1

IT’S KIND OF HARD to scratch your nose when you’re handcuffed, Joan was forced to conclude as she tried but failed to raise her manacled hands to her face. She sat down with her chain mates as ordered, but immediately turned her head and tried to rub the dastardly tickle against her raised shoulder. Her snorting, sighing and iron-clanking efforts, while easing her itch, suddenly sounded awfully loud to her. But surely she wasn’t as—

She peeked. Lots of curious stares were coming her way. Lots. Joan straightened up, relaxed her posture. Great. That’s what I want—freak-show status in a women’s prison. Could she help it, she argued right back, that her every move made her sound like the Ghost of Christmas Past? No, but she needed to look that scary if she hoped to keep body and soul intact.

Conceding that point, Joan cramped her features into a glare meant to convey what-are-you-looking-at-sister. Apparently it did, because the rough women averted their gazes. Joan lowered hers to her lap. Prison coveralls, compliments of Houston’s penal system, engulfed her body. Her oh-so-fashionable orange jumpsuit and matching chain accessories didn’t matter, she told herself. What did matter was that she was safely in jail. Thank God.

That’s how grim things were. Being a criminal was a good thing in her life. As was being charged with Murder One. Not to mention the possibility of death by lethal injection. Great. Don’t even go there, girlfriend. Your nerves are already frayed like split ends. Worry about today, about why you were taken out of your nice cell and marched in a chain gang to the Holding Room.

Good point. She swept the room with her gaze, wondering where were the peeling paint and the dirty floors and the dripping overhead pipes? Didn’t these people watch TV? Obviously not, because the large, well-lit room was depressingly clean and…well, about as visually interesting as an air vent. But still, nitpicking her surroundings was better than being sociable with her “Who’s Who in Women’s Prisons Today” comrades. Especially Big Betty. Big Betty sat next to her. Big Betty liked to sit next to her.

And to stare at her. Like now. Feeling the woman’s assessing, piggy-eyed gaze riveted on her, Joan attempted to inch away. But the chain that looped her waist—and also attached her to Big Betty’s girth—prevented her from doing more than yanking her own chain.

“What’re you in for, honey?”

Joan froze. Maybe if she just pretended she hadn’t heard her. But her shoulder being bumped forced her to turn to her chain mate. Joan stared at the woman’s broad and sweaty frying-pan face. And blinked. Finally, she managed to croak out, “I’m in for murder. I killed someone.”

“So that’s what murder means.” Big Betty snorted out a chuckle. “Who’d you kill—the pet groomer for clipping your poodle too close?” Then she and her bad breath leaned over, got in Joan’s face. “You wouldn’t kill a rabid dog if it attacked you, doll.”

Joan’s belly plummeted like a plunging roller coaster. This is not good. Hoping Big Betty would leave her alone if Big Betty thought she was crazy, Joan grimaced and snarled, “I ain’t nobody’s doll, sister. And you’re wrong, see? I am guilty. Guilty, I tell ya! I ain’t like these crybaby dames here in the joint, whining about they’re innocent. Not me—I whacked him. And whacked him good. He had it coming.”

To Joan’s further horror, Big Betty’s face lit with admiration. “Hey, I seen that movie, too! I like your style, kid. And them Irish good looks of yours. Yep, Big Betty’s thinking you’re gonna be re-e-al popular in the old cell block.” Then she adopted a whispering, conspiratorial air. “You’ll need a…friend to look after you. Know what I mean?”

No, no, no rang in Joan’s head, but she found herself nodding yes. But only because she did know and feared exactly what Big Betty meant.

“Good,” the large woman concluded. “Because I ain’t got a cell mate no more. See, Sunny—my last old lady—well, she thought she could mess around on me. But I taught her different. It was a hard lesson, but she had it coming.” She shrugged her linesman’s shoulders, adding, “Maybe she’ll walk again one day. But you? You look sweet. You wouldn’t mess around on Big—”

“All right, ladies, pipe down and listen up. Hey, I said shut up.”

Joan jerked toward the cavalry-to-the-rescue sound of Sergeant Mackleman’s voice. Standing at the room’s far entrance, a clipboard clutched in his hand, he called out, “I’m looking for Debutante Number 8-7-6-3-4-1-9. Check your dance cards, ladies, and speak up. I got work to do here.”

