Lockdown: A Veiled Alliance Story Read online

  A key turned in the lock, and he straightened. As soon as the broad-shouldered figure entered, he relaxed, grinning at Billy Hedron.

  Billy stood in the door for a moment, his gaze raking him.

  “I know you have to be enjoying this,” Gabriel muttered.

  “Buddy, you have no clue,” Billy drawled.

  “Close the door, will you?”

  “Still got cameras in here.”

  “Which are being disabled as we speak.”

  Hedron’s eyebrow lifted. “Got someone else inside?”

  “Just close the goddamn door.” When it shut, he leaned back against the cinderblock wall behind him. “Priest brought me through the doors. Did you know?”

  Billy grimaced. “She came in this morning. Figured Petrakis had something to do with that. Wouldn’t want you wasting away in here.”

  Just as he’d thought. “So, tell me about the dig.”

  Billy leaned against the door and took a deep breath. “You know the grounds are bordered on the north by the river.”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “The land edging up to the water is pretty swampy, but there’s a rise this side of the swamp. The prison’s expanding. Surveyors mapped out a place for another tower, but as soon as the first backhoe dropped a shovel, they found a burial mound.”

  “It dates back to when the other artifact was forged,” Gabriel said, “the conquistador’s sword hilt.”

  Billy frowned. “Yeah, but I don’t get why you think this is linked. That one had Aztec markings all over it. This is a Caddo Indian site.”

  “It’s not the tribe that’s important—it’s when the weapons were made.”

  “You’re not expecting to find forged metal in a Caddo burial mound, are you? They were hunter-gatherers.”

  “We aren’t expecting anything. It’s a hunch. The carbon dating on the mound, the prison breaks where convicts are disappearing without a trace…” Gabriel lifted his gaze to Billy’s. “And there have been whispers about demons...”

  Billy rubbed a hand over his shaved head. “Fuck. Kalicek contacted his brother in the San Antonio Police Department as soon as we started suspecting something might be going down here. ’Bout fell out of my chair when they said they were sending you. Small damn world.”

  Gabriel smiled. “I knew you’d be here to watch my back. Makes it easier since you already know what I am.”

  “Semper Fi, buddy. It’s the least I owe you.”

  Gabriel gave him a lop-sided grin. “Semper Fi,” he said softly. They’d been battle buddies in Afghanistan. Small world indeed. “Any of the prisoners show an interest in the dig?”

  Billy’s brow knitted. “Yeah…Randy Means. They call him The Wizard because he’s educated and always has his nose in a book. He just earned himself a spot as a porter with free movement throughout the prison, but he asked to be transferred to construction.”

  A plum job every prisoner vied for, and he wanted construction? “Well, at least I know where to start sniffing.”

  * * *

  Gillian had been making the rounds, walking past every cell of every tier, although most of the prisoners were milling in the commons below. Although she’d tried hard not to admit it to herself, she knew the moment Vlahos entered the unit.

  Gazes turned to the floor below her. Backs stiffened. Inmates lined the rails and peered down to see the new inmate. See whether he was made of the right stuff or someone they’d carve up on the first day just because they could.

  She couldn’t help herself. She stalled on the third tier up, found a space between the inmates, and watched. Whistles followed Vlahos as he entered, carrying his bundle of freshly issued bedding and clothing.

  A row of inmates ambled toward him, tall, black, fierce. Vlahos was halfway past the list when someone puckered and smacked him a kiss. Vlahos was handsome and solidly built. A dream for some of these guys who might not have swung that way when they entered the system, but were willing to bend that way now, because sex was just a part of nature and the urges had to be acted on.

  Vlahos halted, aimed a glare at the man nearest him, and dropped his bundle at his feet. “You talkin’ to me?”

  He’d spoken softly, but then again, there wasn’t a single noise to buffer the coldly issued challenge. Breaths held. Hers included. She started to make her way toward the steps, knowing this wasn’t going to end without there being trouble.

