The Cat, The Devil, And Lee Fontana. The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

They moved down Peachtree past closed, softly lit shops until they hit narrower streets, shabby little houses packed close together. In the fading evening, kids played ball in the street, running and shouting. The deputy honked impatiently at a bunch of Negro boys in a game of kick-the-can. Ahead loomed the penitentiary: thick concrete walls, one guard tower that Lee could see, the glint of rifles reflected from big spotlights glaring across the entry doors.

Belly-chained, Lee slid awkwardly out of the car and climbed the marble steps, aching tired. Once inside and through the sally port the deputy marshals freed him of the cuffs and chain. He stood rubbing his sore wrists where the cuffs had eaten in, rubbing his back, listening to the hum of the heavy barred gate sliding closed behind him.

Down both sides of the long passage were vaulted openings that led to the cellblocks. He followed along beside the uniformed admissions officer, a trim, dark-haired young man with a full mustache. Down at the end of the corridor he could see open double doors and could smell greasy dishwater and boiled cabbage, could hear pans clanging and male voices. The corridor was hung with inmates? paintings, some crazy paranoid, some nostalgic. An oil painting of a cowhand riding across open prairie struck him hard.

When he had showered and been issued prison clothes he was led into a cellblock five tiers high. He had stuffed his savings book and Mae?s picture, which he was allowed to keep, into the pocket of his loose cotton shirt. He followed the officer up the metal stairs that zigzagged back and forth between metal catwalks. Some fifty feet above the main floor were barred clerestory windows, their glass arching up another thirty feet. Hecraned his neck to look up, the height dizzying him. ?Some hotel, Lieutenant.?

?Sorry, no elevator,? the officer said in his soft Southern speech. ?You?ll be on the third tier.? They climbed in silence as the rumble of a train broke the night from behind the prison, its scream shrill and demanding. By the time Lee reached his tier he was breathing so hard he had to stop twice to get enough air. ?Long drop,? he said when the train had passed and he could talk again. ?Anyone ever cash it in and jump??

?It?s happened,? the guard said. ?Not often.?

At midpoint of the catwalk he was ushered into a single cell.

?You?ll see Mr. Hamilton, the section custodian, in the morning. Then the classification officer. After that you?ll be able to move around the prison.?

His cell was no different than the others he?d lived in: stainless steel washbowl, stained metal toilet. A cot bolted to the wall, with a cotton pad, a worn-out pillow, and a gray prison blanket. He didn?t bother to undress. He pulled off his shoes, lay down and drew the blanket up around him, listening to the familiar prison noises, mensnoring, metal clanging, the crinkle of paper as a candy bar was unwrapped. Maybe life was just one long cellblock after another until they planted you outside the wall.

But this thought brought a flurry of hissing. The cat leaped heavily onto the cot, right in Lee?s face, as solid as any living beast. Solid and very visible, shocking Lee. Quickly he looked up and down the corridor at the cells on the other side.

He saw no one looking back, and saw no guard near. Misto grinned, flicked his tail, and vanished again?but when Lee lifted the blanket the invisible cat crawled underneath, warm against Lee?s shoulder, the comfort of his purr easing Lee into sleep.

8

THE CLANG OF metal and the echo of men?s voices woke Lee. Morning light flooded the cellblock, striking down from the high clerestory windows. He staggered out of his bunk in automatic response to the wake-up call, stood at his barred door in his wrinkled prison clothes and stocking feet while the count was taken, then turned to the metal basin. He splashed water on his face, used the toothbrush and toothpaste he?d been issued. He was sitting on his bunk putting on his prison-issued shoes when a big-bellied custodian in blue pants and white shirt slid the barred door open. His nametag readHAMILTON. He stood looking Lee over.

?You sleep in those clothes??

Lee pulled the shirt straight, tried to brush out the wrinkles.

?Once you?ve made up your bunk, Fontana, you can go from here to the mess hall. Then to classifications, then return to your cell. You?ll stay here until you?re notified, until you?re allowed to move around the prison and exercise yard.?

Lee listened to Hamilton?s directions to the various buildings, then followed him out, moving away along the metal catwalk among straggling inmates and down the iron stairs.

The prison cafeteria smelled of powdered eggs, bacon fat, and overcooked coffee. Inmates pushed in around him half awake, grumbling and arguing or shuffling along silent and morose. Again a train rumbled and screamed passing outside the wall. None of the men paid any attention. Lee guessed they were used to it. Maybe the siren?s call didn?t stir their blood the way it excited him, the way it made him want out of there, made him feel all the more shackled. He kept to himself in the crowded line until he was jolted hard from behind by two men horsing around, pummeling each other. Lee didn?t look at them, he left it alone, he didn?t want to start anything.

Not until one of them bumped him hard, did he turn. The man was right in his face. Lee stood his ground. The guy would be a fool to start something here, with half a dozen guards watching. He stared challengingly at Lee, his face hatched by deep lines pinched into a scowl. Dark hair in a short prison cut, a high, balding forehead. It was the look in his black eyes that brought Lee up short, a stare so brutal Lee paused, startled by the sense of another presence within that dark gaze.

But just as quickly the man?s look changed to the insolence of any prison no-good. Lee could see the guards watching them, ready to move in. He took a good look at the man?s companion: blond pompadour combed high above his weathered face, pale, ice-blue eyes. A pair of twisted inmates that a fellow wanted to avoid. Lee moved on with the line, picked up a tray and collected his breakfast. Turning away, he crossed the room to a small, empty table.

The two men joined a crowded table in the center of the big cafeteria and in a moment all seven inmates turned to watch Lee. He ate quickly, ignoring them, trying not to think about the spark he?d seen in those dark eyes, that quick glimpse of something foreign peering out.

He didn?t look at the crowded table as he left the mess hall. Pushing out into the prison yard, he headed for the counselor?s office. To his right rose the stone buildings that would be prison industries. Beyond, at a lower level, sprawled the exercise yard, surrounded by the massive stone wall that enclosed the prison grounds. The wall must be thirty feet high. From this position he could see only one guard tower, two guards looking down, rifle barrels glinting in the morning sun. He had started toward the classifications building when a short man crossing the yard stopped, stared at him, then approached Lee with a dragging limp, a stocky man with husky arms and shoulders. His voice was grainy. ?Hey, Boxcar, is that you??

Lee hadn?t heard that name in fifty years. ?Gimpy, you old safecracking buzzard.?

Hobbling along fast, Gimpy joined him, his eyes laughing beneath bushy gray brows. His hair was gray now, and he was maybe some heavier.?When the hell did you get in, Boxcar??

?Just transferred in from Springfield. How long have you been here??

?Two years, doing five. I might make parole one of these days.? The little man scowled. ?My last safe job went sour.?