When no one responded to the guard’s repeated call, Joan thought to consult the stenciling above her left breast. 8763419. She gasped, crying out, “Oh, it’s me. I’m Joan—I mean 8-7-6-3-4-1-9. Right here, Sergeant Mackleman. Over here!”

Seeing the guard’s handlebar mustache droop in a frown as he searched the orange ocean of seated prisoners, Joan nearly cut herself in half trying to wriggle to her feet. But the ironclad restraint of her waist chains and ankle chains and handcuffs-chained-to-her-waist chains jerked her back. Her rump smacked down onto the hardest chair in the history of civilized sitting.

Grimacing, Joan settled for waggling her hands desperately as she sang out, “Yoo-hoo? Over here. I’m 8-7-6-3-4-1-9. You remember me—from last weekend when I turned myself in?”

To her infinite relief, Joan saw the big guard zero in on her bouncing commotion. He shook his head as he started toward her, already reaching for the ring of keys clipped to his belt. When he stood at the end of her row, he eyed her and muttered, “I should’ve known. The princess.”

Barely able to contain herself, Joan cut her gaze over to Big Betty’s sweaty presence and then, when the big guard stood in front of her, turned an imploring expression up to the armed man. “Could I request solitary confinement, please? It’s nothing personal against these women. I’m sure they’re all very nice. It’s just that…well, I know me, and I’m a lousy roommate. I love bread and water. Hate sunshine and exercise.”

The gruff officer eyed her, shot a look at Big Betty, and then back at Joan. Leaning over her, he lowered his voice to say, “For what it’s worth, O’Leary, if you don’t start telling the truth, if you stick with your present story, you’re sitting next to your future, kiddo. And unlike you, it ain’t pretty.”

Pursing her lips in defeat, Joan looked away from him to a Crime Doesn’t Pay poster tacked up on a far wall. Oh, sure, now they tell me. But did Sergeant Mackleman really think she wanted to be here? Tell the truth, he said. Yeah, right. The truth, as a famous someone once said, shall set you free. And thereby get me killed. Knowing that, she again sought the well-meaning guard’s brown eyes. “I’m sticking to my story.”

Sergeant Mackleman sighed and straightened up. “Suit yourself.” He wrote something on a form attached to his clipboard and stuck his paperwork under his arm. “Okay, let’s go. You got a visitor. For your own sake, level with him. He’s your last chance, princess.”

“A visitor?” Fear lanced a path through Joan. “A him? I don’t want to talk to him. I like it in this room. I want to stay here.”

Mackleman chuckled as he began unlocking her irons. In his broad East Texas accent, he wisecracked, “Well, we here at the Women’s Correctional Resort and Beach Club do try to make our inmates’ visits pleasant. So we hope you also enjoy your little chat with the nice deputy sheriff.”

Joan ignored his sarcasm, focusing instead on his last word. “Sheriff?”

“Yes, ma’am. An official visitor. A deputy…as in lawman. Tin badge.”

Joan made a face reflective of the sickly feeling in her belly. “Are you sure it’s not someone just pretending to be a sheriff?”

Mackleman gripped her arm, hauled her to her feet. “Yeah, that happens all the time. It’s one big joke after another with those crazy impostors.” He then moved her aside two paces and said, “He’s legit. I know him. He used to be a Houston cop. Until his wife got killed. Now stand right there.”

She did, but frowned in curiosity at the man’s off-hand revelation. “His wife got killed? How?”

“Drunk driver. About four or five years ago.” With that, he bent over to couple Big Betty to a tattooed, ratty-looking biker babe who’d been on Joan’s left. When he drew himself up, he warned, “You ladies behave. Don’t make me have to come back over here.”

The resulting lurid suggestions and catcalls and obscene kissing sounds—not all of them directed at the big, muscled cop towing her along by the arm—had Joan shuffling rapidly within the confines of her ankle manacles. By the time they’d reached the door, she was pulling Houston’s finest behind her. “Hold up, O’Leary. My bulldog’s better-mannered on a leash than you are. Now, heel and let this nice man here do his job.”

