Page 55 of Auctioned to the Prisoners

“Yeah. It's a pretty place on the Yucatan Peninsula. It's named Valladolid, same as a city in Spain.”

“Oh, yeah.” Rock eyes me like he's catching onto something. I don't talk like this normally about places I went when I was sucked into the drugs trade. There are eyes and ears all around us, so this is the only way to pass on this information in half-whispers.

“Yeah. It means something in Arabic, I think,” I add, hoping that if they forget, they'll have a way of searching it up. “Valladolid. Funny name for a place in Mexico.”

“You been there?” Hyde asks.

“Yeah.”

On the TV, a detective show reaches a climactic moment, but Rock and Hyde aren't watching anymore, even though their eyes are focused on the screen.

“There's this statue. The Monument to Motherhood, it's called. Pretty place.”

“Right,” Rock says, then he laughs. “Since when did you become a fucking sculpture enthusiast?”

“You know me,” I say. “I love women, even the MILFs.”

Hyde cracks up, folding himself over, making it look like we're just shooting the breeze rather than making plans for another place and another time.

“Did I ever tell you about this MILF I fucked? Best Tuesday afternoon I ever spent.”

Now, they know that's a lie. The best Tuesday afternoon I ever spent was with Lory, licking her pussy until she gushed, then fucking her until I had to smother her screams with the palm of my hand. She was a wild little thing. I smile at the memory.

“Yeah. She have big tits?” Rock asks.

“A good handful. She made me a sandwich after and kicked me out at three p.m.... I went backeveryweek after that.”

“Sandwich? What kind of sandwich?”

Rock shoots Hyde with a disgusted look, but he's smiling. “Sandwich. That's what you took from that conversation?”

“Oh, I took a lot from that conversation.” Hyde winks at me, and I slump back into the chair, content that they've understood what I'm saying.

“Ham, cheese, tomato,” I say for the sake of finishing the conversation.

When they get out of this place, and if I succeed in getting across the border, we'll have a place and a time to meet without ever having to say another word.

“You hear they're trying to pin Wilson on Garcia?”

“Seriously?”

While we were locked up with Lory, Wilson's miserable life was snuffed out. Someone strangled him with a torn piece of sheet. He didn't have many friends in this place, and none amongst the crims, so identifying a killer with a motive waslike finding a needle in a haystack. Garcia hated Wilson, but I don't think it was him. Grady might not have had the guts to take out someone who threatened to blackmail him, but he had the capacity to put the right people in the right place for it to happen. Isn't there a saying about your enemy's enemy being your friend?

Like Whitaker, Wilson underestimated his opponent.

“He's a lifer anyway,” Rock points out. “Doesn't matter what they say he did.”

“Easy to bury a stick in a bonfire,” Hyde muses.

“Did you just make that shit up?” I ask, laughing.

“Sure did. You're not the only one who's good with words, Kinkaid.”

He's right. The letters these men have been writing for Lory are poetic. For three rough, prison-hardened men, we sure can come up with some pretty words when inspired.

Thirty minutes pass before I drag myself up. I rest a hand on each of their shoulders. “I'm gonna hit the sack,” I tell them. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” With a final squeeze of their shoulders, I walk away, hoping, praying that we'll meet again in a little town far away and that maybe, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, our woman will be waiting for them, too.

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