They?d been just kids when they?d pulled a few jobs together, Gimpy opening the train safes slick and fast. He was the best man with a punch and hand sledge Lee had ever seen. ?Do you remember .†.†.? Lee began. He was silenced by the loud blast of a Klaxon, the sudden blare brought ice grippinghis stomach. Gimpy nudged him out of the way as four guards ran by, followed by two medics carrying black bags and a stretcher, their white coats flapping.

?It?s in the furniture plant,? Gimpy said. They moved toward the industries building, where a short spur track ran from the loading platform out through a sally port in the prison wall. A freight car sat on the track, guards and inmates milling around its open door, pulling out heavy crates.

?Furniture crates,? Gimpy said, ?desks for the military.? There was a lot of shouting, the sound of wood being pried and splintered. A guard and two prisoners eased a body out from the collapsed wooden crate, lifted the bloody figure onto a stretcher.

Once the injured man had been carried off, four inmates pulled the crate out. Lee could see the false bottom the man had built, splintered now and crushed. Gimpy said,?He must have squeezed into it after the crate was loaded. Maybe the crates on top shifted. Doesn?t say much for his carpentry.?

Lee shook his head.?An ugly way to go.?

?Hell, Boxcar, no one?s ever broke out of this joint, something always goes bad. One guy had a gun smuggled in by a guard, got himself rifle shot before he got through the main corridor.?

Lee looked up with speculation at the thirty-foot wall, but Gimpy snorted.?Not over that wall, nor under it neither. Wall?s a dozen feet thick at the bottom, and sitting on solid rock. I?ll do my time right here,? he said, shifting his weight. ?No one could get over that baby.?

When they parted company Lee headed for the classifications office, moving up the steps and inside past rows of desks where prison personnel sorted though files or sat talking with inmates, men fidgeting nervously in straight-backed chairs or slouching with bored disdain. The room stunk of sweaty bodies and stale cigarette smoke. Lee?s classification officer was a soft little fellow in his forties: slick bald head, white rumpled shirt, his tie pulled loose and his collar unbuttoned. He laid his unlit pipe on the desk among stacks of jumbled papers. ?I?m Paul Camp. You?re Lee Fontana? You just came in from Springfield.?

Lee nodded. Camp gestured for Lee to sit down and handed across a printed set of rules, a meal schedule, and a laundry and mail schedule.?I do three jobs here. Classification, parole, and counseling.?

?You think I can get a job in industries? I like to be doing something.?

?You?ll have to see the doctor first. When I get a slip from him, you?ll have more freedom, we?ll see what we can do. You can go on over to the hospital from here.? Camp gave him directions. ?He?ll want to see you every week for a while, to check on the emphysema.? Then the jolt came. ?Twice a week,? Camp said, ?you?ll be attending group counseling sessions.? He handed Lee another short schedule.

?I don?t need group counseling. What do I want with that??

Camp studied him, then thumbed through Lee?s file. ?You may not think you need the sessions, but I do. If you had used a little restraint, Fontana, if you hadn?t gotten into trouble in Vegas, you?d still be out on parole.? He fixed Lee with a hard look. ?Unless, of course, you wanted to be back behind bars.?

Lee?s belly twisted. ?Sure I did. I have what the shrinks call a subliminal need to be confined, to be shut in by high walls, safe from the outside world and with all the prison amenities.?

Camp just looked at him. Lee couldn?t decide whether the counselor?s eyes reflected anger, suspicion, or a suppressed desire to laugh. ?The Federal Bureau of Prisons, Fontana, has moved into the age of treatment. Just go to counseling, it?s the policy. Just go and endure it.?

He left Camp?s office swallowing back a cough, hating modern prison ways. He?d rather take a beating than be forced into their fancy headshrinking show. Why couldn?t they leave him alone? They?d locked him up, they had him where they wanted, so why couldn?t they leave him be?

As he headed for the dispensary beyond the officers? mess, the thirty-foot concrete wall loomed over him and over the big exercise yard. He could see two tennis courts laid out, where six inmates in cutoffs were batting the little white balls. Two more guys were playing handball, and beyond the empty baseball diamond, on the oval track, several men were jogging laps?the place was a regular country club. His own first time behind bars, when he was eighteen, he?d had a rock pile to exercise on. Did the guards here in the South spoon-feed these punks and wipe their runny noses before they sent them out to play?

The dispensary waiting room was painted pale green like most government offices he?d seen, a color that was supposed to be restful. He wondered how many billions of gallons of that stuff the government had bought, allowing some big company to make a killing. Half a dozen inmates sat on folding metal chairs waiting to be seen by the duty doctor. Lee took a chair. He?d waited maybe twenty minutes when he got a shock that spun him around, looking.

?Lee Fontana?? a woman?s voice called out. A woman? In a men?s prison?

A young woman stood in the doorway holding a clipboard, and she was some classy lady. Dark, wavy hair cut short and neat, curled softly around her smooth face, dark eyes smiling at him through large oval glasses. The skirt of her short white uniform hit her just at the knee, the uniform accenting the curve of her hips, and was zipped down the front low enough to show the soft curve of her tanned breasts. He stared at the nametag on her lapel, but taking in a lot more. Karen Turner. Every male in the room was staring, their expressions just short of a drool. She smiled and motioned to Lee. Rising, he followed her as eagerly as a hungry pup. When he glanced back, the men were still looking. She led him into an office, handed his file to the thin-faced doctor, smiled at Lee again and left, brushing past him. She smelled good, a clean soap-and-water scent. He stood looking after her, then turned to the drawn, tired-looking doctor. His nametag read JAMES FLOYD, M.D.

Lee took off his shirt as Dr. Floyd directed, trying not to flinch as the icy stethoscope pressed against his bare chest. The doctor listened to his heart and chest as Lee breathed deeply, in and out, taking in as much air as he could manage. He took Lee?s blood pressure, looked down his throat, thumped his back. While Lee pulled on his shirt again, Floyd made a number of notations in Lee?s file.

?Everything?s as fine as it can be, Fontana. You had excellent treatment at Springfield.? Floyd handed him a slip of paper. ?Give this to your counselor. I want you back here in three days. After that, once a week.?

?Will I be allowed to work??

?I think you could take a job, something that won?t stress the breathing.? He filled out a release-to-work form and handed it to Lee.

Lee said,?I?ve never seen a woman working in a men?s prison.?

?Karen Turner?? Floyd smiled. ?It?s good for the men?s morale to see a woman once in a while. She?s a premed student at the university, works for me part-time. She cheers the place up considerably; I think it?s a good change in the system.?

Sure it is, Lee thought. Until you get her hurt.

He doubled back to Paul Camp?s office, where he dropped off the medical form and the work form. Camp handed him a slip for his custodian that would let him move around the area more freely. When Lee asked about the jobs available, Camp said, ?I?ll let you know later, Fontana. I?ll see what?s open in industries.?