Joan forced herself to be still as she waited for a barrel-shaped guard to unlock and open the door. She should’ve thought this through, she chastised herself. What did she think the police would do when she confessed to a major crime that was the top story in the nation? Take her to tea? She should’ve known she’d be subjected to imprisonment and all its…finer points.

“Okay, let’s go, Ms. 8-7-6-3-4-1-9.” Mackleman tugged her forward. Joan breathed a sigh of relief when the barred door closed behind them with a metallic clunk. Free at last from Big Betty’s leers and innuendos. A shudder rippled through her at the mere thought of—“This way,” her guard directed, cutting off her thoughts and indicating the long hallway ahead.

Joan peered down its deserted length. Tunnel-like, the gray corridor ran on for an uncomfortable last-mile stretch of space. Literally. Hauling in a breath for courage, she minced along in her ankle irons, trying to talk at the same time. “Where’re you taking me?”

“To the Harvest Moon Ball. Where else?”

Joan had time only to make a face at the man’s answer before he stopped her in front of another metal door, this one labeled Interview Room 3. “Here we are,” the guard announced cheerily as he opened the door and handed her inside. “Sit down and behave, O’Leary.”

Two paces past the dour cubicle’s threshold, Joan clanked to a stop. Her anxious gaze sought every corner. Empty, except for her and Sergeant—a heavy bang jerked her around. She stared at the closed door. Okay, empty except for her. She turned back around, eyeing the gray metal table and two chairs…just sitting there…waiting. Hanging low over these prison-movie props was a bright bulb encased in a dingy conical shade.

Interview room, my foot. Interrogation room. She’d been expecting this. Any minute now, big angry men would come in and yell, and beat her until she confessed. Wait. She’d confessed already. All that was left was to give her a fair trial and then kill her, right?

Don’t scare yourself to death before the state of New Mexico gets its chance. Just then footsteps in the hallway stopped in front of the door behind her. Joan tensed, listening. Male voices, male laughter. She strained to hear but couldn’t make out their words. She did recognize Sergeant Mackleman’s twang, though. Was the other one, then, that tin badge—the sheriff?

Oops. She’d been told to sit down. Stumbling forward à la Frankenstein’s monster—or maybe his bride—Joan hobbled to the table’s far side and plopped onto the chair that faced the door. Then, watching that closed barrier as if she expected it to bark, she mentally fussed at the madness that had put her here.

Who knew that Mr. LoBianco was a criminal?

There ought to be a job-hunting law that stated, “At the beginning of a job interview, prospective employers must disclose to the interviewee the really bottom-line important stuff about themselves.” After all, how hard was it to extend your hand in greeting and say, “Hello, I’m a mob boss and doing all sorts of illegal things that can get us both killed—or cause me to kill you one day soon. And you are…?”

But no-o-o. She’d had to discover that little tidbit for herself. In a most spectacular and bloody way, too. Hello? She was a freelance accountant. She did bookkeeping. How dangerous was that? Well…real dangerous—if your boss’s nightclub is a front for organized crime. And it’s being used as a laundry—for dirty money. Which she promptly figured out the first time she did the books. You’d think, with the billions those guys handled, they’d be more skilled at creative financing to cover their tracks.

Boy, it didn’t get any better than this. All those years working in the Lane Tag Agency here in Houston to put herself through college? Wasted. And her degree in accounting? Down the tubes. Just like the stable, independent life she’d built for herself, the one she’d never had growing up.

But all those foster homes in Texas now felt a lot less Oliver Twist-ish than today’s accommodations. Joan instantly chided herself. That wasn’t fair. Nothing bad had ever happened to her while in foster care. It was just the constant moving, the sense of never belonging, the never feeling loved that had taught her some real-life lessons. Like self-reliance. And keeping her feelings to herself. And trusting her heart only to her own keeping. Well, she had Jack to thank for enforcing that last lesson.

If she could find him, she’d kill him. Note to self: Refrain from saying things like “kill him” when the nice sheriff comes in. Okay, if she could find Jack the Heart-ripper Exboyfriend Weasel/Ski Instructor, she’d really…yell at him, boy. He’d begged her, in repeated phone calls, to move to Taos to be with him. It’s great here. You’ll love it. All kinds of work. And nowhere near the traffic and crime that Houston has. Please join me, honey. I love you.