  “You’re a pretty one,” another of the inmates said, closing in on Vlahos’s side.

  “You’re not my type. No offense,” Vlahos replied, his hands fisting on his hips.

  “Pretty boy like you doesn’t need a type.”

  Vlahos’s head canted, and his chin came up. His narrowed gaze sliced at the first one who’d spoken. “These your pretty boys?”

  The one at his side, jerked. “I’m no ‘punk’ but you smell mighty pretty.”

  “I like soap. You should try it sometime.”

  The one who’d spoken first, stepped forward, so close his chest touched Vlahos. Although a big, brawny man, he had to lift his gaze a couple of inches to meet Vlahos’s. The big guy didn’t like the fact much, that much showed from the fury tightening his jaw.

  “You’d better take a step back,” Vlahos said quietly. “I’m giving you fair warning. You don’t know who I am.”

  The inmate snorted and looked down his nose at Vlahos. “You’re fresh meat. I run this unit.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Gillian sprinted down the last flight of stairs, her hand reaching for the button on her mike. She’d never get there in time to stop what was bound to go down. After a quick glance at the control booth, she cursed under her breath. McPhee was grinning gleefully. The bastard was just gonna let this happen.

  When her foot hit the concrete floor, the fight broke out. The tall black dude swung a closed fist upward, hitting Vlahos’s midsection.

  But Vlahos didn’t bend under the force. His mouth widened in a smile. “Try that again.”

  Pissed now, the black man swung again, this time at Vlahos’s face, but his fist never met flesh.

  In a move so fast it was a blur, Vlahos’s hand met the fist and wrapped around it, bending back the wrist and forcing the bigger man to his knees.

  Gillian sprinted up. “Break it up. Now! Everyone in their cells. Now!”

  The group around Vlahos hesitated, features tight and menacing.

  She fisted her hands on her hips. “Every goddamn one of you is gonna catch paper if you don’t move now.”

  The one at Vlahos’s side gave a quick glance to the leader still crouching on the floor, groaning at the strain on his wrist. He snorted and shook his head. His chin came up at Vlahos, a short respectful gesture that still managed to brim with warning.

  Gillian stepped into Vlahos’s line of sight. “Not the way to start out. You’re both going on report.”

  Vlahos’s expression lightened as his gaze met hers. He released the hand and stepped back. His shoulders were stiff, his chest rising and falling in short gusts. “Gonna write me up? He started it.”

  They were all like little boys, fighting for turf on the playground. She snorted. “Damn straight. Get to your cell.”

  He bent, gathered up his things, and walked away.

  Gillian glanced back at the inmate still crouching on the ground, his hand cradled against his chest. “Need to see a nurse?” she ground out.

  “No,” he gasped.

  “Then get to your cell.” Straightening, she turned and aimed a general glare around her. “Anyone still on the floor in five minutes will be swimming in yellow paper. I don’t care if my hand cramps. Now, move it!”

  She waited, hands on her hips, and, slowly, the prisoners headed back to their cells. Then she turned to the control booth. McPhee still grinned, but behind him Hedron stood with his arms crossed over his chest. His steady stare didn’t give her a hint of his thoughts.

  Well, she’d gone and done it now. She hadn’t kept her
head down. She’d just made herself a target for retribution, and she hadn’t even made it through the first half of her first shift.

  * * *

  In the darkness just before dawn, Gillian headed out the gates to the gravel parking lot. The rest of the night had been uneventful, but then she’d been banished to the East Tower with a rifle and a radio. She’d spent the last six hours bored out of her mind, peering into the dark field just beyond the chain link fence, watching for escapees. Unfortunately, nothing had happened.

  She’d had plenty of time to think about the first hours she’d spent on the floor, replaying through her mind possible consequences and scenarios. Something that would likely happen in her dreams that night. The shift leader, Lieutenant Bates, hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when she’d dropped her yellow major disciplinary forms on his desk before she left.