Outside again, as Lee cut across the yard from classifications, Gimpy turned away from a group of men and limped to join him.?They getting you squared away, Boxcar??

?Camp put me in one of those group counseling sessions,? Lee said sourly. ?I start this afternoon,?

Gimpy chuckled, and scratched his bald spot.?They had me in there for a while. Guess they gave up on me. But hell, Boxcar, it passes the time.?

?I?d rather pass it somewhere else.?

?Maybe you could work in the cotton mill with me. Noisier than hell, but I like it. I like the clatter and activity.?

Lee nodded, interested. He?d feel better when he was doing something. ?Let me know if they could use another hand.? He wondered if the doctor would allow it. Maybe, if he promised to wear a mask or kerchief, something to catch the lint, he could get permission.

?I?ll talk to the foreman,? Gimpy said, and swung away with his uneven, rolling gait. Lee stood looking after him; a lot of years had gone by, but Gimpy was still the same. Lee turned away, smiling, heading back to his cell, thinking about the old days.

He was moving along the narrow third-tier catwalk when a man came out of a cell walking slowly, his eyes fixed on the pages of an open book. He was heavy boned, prison pale but built like a barrel, was dressed not in prison blue but in the white pants and white shirt worn in the kitchen, the whiteness stark against the thick black hair on his arms. Lee stepped to one side to let him pass.?I guess we?re neighbors.?

The dark-eyed man smiled.?Al Bronski. I saw you come in last night.?

?Lee Fontana.?

?You looked bushed yesterday. Still feel a little pale??

?It?s a long pull from Springfield. What are we having for the noon meal??

?Beef stew and French bread.?

?Sounds good. If I get bored with the routine, are there any jobs in the kitchen??

?Always use help in the kitchen,? Bronski said. ?See me when you?re ready.?

Lee thought he might like the relative quiet of the kitchen better than the noise of the cotton mill, but he?d like to work with Gimpy. Behind Bronski, coming along the catwalk headed for the stairs, were the two men from breakfast this morning, the dark-haired one in the lead, his face frozen in the same pinched scowl, his black eyes fixed on Lee. Behind him, the blond man?s masklike face and pale eyes telegraphed a malice that Lee knew too well. They didn?t move over for Lee and Bronski. When Lee stepped aside on the narrow catwalk to let them pass, the dark man elbowed him against the rail. ?Ain?t no place for a gab fest.?

Bronski stiffened and reached for him. The man sidestepped, rounding on Bronski. Bronski crouched, waiting?but a guard shouted from the main floor, and he drew back. The two men pushed on past, pressing them both to the rail and giving them the finger.

?Their cells are down beyond yours,? Bronski said, watching the two swagger away along the catwalk. ?The dark one?s Fred Coker. The blond is Sam Delone. There?s been more than one knifing involving those two.?

Lee kept the two in sight until they disappeared down the stairs and outside. He watched Bronski amble along behind them, reading again, then Lee moved on to his cell. Swept by a wave of exhaustion, he lay down on his bunk. Nobody had to spell it out for him. He was back in a big joint, crazy hotheads around him. And more than hotheads, too, with the shadow that fit so easily among Coker and his kind. As much as he?d admired his grandpappy, he wished Russell had never bargained with the devil, wished that in that one instance Russell had backed off and turned away.

The position he was in now, Lee thought, it was time to get himself a weapon. It was one thing to be threatened by prison scum when you were young and strong, when you could handle a battle bare-handed. It was different this late in life, when every move was an effort, when in every threat you saw the face of defeat. Suddenly cold, pulling the blanket over him, bleak and alone, he felt the weight of the ghost cat hit the bed, crowding against him purring like a small engine. He almost laughed when the ghost cat clawed the mattress, licked Lee?s hand with his rough tongue, and said softly, ?Screw Coker. Screw Delone. There?s more to this prison, Lee, than you yet know.?

?What? What are you getting at?? But Lee felt the cat curl up as if he?d tucked his head under, and in a moment the ghost was softly snoring. Lee smiled, turned over easy so as not to disturb him, and soon they both slept, Lee drifting off to Misto?s rumbling purr, soothed in his apprehension of the days to come.

9

DRIVING SOUTH TO the Atlanta Penitentiary to visit Morgan for the first time, Becky made herself sick thinking every ugly thought about his life inside, so upsetting herself that her driving was off. Twice, passing another car on the two-lane highway, she had to swerve fast into a tight space to avoid hitting an oncoming vehicle. She felt as if she was turning into one of those women so ruled by sick nerves they couldn?t do anything right.

Coming into Atlanta, where they would be moving in a few days, driving down Peachtree and on south through mixed commercial and small cottages, she was shaky, her hands unsteady on the wheel. When she drew into the parking area outside the prison wall she sat in the car for a long time trying to pull herself together. She felt so nauseous she was afraid if she went in she?d be sick in the visiting room.

Thinking about leaving Rome didn?t help, about leaving Caroline, thinking how much she depended on her mother?to take care of Sammie, but most of all tobe there for them. Caroline was her friend, her best friend except for Morgan. Life was shattered without Morgan and now would be more empty still without Caroline nearby.

But at least living in Atlanta she?d be closer to Morgan, not an all-day trip to visit him. She and Sammie could run over to the prison in just a few minutes, she thought bitterly, just swing by the prison after school like any mother and child.

She got out of the car at last, feeling the stare of the guards from their towers. They would be wondering why she?d sat there for so long. Would they call down for extra security measures because she seemed suspicious? Her neck prickling from their stares, she hurried up the walk, up the steps. She pressed a buzzer, waited for the lock to click, and pushed through the iron door into a six-foot-square sally port, bars and heavy glass trapping her in the small space.

Through the slot in a thick glass barrier she told the guard her name and Morgan?s name. A second guard stepped out of the glassed area, a tall, pale-haired man who asked for her purse. She watched, embarrassed, as he searched around a pack of tampons. Satisfied she wasn?t carrying a weapon he handed it back and motioned her through a door into the prison?s visiting room.

The room didn?t look anything like part of a prison, was far more welcoming than she had expected: tan tweed carpeting, white walls, beige couches, and soft chairs set about in little groups. Half of the seating was already occupied, wives and children, elderly couples, each group gathered around an inmate dressed in prison blue. Most of the men were somber and withdrawn even among their friends and family. One man was so emotional, hugging his wife and children, he was almost in tears. Only two of the prisoners seemed relaxed and at home, chatting away, one man holding two little boys on his lap. She chose an empty couch, stood beside it watching an inner door where Morgan would most likely enter.

What would they talk about? For the first time in their lives she couldn?t be open with him. She didn?t want to tell him about her aborted effort to question Natalie Hooper. She was so sorry she?d done that. And she didn?t dare tell him how Falon had come to Caroline?s and gone after Sammie.