Joan could still hear her last and favorite foster parents, Bob and Pam, pleading with her. Don’t go, Joan. You’re part of our family. Your life, your friends, your clients— they’re all here. And what’s Jack? A good-looking heartbreaker. You’ve known him for three months. He’s a waiter—not a ski instructor. Before waiting tables, he was a substitute gym teacher. So what sudden epiphany had him running for the closest ski valley? How stable is that?

But in the end, their pleas had fallen on her lovedeafened ears. Jack wasn’t the first man to say those words to her, but the results were always the same. Now Joan slumped in her chair, denouncing herself as a hopeless romantic. How hopeless? She’d bought a Mrs. Tea because Mr. Coffee looked lonely just sitting there all by himself on her counter. So she’d packed up and headed for Taos, looking to surprise Jack. Looking for romantic happiness.

And when she got there on that hot August day a month ago—with all her belongings crammed into her old Volkswagen—Jack had indeed been surprised. So had the girl living with him. The jerk. The jerkette. In less than one strained week, those two had cut for Colorado. Joan sincerely hoped they’d fallen off a mountain. So, there she’d been—stranded in Taos. But finally and forever wiser. Her eyes open. And too mortified to face Pam and Bob and listen to their well-meaning we-told-you-so lecture.

So, she’d started over in New Mexico. Less crime, Jack had said. You want crime? Try Mr. LoBianco. Okay, getting mixed up with him hadn’t been Jack’s fault. Mr. LoBianco had been a paycheck, a job. Well, it had started out that way. But soon, the question of family had come up. She’d spoken of foster homes. He’d seemed…well, happy about that. Now she knew why. He’d probably been thinking that if things went wrong and he had to kill her, who’d know? Or care?

Only he hadn’t killed her. Wasn’t irony great? Joan grimaced. This was not going to look good on her résumé which, with its Death Row postmark, would already have one strike against it. Last Job: Freelance accountant to the mob. Duration: One week. Reason for Leaving: Killed boss. Even worse, what had she been thinking, after the bloodshed, to run screaming back to Houston? Okay, she’d panicked, headed for “home.” Well, comfortable familiarity, if nothing else. But fleeing here certainly proved to be the ultimate headline for Duh! magazine.

Because where’s the first place little woodland creatures head when they’re being hunted? Their burrow. And who knows that? The big nasty carnivores chasing them—a.k.a., a very upset hit man. Close calls with him just inside Houston’s city limits had certainly shown her the error of her ways. Lucky for Pam and Bob and their kids, though, she hadn’t reached them before the bad guy reached out to her. With his car and his gun.

Her poor “parents,” to have such a stupid “kid” as her. She’d actually called them from a pay phone, but got their answering machine. And hung up without leaving a message when that big black car, just like in the movies, came screeching around the corner. Thinking back on it now, Joan asked herself what she’d been going to say to Pam and Bob. Hi! You were right—New Mexico was a disaster. But I’m back! By the way, I have a mob hit man trying to kill me. So, can you put me up for a few days? I’ll help you barricade your house.

Unbelievable. She would have led that sociopathic goon right to them. Maybe gotten them all killed. Just as she would’ve been, had she not jerked around the corner of that convenience store before the bad guy had seen her. And then, when she’d peeked out to see if the coast was clear, she’d instead caught sight of…herself. Could they find no other picture but the goofy one on her driver’s license? Because it had been plastered all over the front page of some newspapers stacked on a wooden stand.

The headlines had read that she was wanted for questioning in the LoBianco murder case. Yes! And that was, when? Four days ago, she’d turned herself in to the police and confessed. And those fun guys! Two detectives—Hale and Carter. Clearly amused with her story, the fatherly types had counseled her. Look, miss, maybe you got head problems, maybe need some medication, some kinda help? You don’t wanna do this. Let us call a sheriff friend out in Taos and tell him your story, see if we can cut you loose.

Joan recalled her desperation over that revolting development. So, to ensure her arrest, she’d lunged for an officer’s gun. And thereby won her all-expenses-paid trip to the safety of a jail cell.

