Page 62 of Last Shot

‘Not that I’m aware of. She only ever had one visitor that I remember – some guy, short, always in trackies and a hoodie pulled over his face. Young, I think.’

That was the only time Max had been in the visitors’ area. After that first visit, she’d told Jackie not to come back again.

‘Any idea what they talked about?’

‘Caught a few words.’While I was waiting for Jackie to tell me she was sorry instead of just sitting there staring at me. ‘They were talking about someone called Edie or Evie. Libby kept referring to her as Edie R – you know, like in school when there’s two people in the class with the same first name? That’s why I asked Libby if it was her son who came to visit – I thought maybe whoever they were talking about was his girlfriend. Just trying to make normal cellmate talk. Everyone loves talking about their kids, right?’

‘I’m guessing Libby didn’t.’

Max smiled at the memory – she and Libby had come a long way since then. ‘She told me to shut my fucking cock-biting mouth and mind my own motherfucking white-trash business.’

Grey nodded slowly. ‘Libby’s son’s dead.’

‘I know that now.’ Max had looked up Libby Johnston on the bus to the bachelor auction, right after the Barbaranis. Some part of her had felt guilty for checking. For doubting that the moment in the TV room had been anything less than genuine, animalistic pain.

Grey looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he went over to the security desk, presumably to ask why he had not already been given access to the master key to all prison doors. Something moved in Max’s periphery and she turned to see a tall, red-haired guard stalking towards them.

‘Missed us did you, Conrad?’ Alexandra, the guard who’d handed her back her see-through singlet and Doc Martens yesterday morning, smirked as Grey worked whatever magic or made whatever threats he needed to get them in. The guy could walk through walls.

Max didn’t believe it when Laura, the guard who’d let Max have an extra custard cup one night, handed them two lanyards with prison passes.

‘Don’t get locked in again, Conrad,’ she said without a smile. Not that Max had expected the guards’ attitude towards her to shift at all now that she was technically a free civilian. Max used to bring coffee to the prison when she had to do interviews. She’d once been a colleague to people like Laura and Alexandra. She imagined it must be hard for them to place her now. Cop. Criminal. Civilian.

She’d always wondered why Laura had snuck her that custard cup.

‘It’s like you’re famous,’ Grey whispered. She wished he’d stop doing that. The feel of his breath against her skin was not helping her focus.

‘Clearly not as famous as you.’ She hooked her thumb through her lanyard. ‘What did you say to them to get us in at this time?’

‘Alexandra’s an old friend.’

‘Just like the ambo guy who came to the Barbaranis in civy clothes without an ambulance?’ Max recalled how the guy had done everything Grey told him with the fervour and obedient fear of a regency-era servant.

‘No, Lang’s a different story. He owes me for other reasons.’

‘And Quinton?’

‘That was Frankie, not me.’

‘But Alexandra’s a friend?’ Max scrutinised the guard in front of her, realising she’d been too full of either self-loathing or pity over the past six months to give any thought to how gorgeous the woman was. It was hard to look attractive in the grey prison officer uniforms with the thick belt tightening in all the wrong places, but on Alexandra it only exemplified her generous curves.

‘An acquaintance. From my military days. We scratch each other’s backs on occasion.’

An unwanted image started to curdle in Max’s mind: Alexandra’s nails digging into Greyson’s wide, bare back, his fingers tangling in her maple-syrup-coloured hair ...

Max physically shook herself to expel the thought. The car ride had affected her more than she’d realised. Or maybe it was being back in these musty, never-quite-dark halls she thought she’d left forever. Anyway, the original thought she’d had in the kitchen was more accurate – Greyson wasn’t the type for intimate, bedroom missionary sex ...

Stop. It.

Alexandra motioned for them to wait in the corridor while she went into the empty visitors’ area, switching on the lights.

‘Do you have any real friends or just people who “owe” you?’ Max asked.

‘I also have short, annoying accomplices who irritate me into working with them.’ He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a small, unusual smile tugging at his mouth.

‘So I’ve graduated from criminal to accomplice? You know what that makes you, right?’

‘The good-looking one.’

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