She didn?t understand Falon. If he wantedher, Becky, as he?d always said, why did he go after Sammie? Caroline said he showed psychopathic tendencies; Becky had to agree but the thought terrified her. She could cope with a normal person, but how did you deal with a psychopath?

She couldn?t tell Morgan about this morning at work, before she left for Atlanta. Couldn?t tell him that Falon had cornered her in the storeroom of Rome Hardware as she was getting together the bills to do their books. He must have waited hidden behind the shelves of stock as she came in. She was standing at an open file drawer when he grabbed her from behind and backed her against the shelves, his voice a low whisper.

?Keep your mouth shut, I can hurt you bad.? His slimy tone sickened her. ?You haven?t any man in your bed now, Becky.?

She came alive, kicking him and shouting. He slapped his hand over her mouth. She bit him so hard he grunted and slapped her again, harder. She yelled louder, so the clerks up front had to hear her.?Get out of here! Help! Help me!? When footsteps came pounding he slammed her against the wall, spun away, and was gone, vanishing between the shelves. She heard the back door open and scrape closed, heard the latch click.

The storeroom was empty, only her fear remained.

She had gotten through the confusion with the two clerks and the assistant manager who came running in, had fielded their questions, begged them not to call the police. She?d said she didn?t know who the man was. The Rome police would do nothing to help her, she couldn?t handle their patronization, and she didn?t want Falon?s added rage if she filed a report on him. When she?d mollified the staff, calmed them down, she?d hurried home to Caroline?s to change clothes, to head for Atlanta.

When she told Caroline what had happened, her mother said,?That settles it. You?ll have to move down to Anne?s.?

?But??

?I talked with her this morning. She was??

?She doesn?t want us, Mama.?

?Let?s say she was reluctant. She?ll get over it. You have to go, as soon as you can, at least until you find an apartment. As long as you?re here Falon won?t leave you alone, won?t leave Sammie alone.?

Caroline put her arm around Becky.?Anne will soften up once you?re settled in. Once she gets to know you better, and gets to know Sammie.?

Becky said nothing more. This plan would have to do for the moment.

?We can trade cars,? Caroline said, ?I keep mine in the garage, he can?t see in there. I always drive the van. I?ll leave your car out, park it in different parts of the drive so he knows it?s being used.?

?It will take me a while to wrap up my accounts,? Becky said, ?to give notice and pack a few things.? The thought of moving in with Anne unwanted wasn?t pleasant, she felt like a charity case.

?When you?re ready, we?ll pack the car at night and you can leave before dawn. You said Natalie and Falon sleep late??

Becky nodded.?I think so, as much as I can tell from the street.? She?d driven by Natalie?s apartment several mornings, looking up at the windows. The curtains were never open until midmorning, and twice when she drove by at midnight she?d seen the living room and kitchen lights burning. Maybe she could slip away before daylight without Falon knowing.

NOW SHE WATCHED the door into the visiting room open, repeatedly letting other prisoners through, but all were strangers. She watched openly as inmates, each with a black identification number stenciled on his shirt, were hugged and kissed and made over. She needed Morgan to comfort and hold her; and she couldn?t imagine how lost he felt, lost and alone. She didn?t want to think what his life was like within these high, cold walls.

She?d promised herself she?d tell him only hopeful things, that she?d make the move to Atlanta sound like exciting news: She?d be near the prison, she could come every visiting day. If she found a lawyer in Atlanta it would be easier to see him often. But she?d have to lie to him, tell him Anne had invited her. Of course he?d ask questions; he knew the cool relationship between Anne and Caroline. Maybe she could distract him with the four Atlanta attorneys she?d seen this week. She?d leave the best one for last, she thought, smiling.

When a guard ushered Morgan in, for an instant she didn?t recognize him: another reserved figure in prison blues, his eyes cast down, his face expressionless, his hands limp at his sides, his walk stilted as if every ounce of fight had been taken from him.

Or was this rage she was seeing? Confined, bottled-up rage? As if even the smallest movement might stir a violence of rebellion that he dare not unleash? She stood looking, then ran across the big room, flinging herself at him. They held each other close, Morgan?s face against hers, then kissing her neck, her hair, coming alive again. It was all right now, they were together.

Morgan held her away, searching her face.?I was afraid you?d bring Sammie. Does she know you?re here??

?I didn?t tell her. She?s with Mama. I don?t think she?s ready to come but she would have insisted. She?s still so upset, I wanted to give her more time.?

Ever since Sammie had run from Falon into the bushes she had slept badly, had had nightmares that she wouldn?t talk about, and during most of the day was quiet and withdrawn. Only in the mornings did she seem easier. She would appear from the bedroom after Becky was up, relaxed and sunny and willing to smile. As if something about that last sleep strengthened her, as if her predawn dreams were happy ones. This morning Becky had heard her in her room talking to herself or maybe to her imaginary playmate. Whatever Sammie had found to comfort her was surely needed now.

Sitting on the couch, Morgan?s arm around Becky, comforted by their closeness, they didn?t talk for a long while. Becky wanted to know what it was like inside but she couldn?t ask. She prayed he wouldn?t ask how her work was going. She?d lost so many of her accounts that if she didn?t find a job in Atlanta she?dhave tosell the house to hire a new attorney and to rid herself of the mortgage payments. Even some of her oldest bookkeeping jobs had gone sour, so many people believing Morgan guilty had turned against them. She?d lost more than half her customers, though the folks at the hardware had remainedloyal. And business at the automotive shop was no better.

She told Morgan that her work and work at the shop were just fine. She hated lying to him. As natural and upbeat as she tried to be, no color returned to his face, no laughter to his eyes. He didn?t brighten when she told him about the four Atlanta lawyers, though he listened carefully, trying to assess each. She had so wanted to find a man she could have confidence in, someone sympathetic but capable and strong, who would give them hope.

?I think,? she said, ?Quaker Lowe might be the man. He didn?t sit tapping his fingers on the desk or making lengthy notes on a legal pad as the others did. He focused on me, he really listened to me.?

Lowe was a florid, square-faced man, big and rangy. Wide hands, like a farmer, his suit and white shirt limp from the heat, an active-looking man who seemed out of place in his cramped office. But his blue eyes showed a keen intelligence and, deep down, an easy wit. From the moment she sat down facing him across his desk she had liked him.?He took in what I had to say, all the details of Falon?s setup. I told him about the witnesses, recalled as much of the testimony as I could.

?He said he was booked solid with court cases but he?d do his best to rearrange his schedule, said his assistant would handle some of the court work. He seemed .†.†. as if hewanted to help. I didn?t get that from the other three.

?He said that if he could take the case he?d come up to Rome within the week and go through the court records.? She laid her hand over Morgan?s. ?He really listened, Morgan. He .†.†. I think he might really care about how you?ve been treated.?