A key scraped into the metal door’s lock. Joan snapped back to the present, sat up straighter. The door began inching open, the conversation in the hallway became louder. Apparently, whoever this was, he was still talking to someone outside as he entered. So he was a sheriff, huh? Would he be like the bad one of Nottingham? she wondered. Or one of the good ones, like from the Wild West cowboy movies?

As if it mattered. Because, more to the point, whoever this sheriff was, he held her life in his hands.

STILL FACING THE PRISON hallway and gripping the doorknob of Interview Room 3, Dan spied the ambling approach of Detectives Hale and Carter. He felt the years fall away as he called out to the middle-aged men. “There you are—the men of the hour. It’s about time. I was just about to go in.”

“So go in,” Jack Carter called out, gesturing with his thick bearlike hands. “Just because you haven’t seen us in five years doesn’t mean we’ve got to hug and cry. One phone call to you doesn’t make you family, you know.”

Dan chuckled. “I sure as hell hope not” Then he roughly embraced the two older men—the light and the bane of his long-ago rookie existence in Houston. “How the heck are you two guys?”

Ed Hale pulled back with his partner and darted self-conscious looks up and down the hallway, as if making certain no one had seen their male bonding. “I’m good. Carter here had some heart trouble, though.”

Concern edging his eyes, Dan focused on Jack. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “That’s his new joke. He means I don’t have a heart, that they couldn’t find one. I haven’t had any problems. How about you, kid? You doing okay?”

The sudden tightening in Dan’s throat caught him off guard. Jack alluded, he knew, to Marilyn’s death five years ago. “Yeah. You know me.” Then he deflected the emotion with, “So, what’s the real reason you guys sucked me into this extradition?”

Ed shrugged his sloping shoulders and scratched his graying crewcut. “Nobody sucked. We just called your boss and asked. You always this cheerful with your old friends?”

“Only those who want me to sacrifice my career.”

“Aw, come on, kid, it’s not that bad.” Hale looked Dan up and down. “You’ve aged. So, you still a crusader for justice?”

Just as he’d suspected. Dan stepped back out into the hallway. The use of that old nickname, given him by them, could not be good news. Closing the solid door behind him, he said angrily, “All right, what gives here?” A file folder in one hand, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared from Hale to Carter. “Is my being here an elaborate scheme to collect on that old bet?”

The veteran detectives exchanged a look fraught with innocence, but then Carter gave them away. “You always said if we found an innocent suspect, we should call you and you’d buy us steak dinners. We did, and we did. And now you are.”

“Found one. Called you. And you’re buying,” Hale clarified.

Dan looked from one detective to the other, and tried his best not to grin back at them. They hadn’t changed a bit. Just gained a few more years, lines, and pounds. “I’m buying? Go to hell.”

“Jack’s Bar and Grill will do. A bet’s a bet, kid. Miss O’Leary has motive and opportunity. A prosecutor’s dream. Only she’s innocent,” Carter assured him, cuffing Dan’s shoulder. “Make mine a Texas T-bone. Seventy-two ounces.”

“Seventy-two ounces?” Dan repeated, suddenly feeling like a lone wrestler caught in a tag-team tourney. “And how can you be so sure—of her innocence, I mean?”

“We know, don’t we, Carter?” Hale turned to his partner, but jerked a thumb in Dan’s direction. “The kid here said crime was cut-and-dried, black-and-white. No gray areas. If there’s enough evidence to arrest a guy, he’s guilty. No such thing as a smoking gun in an innocent person’s hand. Or circumstantial evidence. The boy was cocky, had all the answers. Remember how he was?”

Leaving Dan out of the discussion, Carter answered his partner. “I sure do. We’ve been holding on to that bet all these years, too. And now…we got him.” Finally, he turned to the topic of their exchange and asked, “You still that young idealist, Dan? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck—”

“And quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” Dan finished for him. “I just love hearing my words come out of your mouth, Carter. Let’s just say I was older and wiser back then, more sure of the world. Now I’m not so sure of anything.”