  “See you tomorrow night,” he’d said, not looking up. “Don’t be late.”

  No, “How’d your first night go?”, but also no complaints. A wash.

  As she hit the automatic button on her remote key, gravel crunched behind her. Hedron halted beside her.

  Her back stiffened.

  “Priest,” he said, his voice just short of a raspy bark. “Wanna join us for coffee? It’s something we do after our shift.”

  Had he felt compelled to ask her since she was the newbie? Or was he offering her an olive branch—a chance to fit in? “I could stand a cup of coffee that wasn’t so old you could stand a spoon in it.”

  “Follow me.”

  He strode off, and she couldn’t help watching him leave. His ass in his navy uniform pants was an attractive, rounded package. His shoulders weren’t bad either. Sturdy was the first adjective that popped into her brain when she thought about how she might describe him.

  She followed him through Caddo, grateful he’d offered to show her the way because she’d never have found the tiny diner on her own.

  Through the glass windows, she saw several tables had already been pulled together to accommodate the officers who shared her shift.

  Hedron waited at the door and opened it for her, a gesture she felt awkward about, given that she worked in a man’s world and would have snarled at him if he’d done it at the prison.

  His lips were a flat line, but as she gave him a quick nod in lieu of a thank you, one corner lifted. Not exactly mocking, but like he knew what she’d been thinking.

  The others looked up at her approach. A few shot searing glares at Hedron, but they shifted their chairs to make room for her.

  An awkward pause followed after she took the seat offered. Then she drew a deep breath and decided to cut through their crap. “I’m out of Bentonville,” she said, opening the discussion, giving them permission to satisfy their curiosity.

  “Got a cousin who works there. James Gilroy,” one of the officers mumbled. “Know him?”

  “Sure. Day shift. Passed him a couple of times at formation.”

  “Got an uncle there,” another drawled. “Doin’ time for armed robbery. Dewey Craddock.”

  Some of the men chuckled.

  “Can’t say as I know him,” she said, giving the man a little smile, grateful for the lightening of the charged atmosphere.

  “Heard you ran into some trouble there,” Hedron said softly.

  She blinked and raised her glance to his. “Caught a shank,” she said, referring to the makeshift knife that had pierced her lung and spleen. She shrugged, deciding to tell the story rather than have another one of them work up the gumption to ask her more. “I was on the floor. A group of prisoners playing dominoes started slapping the tables with the tiles. Figured they were gambling and decided to break it up. I signaled to control what I was gonna to do, but the guy told another officer nearby to take it. When the inmates jumped him, I was ready. But before I knew it, I was on the floor, my face slamming concrete. Someone else jumped me from behind.”

  She didn’t mention that when she looked back at control, the officer in the booth had his back to her. She didn’t need to by the looks on the faces of the officers sitting around her.

  “Now, some folks would think that after something like that happened,” Hedron said slowly and deliberately, “the last thing a pretty girl like you would do is want to work in another prison.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Well, they’d be wrong.”

  Hedron snorted, and then signaled to the waitress. “Two coffees, Marla?”

  “Sure, sugar,” Marla said with a wink.

  “I like mine black,” Gillian said, wishing she hadn’t reacted to the waitress’s flirting. The woman might think she was jealous.

  Hedron’s lips twitched.

  Tension eased gradually as conversation, most of it about hunting or mutual friends that she didn’t know, flowed around her.

  Hedron leaned over the table. “We don’t operate like that here.”

  She lifted her eyebrows as she took a sip of the coffee.

  “Even if we have a problem with someone, we wouldn’t let them take a knife. We wouldn’t just let it happen.”

  “Good to know.” She took a bigger sip and winced as the coffee burned her tongue.

  “The new man you brought in today. Sure had a lot say about you.”

  Gillian bristled at the way his gaze bored into hers. “We hardly exchanged two words.”

