“Carrie doesn’t have days!”
Jamansky gave him a curious look. “Why?”
A knot twisted in Greg’s gut. “You think they give prisoners medicine?”
His brows shot up. Jamansky had visited Carrie at her house. He’d seen what condition she’d been in. Greg felt himself plummeting again. He clung to the rage to keep his head above water.
“Find them and report back tomorrow,” Greg said. “Same time. Same place.”
He was taking a huge gamble. Commander McCormick could have already been alerted, and federal patrolmen could be swarming the neighborhood within the hour, looking for Greg. But he narrowed his eyes.
“If you find out sooner,” Greg said, “come anyway. I’ll have one of my men watching for you. Oh, and for your own sake, come alone tomorrow. That’s an order.”
twenty-five
JAMANSKY WAS STILL STEAMING. Sitting in his office, he had run circles around the whole thing. Carrie, arrested. Greg Pierce, the special op, alive. Logan Pond Clan, gone.
It hadn’t taken long to find Carrie. With a few strokes of the computer, he’d tracked her information down and which prison Giordano had taken her to. A few more strokes, and he’d pieced together what had happened to land her there in the first place.
His initial response had been to fire his entire staff, regardless of the fact that they’d only followed protocol. But they’d sent his entire plan up in flames. Carrie gone. The clan gone—supposedly. And yet…he was a smart guy. He could adapt. With effort, he even schemed up a way to work this whole debacle in his favor.
Once he had that settled, he stared at his phone, debating. Finally, he picked it up and dialed the number listed on the bottom of his verifying machine.
A woman answered. “Yes?”
“This is Chief David Jamansky from the Kane County Unit.”
“Yes. How may I help you?”
He scowled at Pierce’s picture on his small screen before plunging in. “I have a question about one of your federal patrolmen. He’s supposedly a special operative in your unit. Gregory Curtis Pierce.”
A slight pause before she said, “What about him?”
“My verifying machine says he’s dead.”
“That’s correct. Killed the end of June.”
“That’s what this says, too. Only…he approached me today. At least, I think it was him.” Jamansky held the picture close. Just the sight of Pierce’s smug face made him want to hurl the device across the room. “Yes, it was definitely him.”
A longer pause, long enough Jamansky thought he’d lost the connection. But then the woman said, “Where exactly did you run into him?”
“Near his home in Shelton. He said he’s on some special mission and gave me his authorization numbers. When I saw that he was listed as dead, I decided to call in and verify.”
“I see,” she said evenly. “And he gave you this number to call?”
“No. It’s listed below his information. He just gave me his authorizing numbers and said he was dead as part of his assignment.”
“Why?”
“How would I know?” Jamansky snapped, tired of her pointless questions. But his instincts had served him well. Something was off with Pierce’s story. He could hear it in her voice. “He gave me a direct order to help him. He wants me to assist him with a…” He stopped, deciding he didn’t want the feds sniffing around this whole Carrie-arrest mess. “…a local matter. Am I under obligation to assist him?”
“Of course.”
Jamansky glared at the phone. “But he’s dead.”
“Obviously not,” the woman said curtly. “When you see him again, tell him that he is to contact me at once. If he doesn’t have access to a phone, provide one for him. Tell him to call this number. And under no circumstances are you to speak about this—or about him—to anyone else. Am I understood?”
Jamansky felt like a school boy who had been chastised. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Lieutenant,” she corrected.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” he said. “May I have your name so he knows who to contact?”
“He’ll know who this is,” the woman said, then she clicked off.
For a long time, Jamansky clutched the phone and glared at Pierce’s cocky face. The only thing that made the call worth it was that it sounded like Pierce might be in trouble with his superiors.
* * * * *
Carrie woke up disoriented, with a pounding headache. Something large hovered a few feet over her, but it wasn’t until she breathed in through her nose and caught a whiff of the all-encompassing stench that she remembered where she was. Locked up. For some reason, she was lying on the bottom bunk. As a newbie, she wasn’t supposed to get that privilege. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. She didn’t even remember falling asleep. And then suddenly she did. It hit her all over again.
