Page 6 of Cast Stones
It’s time for the masks to come off, and all pretenses to fade. Predators can hide their true selves for a while, but not forever. Eventually, instinct devours will.
Leopards are meant to hunt gazelles, not pretend to be one.
“It means a storm’s coming, Sledge, and for the second time, it’ll blow destiny right into my path.”
Chapter Three
They sayfear is the ultimate deceiver. She makes the guilty plead innocence, even when their bloody die is cast. The sound fills the walls of hell, which is exactly what Broward County Jail is. It’s Florida’s most notorious maximum-security facility, and home to more depravity and deception in one square mile than in all of America.
“Keep up, Miss Bailey. This isn’t a petting zoo.” The warden motions impatiently at me. “Stray too close to the bars and these occupants are liable to bite.”
“There’s no need to explain it, Mr. Redwick,” I say, conquering his patronizing words with a chilly look. “As one of the top public defenders in the state, I have a well-used backstage pass to these kinds of places.”
“So I’ve heard. You’re a real appeal queen and the DA’s royal pain in the ass. Tell me, Miss Bailey,” he snipes, dragging his gaze up and down my slender, well-dressed frame. “How the hell do you sleep at night?”
“I might say the same to you,” I snap back, letting him know—in no uncertain terms—that his shitty reputation precedes him.Red name. Redder hands.His unlawful beat-downs and crimes against his charges should have piqued the interest of the national press years ago. The murder rate inside Broward County Jail is just as high as the numbers on the outside.
“J-Wing isn’t the place for your run-of-the-mill purse-stealers,” he forges on, ignoring the jibe. “This is where we keep the real shit of society: the serial killers, the kiddie rapists…” I watch his gaze travel again to the soft outline of my breasts beneath my neat, white blouse. “We need to keep moving.”
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“I know as much as you do. The case file is waiting for you inside the room.”
“You do realize this is extremely irregular, Mr. Redwick.”
“Like my bowel habits.” He spins around to catch my reaction to his crudeness. “This place devours all the good health out of a person, Miss Bailey.”
He and Trent Anderson should go fishing together and then do mankind a favor by drowning in a freak accident.
I quicken my steps as he leads me down the narrow hallway and past a row of black metal doors housing the blackest of hearts, my high heels sparking up the promise of salvation from the concrete. Sure enough, the air is soon a chorus of desperation and lies.
“Hey, Red! You a lawyer? I ain’t guilty, you know.”
Fear.
“I was framed, lady. You gotta believe me!”
Fear.
“Shut your mouth, Sánchez,” snarls the warden, ramming his clenched fist against the nearest door. “You too, Anton. We knowexactlyhow you crushed that little girl’s skull, so don’t go pleading your fucking innocence now.”
Once upon a time, such evil would have shocked me to the core.
Once upon a time, I wasn’t a girl who’d been enticed by lust, brutalized by sin, and broken by the devil himself.
My steps falter.
“Are you coming?” Redwick snaps.
“Yes, I…”
But the bastard has already turned back to the cells.
We reach the end of the hallway and wait for the doors to open to the screech of reluctant metal. The light above us flicks from red to green, and we step forward into a holding cage.
“What the hell am I doing here?” I mutter for the millionth time today.
The warden tuts out his irritation as he jingles the change in his pocket. “Like your colleague said, Vincent’s refusing to give up the location of these bodies to anyone else, and I have the cops climbing my goddamn walls over it.”