She knew there was only a slim chance that Lowe would have time for them, but it was all they had. She prayed with every breath that he would make the time; she didn?t let herself think that Quaker Lowe would let them down.

Snuggling close to Morgan she knew that the longer they were apart the more difficult it would be to talk, the more different their lives would become, the less they would have to share. Morgan absorbed into the regimen of prison life, she struggling to keep them financially afloat, trying to keep Sammie safe, trying to appease an aunt who didn?t want them in her house. The one thing they had to share, besides Sammie herself,was the appeal.

When she told Morgan they?d be moving to Atlanta, that Aunt Anne had invited them, he knew she was leaving out half the story but he didn?t push her. He said he was glad she?d be near and wouldn?t have to make the long drive, and he left it at that. This wasn?t pleasant for either of them, this tiptoeing around asubject; it made her feel as stiff as a stranger. Nor did she mention Sammie?s continuing dreams of the cowboy?those parts of the dreams Sammie was willing to share with her.

She longed to tell him the dream from the previous night, which Sammie had shared; she wanted Morgan?s response. But somehow, she was wary of that response. It was two in the morning when Sammie sat straight up in bed, wide awake, not screaming with fear but instead solemn and demanding. ?Mama! Mama!?

Becky had turned on a light and drawn Sammie close. The child wasn?t afraid, she was quiet and composed, her dark eyes serious. ?He?s here, Mama. The cowboy is here. He?s in the prison, he?s behind the wall with Daddy.?

Becky had visualized the thin, leathery old man Sammie had once described. She hadn?t known what to make of the dream, this one couldn?t be real. Yet she never took Sammie?s dreams lightly; they were not to be brushed aside.

?He came to help Daddy, help him get out of that place, help him come home again.? Becky told herself thiswas a fantasy, how could it be anything else? It was nothing like Sammie?s dreams of the believable though painful events one might expect from life, the death of Sammie?s puppy, the courthouse fire.

But what about that last terrible nightmare where Morgan was locked in the Rome jail? They had known that was a fantasy, dark and impossible. And that nightmare had come true in all its terror and ugliness. Now, sitting close to Morgan, she knew she had to tell him, to share one more disturbing vision.

She described Sammie?s waking, so different from other nightmares. ?She woke so alert, more certain than with anything she?s ever experienced. She kept repeating, ?He?s here. He?s here to help Daddy. The cowboy?s here to help Daddy get away, help Daddy prove who robbed that bank and then Daddy will go free.??

Morgan said nothing, he sat looking at Becky trying to take a matter-of-fact approach. Over the years Sammie?s predictions had made a believer of him, but how could this dream ever be based in fact? This fanciful idea was impossible. He said, ?I haven?t noticed anyone like Sammie described. No thin wrinkled old con who walks bowlegged. Maybe this time, maybe itis just a dream.? But somewhere in Morgan?s heart a web of hope had begun to gather, a shadow of promise to weave itself into his thoughts, ready to spring to life.

10

MORGAN WENT ABOUT his prison routine in the days that followed, putting aside the small hope he?d found in Sammie?s dream. This time there was no substance, her idea of escape was wishful thinking. He settled into life behind bars as best he could except for the group counseling session. He didn?t need counseling, he needed justice.

The courts had locked him up for the rest of his life, but why force him to listen to a bunch of bickering inmates air their petty complaints? Or to the sanctimonious platitudes of the fresh-faced counselor who led the others in their pointless rankling? He didn?t want to share his pain.

The problem was, the day the counselor started working on him he ended up bellyaching just like the rest of the group. Afterward he felt cheap and ashamed. He?d let it all out, the unfairness of the jury, the uncaring judge and U.S. attorney, the incompetence of his own lawyer. He?d gone on about being used, manipulated like a rat in a lab experiment. The counseling he got, in front of the whole group, only made it worse. At least the counselor had gotten him a job in the automotive shop, but only because they needed skilled men. Now, thankful for that good luck, he crossed the prison yard on his way to another ?shrink? session, for another hour of misery.

IT WAS JUST one o?clock when Lee found the group counseling room and stepped inside. A gray metal desk stood across the room, arranged so the group leader sat with his back to the wall facing three rows of folding chairs, all empty. The young counselor looked up from his paperwork, then glanced at a list. ?Lee Fontana??

Lee nodded. The first one there, he took a seat in the middle so he wouldn?t have men pushing by stepping on his feet. The young man was all of twenty-some, a college type with an almost pretty face, a deep tan, a blond crew cut. He wore a V-necked red sweater with turned-up sleeves over a starched white shirt. He gave Lee a charming smile, introduced himself as Tom Randall, and returned to his loose-leaf notebook. He didn?t look up again until a broad-shouldered black man entered. He looked Lee over and slid into the chair next to him. Lee hoped he wasn?t going to be talkative, he wasn?t here to be social.

But the man?s smile drew Lee, his eyes alive with intelligence and humor. He was middle-aged, square faced and clean-cut, with flecks of gray through his short hair. He extended his broad, lined hand. ?Andy Trotter,? he said in a polished British accent.

?Lee Fontana.? Lee shook the man?s hand. ?You?re a Brit? What are you doing in here??

Trotter grinned and pulled a bag of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket.?Born right here in Georgia. But I spent most of my childhood in Jamaica with my granny, she made sure I could speak the King?s English. Smoke?? He extended the makings.

Lee shook his head. As Andy rolled a cigarette quickly and neatly, three more men wandered in. Two of them were the dregs of prison population, scruffy, edgy types. Lee could smell the body odor of the frazzled, dirty one before he sat down at the end of the row. The man?s hair was greasy, his eyes darted restlessly, and he couldn?t keep his hands still, his twitching fingers rubbing and fidgeting. This fellow didn?t need counseling, he needed to dry out. The man who took the chair next to Lee held himself rigidly, staring straight ahead to avoid eye contact. His thin red hair was combed straight back over a premature baldness, his mouth and chin dwarfed by a large beaked nose.

The third man, who came in behind them, was younger, clean-cut, probably in his late twenties, an honest-John citizen type. Lee watched him with interest, wondering what he was in for. Open, friendly face like that, he?d make a great con artist. Only when their eyes met did Lee see his deep, embedded anger.

The young man grinned at Andy, received a smile in return, and took the seat on the other side of him. When Andy made introductions, when Morgan Blake reached across to shake Lee?s hand, Lee saw something else in his look. Not the buried anger now, but a spark of surprise, a puzzled frown as he studied Lee. A surprise and confusion he found hard to conceal. What was that about? Around them more men drifted in jostling, scraping chairs along the floor as they settled down.

