on her arm.
Kurt nodded to a door she had never before entered, but had pictured in her mind dozens of times over the last twelve hours. He held it open for her as any coworker would. The door clicked shut behind them.