  “You made an impression. Might want to steer clear of him.”

  “I’m not a hug-a-thug. I don’t make friends with them, but I don’t run from them either.” She took another sip and began to stand. “Can I get your coffee, boys?”

  There was laughter. “We don’t pay for coffee here.”

  She nodded, breaking into a smile. “My kind of place.”

  Hedron sat back and gave her a long measured look. “Guess I’ll see you later tonight.”

  She nodded to the table and headed to her car without a backward glance.

  So, maybe she hadn’t won them over, but at least they knew she planned to stay, and they better get used to it.

  She drove back through town, turned onto the street of the house she’d rented, when a pale glimmer in the tree line caught her attention. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a man in white coveralls, but when she jerked her head toward him, there was nothing there.

  Gillian pulled into her drive, set her car into park, and walked behind her house, wishing now that she hadn’t been so pleased about the deep ravine behind her yard that assured her privacy.

  Although she knew she hadn’t seen a prisoner and was likely just a little wired from a lack of sleep and her jolt of java, still she couldn’t shrug off the eerie feeling that something wasn’t right.

  She returned to her car, locked it and let herself into her house. The empty walls echoed as she strode inside and laid her keys on the kitchen counter. She headed straight to the bedroom, deciding to skip a shower until after she’d slept. She stripped and fell across the mattress, asleep the second after her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  Breakfast had come and passed in the early morning hours. The inmates had begun to mill around the floor below, groups being led to the gym or sick call with the prison nurse.

  Gabriel stayed in his cell alone, stretched out in his bunk. His cellmate Brian Ames, an amiable good old boy from Baton Rouge, had already left to work in laundry. Tomorrow, Gabriel would join the work crew on the dig site. Nothing much ever happened in the morning. Nothing that he needed to be concerned about anyway. Later, he’d get the lay of the land and listen to the whispers to help him figure out what exactly was happening inside this cellblock.

  For now, he needed to feed.

  He held a picture in his mind of the attractive officer—Gillian Priest. Her face shimmered, firmed, and then he was standing beside a window, watching the way a slice of bright sunlight bisected the woman’s face as she lay naked across soft, rust-colored sheets.

  At rest, her features had lost the tight edginess that made her seem a little bri
ttle. Fragile, even. Something he knew she’d hate if a man mentioned it. Probably no one else would ever notice.

  Her body was lithe, long, and muscled. Her hair, free of the tight bun she’d worn at the prison, was deep, rich brown. Sunlight glinted in honey-colored streaks. The thatch of dark hair cloaking her mound was several shades darker. Her breasts were small, firm mounds, the nipples delightfully puffy and pink. His body hardened as he came around the foot of her bed and stared at her sex. Smooth, hairless lips beneath the thatch framed delicate pink inner labia that protruded, furling like a rose around the entrance that soon he’d penetrate.

  She was perfect for his needs, and she’d benefit from the gift he’d bring her. When he was through with her, she’d awaken refreshed with only vague memories of what passed between them, which might leave her a little uneasy in his presence, but she’d put it down to first day nerves and shrug it off.

  He might want to hint to Hedron that he should take an interest as well to occupy her waking thoughts. Smooth those rough edges. Make kitty purr.

  In the meantime, he didn’t know how long he’d have before he was rousted from his cell, so he settled on the bed beside her, eased slowly over her body, and then sank inside.

  Chapter 3

  Gillian blinked when he first appeared. She’d been sitting on the porch of her family’s cabin at Canyon Lake, Texas on a hot summer’s day. Nothing to think about except how much she missed this place.

  Only she’d been alone. Her sister didn’t play on the edge of the water. Her brother wasn’t casting a line into the water, hoping to catch supper. Her mother and father weren’t in the hammocks strung beneath the live oaks, laughing softly to themselves.

  And yet, she’d felt peaceful.

  What the hell was Vlahos doing in her dream? He stood at the bottom of the steps. His smile was slow.