Page 64 of Homebound
Gemma waived Ruby’s concerns aside. “I can handle the Obu. It’s a matter of logistics. And about Arlo, Ruby, do you know something I don’t?” She drilled Ruby with her eyes.
Ruby blew out a resigned breath. “I don’t know anything for sure, all of it is pure speculation. When they had moved Bug from us and sent him to the fifth floor, Arlo had been really upset. Arlo and Bug were pals, they did… some things together.”
Clarity came to Gemma. “Together they peddled dope to the inmates, you mean?”
Ruby looked startled. “You know?”
“More than I care to. I am surprised you do.”
She looked ashamed. “Please don’t think I participated. I didn’t. I guess I’m too scared to do it even for money. But I turned a blind eye and that’s all they needed. I minded my own business and they minded theirs.”
“Arlo invited me in,” Gemma confessed.
“What?” Ruby looked floored.
“When I started taking Simon outside, he saw an opportunity.”
“You don’t say!”
“I turned him down. He was royally pissed.” Gemma gave Ruby an abbreviated version of her conversation with Arlo and the resulting fallout.
Ruby remained skeptical. “I see. He’ll never forget your rejection. But having you reassigned? He doesn’t have that kind of power.”
That’s where Gemma disagreed. “Arlo knows people. They owe him favors.”
“But to what purpose? Pure revenge?”
Gemma had a theory. “He wants someone else in, someone like Bug, or at the very least someone like you who wouldn't put a kibosh on his activities. He’s afraid I will turn him in.”
Ruby shuffled her feet uncomfortable to be caught in the middle of a war between her co-workers. “And what is your plan?”
“For starters, I need to find Arlo and talk to him.”
“That’s it? That’s the plan?”
“I’ll add more details later. I’m playing it by the ear.”
“I can see that.” Ruby looked highly skeptical.
They went up the stairs together and stopped on the second floor. Before Gemma went in, Ruby touched her elbow and said, “Listen, I’ll help if I can, even though I don’t think you should come back to the third floor. And Gemma? Be careful with Arlo.”
“Arlo is a bit of a wuss, Ruby. He won’t harm me.”
“But he might find someone who will.”
Chapter 18
Catching Arlo throughout the day proved trickier than Gemma had originally estimated. He was stubbornly absent at any and all of his hangouts known to her. Where before you couldn't keep him on the third floor, now he wouldn't come out.
The only area where he had to have gone was the courtyard during the aliens’ outing, but checking there presented Gemma with a massive roadblock in the form of the stupid Obu.
As the day wore out, Gemma had to accept that there would be no quick fix to her reassignment. She made one last attempt to wait Arlo out by the lockers before going home but as the prison darkened with suppressed power, it became clear that Arlo had managed to leave ahead of her.
Feeling wretched, she went home.
That night, Gemma cried herself to sleep.
The next morning brought no change to her situation. Coming in, she had been holding on to a glimmer of hope that the reassignment had been a fluke, a mistake on the schedule. But the guard lady glared and read “the second floor” from the ledger, her wintry eyes daring Gemma to argue.