Morgan Blake?s look lasted only a minute, then was gone. Turning away he gave his attention to Tom Randall. With only two chairs vacant, Randall closed his notebook, glanced at his watch, and looked up at the group. In the open doorway, Sam Delone sauntered in, his blond pompadour catching light from the overhead bulb, his cold eyes scanning the group. His gaze settled on Lee.

The counselor looked Delone over.?Glad you could join us, Delone,? he said coolly.

?Sorry,? Delone said. ?Those dummies in the laundry took forever, farting around slow as hell.?

Randall introduced Lee to the group. Ralph Smee was the one with greasy hair and nervous eyes; he barely flicked a glance in Lee?s direction. Red Foster stared straight ahead over his big nose and didn?t acknowledge Lee. Sam Delone lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. ?I?m afraid Gramps and I have already met.?

?Who wants to start?? the counselor said, pushing up the sleeves of his sweater. ?Anything where you think the group, in an exchange of ideas, can be of help.?

Delone flicked his burnt match onto the linoleum.?Why the hell can?t they hire someone in the kitchen who knows how to cook? Those dumb bastards can?t even cook an egg without pounding it into leather.?

Lee tried not to smile, but Delone caught his look.?You think that?s funny, old man?? Turning, he fixed his gaze on Trotter. ?And what are you grinning about, darky??

?Perhaps,? said Andy slowly, ?Mr. Randall has something more important in mind than your gourmet sensitivities.?

?And maybe,? Lee said evenly, ?you ought to be more careful what you call people.?

The counselor adjusted his sleeves again.?These sessions are not for petty gripes, you men know that. How about you, Blake? You settle into the automotive shop okay??

Morgan Blake nodded.?Yes, sir. I appreciate getting the job.?

?Have you heard anything on your appeal??

Lee saw Blake?s jaw tighten. ?Not yet,? Blake said, ?but my wife?s found a new attorney. One who might really try.?

Sam Delone snorted.

?I didn?t rob that bank,? Blake snapped at him, ?and I didn?t kill anyone.? He looked hard at the counselor. ?The courts don?t want justice, all they want are bodies to fill up their prisons, any scapegoat they can lay the blame on.?

Lee watched Blake with interest. If he was lying, he was pretty good.

But Lee had seen plenty of scams in his time, a man could fake anything if he practiced long enough.

Delone ground out his cigarette with his heel, glaring at the counselor.?Ralph, here, he has the same problem, don?t you, Ralphy? Tell us, Ralph, how you didn?t rape that little girl, up at Stone Mountain. Tell us how the park ranger and that girl made it all up just to get at you.?

Smee darted a hasty look at Delone and laughed raggedly.

Delone said,?You see, Blake, everyone in here is innocent.?

Lee leaned back, watching the group and watching the ineffective young counselor. Morgan Blake said no more, but sat quietly, his hands tense, his face flushed.

?Anyway, Blake,? Delone said with mock sympathy, ?there?s always parole. Don?t forget parole. You might be old by then, as old as this old fart here,? he said, glancing at Lee. ?But maybe you?ll have some time left, a year or two to spend with your little wife and family.?

The counselor tried to take things in hand, shooting Delone a look to shut him up, then looking at Morgan.?You haven?t told us your whole story, Blake. Would it help to talk about it??

Blake was silent. Randall nodded encouragement.?How long is your sentence??

?I?ll be eligible for parole in twenty-three years,? Blake said reluctantly, and Lee could see that he needed to talk. ?Fifteen on the life term, eight on the twenty-five-year jolt.? He had turned, was talking to Lee and Andy, glancing up at the counselor only to be polite. ?For the next twenty-three years I?ll get to see my little girl grow up, from right here behind the bars. I?ll be here on visiting days to talk with her, to help with her problems, to help shape what kind of a young woman she?ll be. When I get out, she?ll be grown and married. My wife will be over fiftyyears old.?

Blake seemed, once he got started, to need badly to spill it all out. He looked deeply at Lee, again that puzzled look that made Lee uneasy.?My life, their lives, are down the drain because of a crime I didn?t commit. But what do the courts care? No one in law enforcement, no one in the courts will listen.?

?Even if you lose your appeal,? the counselor said, ?you know you can try again.?

?What good is a second try?? Morgan said. ?The first jury didn?t believe me. If we lose an appeal, why bother with another? The witnesses who lied in court, they?ll keep on lying.? Morgan flushed deeply. ?If I were guilty I?d figure I had it coming, I?d figure I had to get used toprison. But I?m not guilty and every day I?m in here is hard time, unfair time. I don?t know how to get used to it.?

Andy stubbed out his cigarette, his broad, dark hands catching the light. His look at Morgan was gentle and patient.?The reality is, you are here. You cannot change that, not until the appeal. You can only take each day as it comes. You are fortunate, you know, to have such a loyal and loving wife working to help you, and to have your little girl to visit you, to hold her and love her, even here in the prison setting.?

Morgan nodded. He looked companionably at Andy and was quiet.

Randall listened to several more petty complaints from other inmates, then he tried to draw Lee out.?You were transferred down from Springfield, Fontana. That means your health has improved.?

Lee didn?t care to discuss his weakness in front of these men. Didn?t Randall have any sense? ?Springfield had a new bunch of men coming in, they needed the space,? he said. He clammed up and would answer no more questions, scowling at Randall until the counselor turned to another inmate.

At the end of the session, as they headed for the door Andy Trotter laid a hand on Morgan Blake?s arm. ?Stay steady, man. I?d like to talk, have a cup of coffee, but I have to get to work.?

Lee moved out behind them. The ground shook as, beyond the wall, a train thundered and screamed, passing the prison. Lee was getting used to their freedom call, to their beckoning. He?d started to turn away from the other men when Blake fell into step with him, and again that searching look. ?Sorry I came on so strong back there. I know that doesn?t do any good.? Blake?s frown as he watched Lee seemed to hold some question about Lee himself.

Warily Lee said,?Why do you care what I think??

Blake colored, lowered his gaze, and moved away. Lee felt relief but then, on impulse, he stepped up beside Blake again.?Come on, kid. Let?s go down to the mess hall, see if we can wrangle that coffee.?

Even as he said it, he wondered what he was doing. A few minutes over a cup of coffee could get him uncomfortably involved, could gain him a persistent sidekick that he didn?t want hanging around. This guy needed a friend. And Lee wasn?t interested. He knew nothing about Blake or about Blake?s crime. He didn?t know whether Blake?s trial had been fair or rigged. He didn?t want to know. He knew only that any friendship, in prison, could end up the kiss of death.

11

BRADFALONWASN?T finished with the Blake family. Having skillfully finessed Morgan into the federal pen, his full attention turned to Becky and the child. They had been staying with Caroline Tanner but it looked now as if they?d moved back home again just as he?d hoped they?d do. Last night he had cruised bymeaning, if he saw no one about, to jimmy the back door and slip inside.