Zach and Amber.
Alone.
Curling into a tiny ball, she begged herself to return to a state of unconsciousness, but a loud grunt sounded behind her. Twisting around, she saw a guard outside her cell.
“Eat!” he ordered. He pointed to a plate of mush at the foot of the metal bunk bed. In actuality, it was a plate of noodles—maybe spaghetti—but it might as well have been mush for all she wanted it.
Tears pooled in her swollen eyes. She shook her head, trying to warn him that eating wasn’t a good idea. Not with the state of her stomach.
“Your supervisor said you passed out because you haven’t eaten all day, so eat now. Next time we won’t be so forgiving.”
That wasn’t why she’d passed out, but she doubted he cared. He watched her, waiting.
Grabbing the plate, she began eating the spaghetti with her hands. With each bite of mushy noodles, her stomach felt worse instead of better. It rolled, sending acid up her throat. She could barely gulp it down. Thankfully, the guard only stayed to witness the first few bites. As soon as he left, she shoved the plate aside and curled back up on the bed.
It was hot in the small cell, and oppressively stuffy. Still, she pulled the blanket over her and pressed her good ear to the pillow. Then she covered her bad ear to block out the thirty percent it could hear. She craved the kind of sleep that would take her away forever. She never wanted to think or feel or remember again. She wanted—she needed—to block it all out.
When she woke again, the disorientation hit her afresh. For the space of five seconds, she felt blissfully happy. A lingering dream left her feeling the deep kind of contentment that made her smile for no reason. She had been laughing with her dad and Greg—which was impossible because they’d never even met. As soon as she realized that, the dream vanished, and reality slapped her all over again.
A metal bunk bed still hung over her, and the lights were on in the cell—although that didn’t tell her much about what time it was. It felt like a lot of time had passed. Lifting her head, she saw her cellmates sleeping in their various spots around the cell.
Then she felt something heavy on her feet.
Black hair spilled out at the bottom of the mattress. Donnelle. Carrie’s foot tingled with pain, having fallen asleep under Donnelle’s weight. Carefully, she extracted it. Donnelle rolled over and cracked a sleepy eye open. When she saw Carrie awake, she bolted up and hit her head on the upper metal bunk.
“Ow,” Donnelle groaned, rubbing her head. “Ow.”
“Sorry,” Carrie whispered. “So sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yes, but are you?” Donnelle kept rubbing. “Are you sick? Do you black out often? Please tell me it’s not your head. I mean, you haven’t been here long enough to catch anything from the rest of us, but I’ve been so worried that—”
“I’m fine,” Carrie said, breaking in. Technically her head throbbed, but she was fine. At least physically. “I’m sorry I passed out.”
“It’s my fault.” Donnelle teared up suddenly. “I didn’t put two and two together until they dragged your body out. So, I guess your brother and sister were t
aken as well? I had no idea. All that stuff I said, Carrie, it’s just hearsay. Your brother and sister could be fine. You said they were teenagers, right? Teenagers know how to fend for themselves. They’ll know how to…to…” Her head dropped, and she covered her face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Carrie said. “Please don’t feel bad.”
Donnelle’s cries picked up to sobs.
“Hey! Keep it down!” a lady yelled from some cell unseen.
Donnelle buried her face in the scratchy blanket, muffling the sound.
Carrie rubbed her arm, hoping to ease her worries, but heat emanated from Donnelle’s skin, distracting her. It wasn’t the hot and sweaty kind of heat. Donnelle felt feverish.
“How is your head?” Carrie asked softly.
“Awful,” Donnelle wailed.
Carrie tried to assess Donnelle’s coloring, but too much of her was buried in the blanket.
A guard circled past their cell, sparing them a warning glare.
Donnelle wiped her eyes and looked up. “Tell me your parents weren’t arrested, too.”