“Shoulda said so on the phone,” Hale retorted. “Could’ve saved yourself the trip. And the money. ‘Cause we’ve got an innocent kid right behind that door who’s been charged with Murder One. She’s going to earn us those steaks. And I got—” he fished around in a pocket of his wrinkled slacks and finally produced a wadded-up bill, which he unrolled and eyed “—five dollars that says you’ll be convinced of her innocence in less than thirty minutes and killing yourself to get her off. From the charges, I mean.”

“Wait,” Dan ordered, holding up a hand before they could solidify this new bet. “I’m not here to question her—just take her back.”

Carter grinned. The man never grinned. Now Dan was scared. “Oh, you’ll want to take the time to question her, all right,” he assured Dan, nodding all the while. “Wait until you see her.”

Dan’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah? Good-looking?”

“A knockout,” the detectives bleated together.

Dan eyed them, turned to eye the door behind him, and then focused again on the old guys who’d been the first to teach him how to stay alive in the police business. They were also the ones who’d spoken personally with Sheriff Halverson and convinced his boss that only he could pick up this prisoner. “You’re on,” he told them. “Wait here.”

The two exchanged, a grin laden with amusement. Shaking his head, Dan again opened the door to Interview Room 3 and stepped in. His gaze went immediately to his prisoner. Bam! The bare-knuckled fist of first impression conked him right between the eyes. Words and thoughts failed him. As did breathing. When he was able, he exhaled. Hale and Carter weren’t kidding. She was a knockout.

You’re staring, Hendricks. Say something. Dan nodded his head in introduction. “Morning, ma’am. I’m Dan Hendricks, deputy sheriff of Taos County. I’m here regarding your extradition to New Mexico to face the murder charges pending against you in the death of Tony LoBianco.”

Her only reaction was a widening of her eyes. Aware of the listening detectives behind him, Dan tried again. “Do you understand what that means…extradition? The crime was committed in New Mexico, so that’s where the case will be tried. Remember the papers you signed, stating you agreed to allow Texas to release you to go back? That’s extradition. And why I’m here. The taking-you-back part.”

The scared-looking, angel-faced innocent on the other side of the desk nodded. “I understand.”

“Good. And I understand you’ve waived your right to have an attorney present during questioning—now or at any other time?”

She puckered her mouth and averted her gaze to a wall, showing him a long, thick auburn ponytail. “Yes. I don’t need one. I did it.”

Startled to hear a suspect in a capital crime blurt her guilt, Dan jerked around and saw Hale’s and Carter’s smirking expressions. He told them, “Go get a cup of coffee. I’ll find you later,” then closed the door in their faces and turned back to his prisoner. “Ma’am, ‘I did it’ is the dictionary definition of when you need an attorney. So, are you going to plead guilty and forgo a trial?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

Dan’s frown deepened. “It will come to that—and soon. The Houston P.D.’s dropped the charge against you for grabbing that officer’s gun. And you’ve signed the extradition papers. So now we’re out of here.”

“Then let’s go,” she said, sounding as if she’d just agreed to a date.

Completely insane. “You do understand that New Mexico has the death penalty? Lethal injection?”

Again she nodded. “Yes, I do. But it won’t come to that. I have faith in the legal system.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “Which is why you’re refusing legal representation, right? So, tell me, why are you doing this?”

Puzzlement lined her otherwise smooth forehead. “Doing what?”

Suddenly peeved with his old buddies for putting him in this position, much less this city, Dan ran a hand over his mouth and took a deep breath. “Look,” he began as he approached the table and pulled out the chair facing her. He sat down, flopped her case file onto the table between them, saw her gaze flit to it and then back to his face. “Did you see those two detectives out in the hallway just now?”

She chuckled without humor. “Oh, yes. They laughed, tried to talk me out of my confession.”

Dan nodded. “I heard. They’re friends of mine. We worked together when I was on the force here five years ago. And now they’re asking me to stick my neck out for you. To put it on a legal chopping block, so to speak.”

“Why would they do that? That’s not very nice.”

“Agreed.” Getting down to business, Dan shed his navy blue windbreaker and tossed it on the tabletop. He saw her mark his shoulder holster and then meet his gaze again. “So what are we going to do about it, Miss O’Leary?”