But the Tanner woman?s white van was parked in the drive beside Becky?s car, there was another car behind it that he didn?t recognize, and the living room and kitchen lights burned bright behind the drawn drapes. Easing his car along past the house beneath the overhanging oaks he had parked for a few minutes, looking back, watching the house, wondering what was going on, wondering what Becky might be up to.

But now, this late morning, there was no car at all in the drive. There was no room for a car in the small garage, he knew it was stacked with boxes of automotive parts and new tires for Morgan?s shop. He remained parked for a few moments, scanning the neighborhood. He saw no one in any of the yards, no one looking out a window. Parking half a block down, he walked back beneath the tree shadows to Becky?s front porch.

Having studied the lock on earlier visits, he quickly inserted a thin screwdriver, tripped the simple device, and let himself in. Locking the door behind him he made a leisurely tour of the rooms to be certain the place was empty. In the kitchen he opened the refrigerator, drank some milk from the bottle, took out a bowl of cold spaghetti, found a spoon in one of the drawers. He ate half of it, then put the bowl back. The kitchen was too neat, the counters scrubbed, everything put away behind cupboard doors. None of the easy clutter his mother kept on the counter, the cookie jars filled with flour and packages of staples where she could reach them, the pots of miniature cacti, the pictures and lists she kept stuck to the refrigerator and to the walls between hooks bearing limp dish towels and greasy potholders. His mother still lived alone, the house too big for her. The rest of his clothes were there, but he didn?t stop by often, they had their differences. She seemed sometimes almost afraid of him, he thought, smiling.

Moving down the hall to the front bedroom he opened the closet, stroked Becky?s neatly arranged dresses and fondled them. Morgan?s clothes still hung beside hers?as if they thought he was coming home again. He chose a pale blue cotton dress Becky had worn during the trial. Stretching it tight on the hanger he slashed it with his pocketknife, ripped it nearly in half and dropped the pieces on the floor. He?d reached for a second dress when a chill ran through him, a sense that he was watched.

He stared into the shadowed end of the closet where Morgan?s clothes hung but saw nothing to threaten him. He looked foolishly up at the shadowed shelf as if someone could hide among the half-dozen shoe boxes and the battered suitcase. Nothing there of course, and no one behind him in the small bedroom. He checked the hall, went through the rest of the house, then returned. On the dresser stood a cluster of framed photographs, one of Becky and Morgan standing before the house, their hands clasped, and several pictures of the child, from baby to little girl. One by one he smashed the glass, pulled the pictures out and broke the frames. But even as he tore the pictures into small pieces and dropped them on the floor he felt watched again, felt that he was not alone. Nervously he began to open dresser drawers. He removed Becky?s panties and bras one at a time, dropped his pants, and rubbed them over himself. She wore only cotton, not silk, but the garments felt smooth and cool. From the next drawer he lifted out nighties and some stockings and did the same with these, leaving the drawers in a tangle ripe with his male scent.

He left Morgan?s side of the dresser alone except for the top drawer, which was locked. That interested him, and he was examining the lock when he heard a car door slam. As he stepped to the closed window a faint breeze touched the back of his neck, making him shiver. But when he turned, nothing was there. Outside, a car had parked at the curb. A strange man was heading for the house as Becky?s car pulled into the drive, a big man, broad of shoulder, his tie loosened over a white shirt, his gray suit wrinkled. Quickly Falon headed for the kitchen, eased open the bolt on the back door and left, shuttingthe door softly behind him.

BECKY CAME INTO the house ahead of Quaker Lowe. She made him comfortable in the living room, then went to make some coffee. They had met outside the courthouse where Lowe had spent the morning going over the transcripts of the trial. They hadn?t talked there, Lowe had followed her directly home. She was comfortable with Lowe, he seemed to understand clearly her lone battle and her helpless frustration.

He had driven up from Atlanta two days before to talk with the bank employees who had witnessed the guard?s murder and then been beaten and locked in the vault. He was staying at the nicest of Rome?s three motels. So far he had seemed content with the five-hundred-dollar retainer she?d given him, which was all the money she had in their savings account. She had seen him for only a few minutes the day he arrived and then again last night when they?d had a simple dinner here at the house, when Caroline had joined them bringing a hot casserole. Now, as she carried the tray of cookies and coffee into the living room, Lowe was reading his copies of the police reports.

?I read the transcripts,? he said, smiling up at her, ?and talked the court steno out of a set of her carbons.? He spooned sugar into his coffee. ?Last night after I left you I tried again to see Natalie Hooper. There was a light in the living room, but she didn?t answer the door. I tried again this morning. She didn?t respond and she isn?t answering her phone.?

He added cream to the brew and slid three cookies onto his saucer.?It wasn?t much good sitting in the car watching the front entrance to the lobby when she could slip out the back. I parked around the corner, borrowed a chair from the building manager, and sat in the hall. When she did come down, she wasn?t happy to see me,? Lowe said, smiling.

?I told her we could either go upstairs to her place or talk there in the hall. Reluctantly she took me upstairs. I spent over an hour with her but I didn?t get much, just the same lies she told in court. Except for one small discrepancy.

?On the stand, she said Falon left her apartment at two-thirty, the day of the robbery, to go across the street to the corner store. This morning she told me two-fifteen, I got her to say it twice.? He looked evenly at Becky. ?I don?t see how she could forget what she said on the witness stand,though the woman doesn?t seem too swift.

?It may be nothing,? he said, ?but it flustered her. I?ll talk with the store manager when I leave here. But the biggest hole in Falon?s story,? Lowe said, ?is that double entry to the apartment building, the fact that when he left the grocery he could have gone in the front door and out theback. But with no witness, there?s nothing to support that. Can you think of anything that might have been overlooked??

She couldn?t. Yet despite that discouragement she had faith in Lowe, he was far more positive than their trial attorney, he left her feeling so much more hopeful. She was thankful he?d taken the case, though she didn?t know where she was going to find the money to pay him, and she hated taking it from hermother. Lowe had told her to take her time to make payments, that what he was interested in right now was getting the appeal and winning it.

This morning when she?d met Lowe at the courthouse she had just come from taking the ledgers over to Farley?s Dime Store and collecting her last paycheck. Farley would no longer need her services, and he had been pretty cool. He hadn?t apologized for letting her go, he had just abruptly fired her. Last Thursday she had lost three accounts including Brennan?s Dress Shop, and she?d known Beverly Brennan all her life. She couldn?t believe Morgan?s trial and conviction had caused such a change among people she?d thought would stand by them. And business at the automotive shop was so bad she wasn?t sure she could pay Morgan?s mechanic.

Selling the automotive shop would help pay the bills. But would destroy what Morgan had worked so hard to build, destroy another big piece of his life.

