Lead Me On. Victoria Dahl

dangerous as hell. His green eyes shot daggers at the cop, and his big arms warned that he could back his rage up with power. The blue-black stains of the tattoos on his arms gave a warning, too—one any cop would recognize. Here was a man who’d spent a good part of his life in prison.

      Jane dialed information and turned to face the corner for a small sense of privacy. The black lacquer end table was polished to a shine and reflected her own anxious face back at her.

      She’d lost her adventurous side over the course of the past few hours. Now she was pale and plain again, her mouth pinched, her forehead creased with worry. She looked like a woman who’d never enjoyed so much as a decadent dessert, much less a big animal of a man.

      As she spoke to the receptionist at the police department and then got transferred to another desk and then another, Jane watched her own face grow tighter, her features twisting into fear as she talked.

      By the time she hung up, her reflection had gone blurry with angry tears.

      “Mom,” she whispered as she turned to face the room. No one heard her. Another deputy passed by on his journey from the basement to the vehicles parked outside. “Dad,” she said.

      Mac lifted his head and looked at her.

      She swallowed hard and lifted the phone a little, as if that would explain her horror.

      “What is it?” he asked.

      Jane shook her head and swallowed again, finally getting her throat clear enough to speak. “Jessie… I got through to a detective in Aspen. He said…he said that Jessie was stopped for speeding and suspicion of driving under the influence. He was arrested for possession of marijuana, and when they searched the car they found stolen credit cards. Several of them. He’s been charged with multiple counts of theft…and felony grand larceny.”

      Her mother groaned. Mac spit out a curse. And all three deputies in the room moved their hands toward their guns.

      For nearly twenty years Jane had managed to steer clear of anything even resembling a jail or a prison. She’d even avoided seeing friends in the hospital, because the ugly floors and echoing halls reminded her of uniforms and shackles. She wasn’t sure quite how many hours she’d spent in prison visiting rooms as a child, but it had been way past the point of too many.

      Jane Morgan’s twenty-year reprieve was over. She was heading right back to where she’d started.

      IT SMELLED OF CEMENT. Not a bad smell, she supposed, unless one had to live with it for years at a time. No grass, no flowers, no baking cookies. Not even utilitarian things like exhaust or freshly cut wood. At least when they went out to the yard in winter they could smell the sharp freshness of falling snow.

      The last time she’d been in a visiting room, she’d been too young to understand the horror of this. At the time she’d been more concerned with the itchy lace on her new dress and the frightening appearance of her mother’s newest love interest.

      But now the sadness of the place fell upon her like a wave. The Aspen police department was clean and modern, but that didn’t change the brutal truth. Some of these people would be leaving after a few hours behind bars. Some would be here for a couple of years, serving sentences for minor crimes. And for some, jail was just a way station on the way to state or federal prison.

      Please don’t let that be Jessie.

      A loud clank echoed through the small visiting room, and Jane looked up to see Jessie shuffling out in an orange jumpsuit, his eyes bright with anxiety. “Hey, sis,” he mouthed as he took his seat.

      “Dad’s not here?” he asked as soon as Jane picked up the phone.

      “No, it’s just me.”

      “Okay, good.”

      “Jessie, what the hell were you thinking?”

      “I don’t know.” His blond hair flopped over his brow when he shook his head.

      “If they’ve found stolen goods in Dad’s house… He’s a convicted felon, you idiot!”

      “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I got pulled over for speeding, and the cop found some…” His eyes darted to the side and he leaned forward as if they weren’t separated by thick glass. “He found some pot and a few credit cards, okay?”

      “Not your cards, I assume.”

      “No,” he said sullenly.

      “If they think Dad’s involved in some sort of identity-theft ring—”

      “It’s nothing like that, all right? I just lifted a few purses from Ryders.”

      “You’re a selfish idiot!”

      He stiffened. “I’m sorry. I needed some cash, all right?”

      “And some credit cards?”

      He shrugged, the same expression on his face that he’d worn when he’d been suspended from sixth grade for a week. Sullen anxiety.

      “Why didn’t you call us? Bail was set on Friday!”

      “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Sixty thousand is too much and Dad won’t pay it anyway.”

      Well, he was likely right about that. And Jane probably wouldn’t front the bond money either, because lately Jessie was just the type to say “Screw it!” and head off for a vacation in Mexico.

      “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Anything else they might have found in your room?”

      “No, nothing. They keep asking me about some girl, but I’ve never heard of her.”

      The hair on the nape of her neck stood up. “What girl?”

      “Some girl named Michelle something. She must’ve had her purse stolen.”

      “Did you take it?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe.”

      Jane lost her last thread of patience. “Well, how many purses have you stolen, Jessie?”

      “I don’t know. Like fifteen or something. Girls put them on the floor at Ryders when they want to dance. They just leave them there like fucking idiots.”

      Fifteen? The contents of fifteen purses would easily be worth more than a thousand dollars, making the crime a felony. “Oh, yeah. They’re the idiots. Have they assigned you an attorney?”

      “They gave me some papers to fill out for a court-appointed guy.”

      “Don’t talk to the cops unless he’s present. I’ll do my best to find you a good lawyer by Monday, okay? And I’m going to try to find out more about this Michelle. Don’t say anything else.”

      “All right.” He flinched when the one-minute bell sounded. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m sorry, all right?”

      “I will. But you’d better start thinking about what you’re going to do when they release you. Dad’s not going to let you back in the house.”

      He nodded and the tip of his nose turned red as if he was holding back tears. “I’m sorry, sis. Honestly. I didn’t mean…” One of the cops began to approach from the other side of the room.

      “I love you, Jessie.”

      “Yeah, me too.” The officer took the phone from his hand and hung it up. Jessie’s eyes were damp, but he put on a crooked smile as the guard grabbed his elbow to urge him up.

      She tried to catch the man’s eye, but he didn’t look at her. She was no one. Just some piece of trash involved with a criminal. She remembered that, too. The way the officers would look through her and her mother, or—worse—glare at them or shake their heads in disgust.

      Jane hung up the phone and pushed numbly to her feet. It was Saturday afternoon and she had to find Jessie a better lawyer. Her mom couldn’t do it.