It took Carrie a moment to answer. “No. They weren’t.”
“Well, that’s good news then.” Donnelle sniffed back a smile. “I’m sure they’ll have you out of here in no time. Your brother and sister, too. Just give your mom and dad time to get things in order. You’ll see. They’ll get you out of this godforsaken place.”
Even though Carrie blinked twenty times, even though she begged herself to hold it together, her eyes still filled. She couldn’t handle anymore crying, and neither could Donnelle.
“Oh, no,” Donnelle moaned. “I just can’t say anything right. Maybe I should shut up.”
“Maybe you should,” Crazy Marge said from the upper bunk. “Some of us are trying to sleep here.”
“Yeah. Shut your trap!” someone else yelled.
Silence descended over the prison. Sooner than should have been possible, the guard reappeared and wrapped his nightstick against the metal bars, loud and intrusive in the quiet prison. The wakeup call.
With groans, Carrie’s cellmates started to move. Some sat up. A few rubbed their eyes. One headed for the open toilet in the corner.
Carrie noticed Donnelle rubbing the back of her head again. Carrie crawled over to feel her forehead.
“You’re burning up,” Carrie said. “Should I talk to the guard? See if he’ll let you rest today?”
“No. No, I’m fine. They won’t let me rest anyway.” Donnelle rolled off the mattress and landed on her knees. She just knelt there, looking too tired to stand.
Carrie felt the same way. Her body had grown heavy overnight and her energy felt zapped. Even the spot behind her ear started stabbing again, which she prayed was just a sympathy headache and not because she’d only taken three days of medicine. What if that wasn’t enough?
“Carrie Lynne Ashworth?” a guard called.
She turned too quickly, an old, careless gesture that made the small, cement cell spin. Regaining her balance, she saw a different guard, the one from last night, had returned. Only this time he held a large rifle.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Come with me,” he said.
All the women in the cell turned to stare at her.
“Where is he taking you?” Donnelle said.
The way she said it made Carrie’s blood go cold. “I don’t know. Is this not normal?”
“None of us ever left by ourselves. Maybe they’re takin’ you to a doctor? You hit your head real hard last night.”
“I did?” Carrie felt around and found a large, tender goose egg near the base of her skull. Maybe that was the source of her new headache.
The officer rammed his rifle against the metal bars. “Come now!”
Flinching, Carrie shuffled across the small cell to him.
“Hands in front of you,” he said.
She obeyed.
He clicked handcuffs around her still-raw wrists. She hadn’t seen another soul handcuffed since she’d entered prison. Of course, she hadn’t seen any guards carrying guns either.
With a loud scraping of metal, he opened the cell door and motioned for her to follow. Petrified, she stared at his rifle. As bad as prison was, at least she was alive. If she was truly being taken to a doctor, then why had they waited so long? And why her, when Donnelle needed it more? If it wasn’t a doctor, then what? Interrogation? Torture?
How many illegals were depending on her ability to keep them secret? Not just her own clan, but Delaney’s now, too.
The fear of the unknown was almost worse than the fear of death because it held so much terrifying potential.
With one last glance back at Donnelle, she left her small cell. He led her down the brightly lit causeway, passing dozens of gray cells identical to her own before descending the set of metal stairs. Women hung by their bars, watching them pass. Some even shouted out catcalls which the guard ignored.
In the third from the last cell, Carrie found the origins of the wailing she’d been hearing since she arrived. A tiny ball of a woman huddled in a far corner, rocking back and forth. Maybe that woman had been interrogated. Maybe she was crying for all the names she had betrayed.
Carrie’s insides started to shake.
Greg. May and CJ. Sasha, Jada, Terrell, and Little Jeffrey. She desperately needed to wipe their names from her mind.
As they left the cells behind, they passed through a series of doors and hallways. Carrie gripped her stomach. She wouldn’t betray her clansmen. Somehow. Even if it was the last thing she did, she had to protect them.
