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Taking a step away from the cell, he gave her the space she needed.
“I will leave without you tonight, but if I have to come back, Alanna, no army will be able to hold me back.” Turning, he left down the corridor until he was out of sight. When she heard the main door open and close, she knew he was gone.
Cautiously getting out of bed, she went to the cell bars to glance out the corridor. It was empty.
Catching a slight odor, Alanna sniffed the air. She smelled a woodsy scent combined with smoke. It was the same odor she had caught when the man had opened his cell.
Glancing at the empty cell across from her, she half-convinced herself that the whole thing had been a waking nightmare. Her other realistic half wasn’t as gullible, remaining alert for the rest of the night until she finally heard the day shift employees’ voices filtering through the old-fashioned airduct. Relieved by the reassuring sounds within shouting distance, shefell into a fitful sleep in which she had the same recurring dream that she’d had since being arrested.
She was locked in a tiny cage.
“Help me!” she screamed in her nightmare. “Help me!”
“I’m coming!” a faint voice would answer.
Each night, the voice had seemed to be drawing closer. Tonight, when he answered, she managed to squeeze her hand and arm through the bars.
“Where are you?” she cried out.
“I’m here.”
“Let me out!” Pressing herself against the cage, she tried to reach out farther. “Let me out!” she begged.
“I can’t,” the husky voice demanded. “You have to come to me, Alanna.”
“I’m trapped! I can’t!”
“Come to me …” The voice started to retreat back into the distance. “Come to me … You’re so close … so close …”
Chapter Two
God help her, but she was going to kill him. Slowly, to draw out the pleasure.
No, she took that back. She would make it quick. Quick was good. She didn’t want to take the chance he would talk her out of strangling him.
Alanna eyed the deputy cleaning the cell across from her while devising several different methods to off him.
“I told the misses I want Rosie’s ass in bed at 8:30, no exceptions, and wanting to eat a bowl of cereal at ten isn’t one.”
Clutching the book she was pretending to read rather than being drawn into an argument that she already knew she didn’t stand a chance of winning against the exasperating deputy, Alanna tried to drown out his voice by imagining her hands wrapped around his throat.
Don’t break, she told herself, resolved to give him the silent treatment after Deputy Porter had denied he and another deputy had locked someone in the vacant cell last night. She knew good and well she hadn’t imagined the hooded prisoner.
“What you want for lunch today?”
It took the deputy repeating the question two times before she realized he had come to stand in front of her cell.
Her resolve broke, worn down by his incessant talking. He never stopped—ever—unless the sheriff came looking for him, or Deputy Porter finally became bored enough to seek out helpless victims to impart his brand of wisdom to.
“Doesn’t matter. You choose.”You will, anyway, she thought snidely.
“How about the diner? King shorted us a baked potato yesterday. It’ll show him that he’ll lose the jail’s business if he doesn’t keep the quality we expect from him.”
“Whatever.”
“You’re in a pissy mood today, ain’t you?”
The sarcastic jab had her doing what she had sworn not to do.