The patrolman used his card each time to grant them access to a new door until he led her down a narrow hallway. The hallway was cold, air conditioned, sending goose bumps down her arms.
He stopped outside of a solid white door. “If you give me any trouble,” he said, “you’ll spend the rest of your sentence scrubbing the toilets of every single cell. Do you understand?”
Even more terrified, she nodded.
He opened the door and ushered her inside a small, white room. Someone stood. A man. It wasn’t a doctor, though, or an interrogator. It was a patrolman in a dark green uniform and beige tie.
David Jamansky.
twenty-six
CARRIE’S KNEES BUCKLED. She dropped to the floor, slamming her handcuffed hands against the hard cement.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” the guard said.
“Thank you,” Jamansky said in return.
Carrie pressed her forehead to the cold cement to keep the small white room from whirling like a tornado. David Jamansky was there. Why? To rub it in? To see how he’d broken her?
She should have screamed at him, begged for an explanation, or at least clawed his face. Yet all she could do was kneel, forehead to the floor, to keep from passing out.
His arm went around her waist to help her up, but before she could yell, Don’t touch me! the guard’s voice boomed behind her.
“I said no contact!”
“Right.” Jamansky’s hands lifted away from her. He pulled out the nearest chair for her and then grabbed the other for himself.
Carrie struggled to sit. Her legs shook. The rest of her felt detached and unsteady. Jamansky sat directly in front of her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped as he studied her. His blond hair was perfectly combed, his uniform, perfectly ironed. She could barely stand to look at him, the man who had destroyed everything.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The question was so absurd, so disturbing, it took her a moment to find her voice.
“You took them.” A sudden sob tore through her. “You did this. You took my brother and sister.”
“Whoa. Hold on,” he said. “You can’t think I did this to you. I’m your friend, remember?”
Tears poured down her cheeks. “You took them.”
“Come on. I had no idea what happened to you until I went to your house. They told me you’d been arrested. That’s the first I’d heard of
it. I wasn’t even near Shelton when you were taken. I was in some stupid meeting in Geneva.”
How can you deny it? she wanted to shout. You’re the Chief of Patrols! But she was stuck on the first half of what he said.
They.
“You went to my house?” she said. “You…talked to someone?”
His face tightened. “Yeah. That guy I met earlier, the older man, Richard O’Brien. He told me you had been arrested. That was the first I heard about it.”
Richard knew she’d been arrested. Which meant…
…Greg knew.
More tears slipped down her cheeks. In vain she tried to wipe them with her bound hands. She couldn’t allow herself to think about Greg’s reaction or how angry he would be that she’d gone to town without Richard. Nor could she bear to think of what he might risk to get her out.
Jamansky leaned forward. “Why did they arrest you, Carrie? Didn’t you have your papers with you?”
“I had my papers. I had everything! But your clerk said they had been revoked. Then patrolmen came.” Her throat constricted. “They came and…they didn’t even let me say goodbye. They just…” Her words were cut off in another strangled cry of grief. She pictured Zach and Amber’s faces, white, frozen with terror.
“I will get to the bottom of this. You have my word. But first…” He bent down to examine her. “You look pale. Are you still sick? Did you tell them that you recently had G-979? They need to get you medicine, today if possible.”
Medicine? Had he not looked around or noticed her filthy orange jumpsuit? Sick people meant fewer mouths to feed, more beds for the healthy. Sick people disappeared in places like this.
His voice rose, only aimed over her head. “Don’t you medicate your prisoners?” he yelled at the guard. “Can’t you see that she’s ill?”
“Six minutes,” the guard said back.
Jamansky scrutinized Carrie again with his ice-blue eyes. She had enough presence of mind to be humiliated. Her heavy orange tent-like uniform. Her swollen wrists, torn and raw. Her scraggly hair hanging in her face. The way he looked at her reminded her of the patrolman who had arrested her, stolen her money, and then sat back while the other guards searched her. That officer worked for Chief David Jamansky.
Citizens of Logan Pond Box Set Page 106