Lowe finished his coffee.?You can think of nothing else?? When she shook her head, he stood up to leave. ?I want to check the records on Falon, see if the police missed any old outstanding warrants here or out on the coast, maybe in Washington State or while he was in California.? He put out his hand. ?Please take care. Doors locked, that kind of thing.? He took both her hands in his, looking at her kindly. ?Will you and Sammie be all right? You?ll be moving to Atlanta in a few days, to your aunt?s? You?ll be near the office then, when we need to talk.?

She handed him the paper where she?d written Anne?s address and phone number. ?Maybe we?ll be lucky, maybe he won?t know about Anne. His mother might remember, but they don?t get along, I?d guess he seldom sees her. We?re taking Mama?s car to Anne?s. Mine will be here, in Mama?s garage.?

On impulse Lowe gave her a big bear hug that made tears start.?I?ll call you before I leave Rome, let you know what else I find, and of course I?ll call you at Anne?s.? He turned and left her, swinging out the front door heading for his car. Getting in and pulling away, he waved. She stood at the front door, tears gushing in spite of herself, watching him drive away.

It was twenty minutes after Quaker Lowe left that she discovered someone had been in the house. She hadn?t gone into the bedroom when she got home. Now when she went in to change to a pair of slacks she stopped, looking down at scattered shards of smashed glass, at broken frames and the torn pieces of their family pictures. She spun around, her back to the dresser facing the closet door.

Reaching up, she snatched the dresser key from where it clung to a magnet behind the mirror. She unlocked the dresser drawer and took out Morgan?s loaded and holstered .38. Only when she was armed did she open the closet door.

No one there. Her blue dress, Morgan?s favorite, lay on the floor torn into rags.

No other clothes had been disturbed but when she turned to the dresser and pulled out the drawers she found her bras and panties tangled in a mess and they smelled; every piece of her more intimate clothing reeked with an ammonialike male smell. Her sweaters, blouses, everything had been pulled out, wadded up, and stuffed back again. Morgan?s clothes had not been touched.

Carrying the gun pointed down, her thumb on the hammer, she walked slowly through the rest of the small house, stepping back as she flung open each door: Sammie?s room, Sammie?s closet, the coat closet, the bathroom, the kitchen. When she checked the service porch, the back door was unlocked. She locked it and called the police.

From now on she?d keep the loaded gun with her. She would train Sammie, she?d gun-proof Sammie just as she knew the children of police officers were trained. She should have done that before. Now she would drill Sammie over and over in the rules for caution and safety, she had no other choice.

Standing at the front window she waited nervously for the police, but then when Sergeant Leonard did arrive, the stern older man made her feel that she had called him out for nothing. Leonard was a beefy man, forty pounds overweight with soft, thick jowls and an attitude of boredom. He made little effort to conceal his amusement even when, entering the bedroom among the broken and torn pictures, she showed him her ruined dress and the wadded clothes in her dresser. When he looked at them, stone-faced, embarrassedly she asked him to smell them. He sniffed her clothes with distaste and gave her another amused look.?Is anything missing?? he said as if she had made up the intrusion, had made this mess herself.

?Nothing?s missing that I?ve found.? She told him she had locked both doors when she left the house that morning, and that just now, when she went through the house, the back door was unlocked, the bolt slid back.

When she moved to the front door and asked him to look at the lock, the pry marks were easy to see, bright scratches in the weathered brass. When, in the kitchen, she showed him that the milk bottle had been left out and the leftover spaghetti had been dug into, she felt awkward and stupid. She said Sammie was at Caroline?s, that she hadn?t been home at all to enjoy a little snack. Everything she showed him or told him seemed to amuse him. He moved back to the living room, stood by the front door asking questions about what time she had left the house this morning, how long she had been gone, and where she had been. He didn?t make any notes, though he carried his field book in his hand.

She said,?Can you take fingerprints, can you find out who was in here??

?If there?s nothing missing, no breakin, no door or window broken, we don?t take fingerprints.?

?But the pry marks on the front door. Thatis the sign of a breakin.?

Carelessly he scribbled a few lines in his field book as if to humor her. His disdain, his refusal to take prints made her feel totally helpless. This was not how the police handled a problem, this was not what she?d been raised to expect of them, in Rome or anywhere else. Enraged by his lack of concern, by his sarcasm, all she could think was that the entire Rome PD was against Morgan, was sure Morgan was guilty, and had lost respect for their family. Leonard said nothing more. He turned, let himself out the front door. She watched from the window as his patrol car pulled away.

When he had gone she locked the door and checked the bolt again on the back door. Tonight she would either booby-trap both doors or go back to Caroline?s. She had moved home yesterday, leaving Sammie cosseted at Caroline?s, so she could get her bills and papers in order and pack what they?d need in Atlanta.

In the bedroom she removed her clothes from the drawers, her panties and nighties, bras and slips, and put them in the washer. She washed everything twice, with a little bleach. But for months afterward the touch of her undergarments against her skin made her feel violated and unclean.

While she was running the wash she called Quaker at the motel. He was out but she left a message. When he called back and learned what had happened he made her promise to go back to Caroline?s, where at least the neighbors were younger and more able to come if they were needed. ?How soon can you leave for Atlanta? How soon can you be out of Rome??

?A day, maybe two. As soon as I can wrap up the figures for my last job.?

He said to call him when she left, and again when she got to Atlanta, he wanted to know she was safe.?As soon as I get back to Atlanta myself, I?ll set up a meeting with Morgan, go over the transcript with him, see if he can come up with anything else, even the smallest lead I might follow.?

?Don?t tell him Falon broke in. I?ve told him nothing about Falon?s attacks, it would only worry him when there?s nothing he can do.? She was still shaky when they hung up. She put her clothes in the dryer, dragged out their old battered suitcase and some grocery bags, and got to work packing.

SAMMIE SNUGGLED DEEPER under the quilt, pulling Misto warm against her.?You?ll come with me tomorrow, you?ll come to Aunt Anne?s house. No one will know.? It was late after supper, Mama hadn?t come to bed yet, she could hear Mama and Grandma in the kitchen, the bright rattle of silverware as they washed dishes, the soft murmur of their ?good-bye? voices, theirsad voices. ?You can ride on top of my new suitcase or anywhere in the car you want and Mama can?t see you.?

Sammie?s small brown suitcase, the one Grandma had given her, stood packed and ready, across the room on the cedar chest beside Mama?s battered one. She didn?t want to leave Grandma, she didn?t want to move to Atlanta, she wanted Daddy home again, not gone away like when he was in the war. Why did things have to change? Mama saidlife was change, she said the important things stayed the same because the important things were inside you. Like loving each other and being strong.

Ducking her head under the covers she pressed her face against Misto. When she stroked his ragged ears and tickled him under the chin the way he liked, he purred and patted a soft paw against her cheek and she knew he loved her just the way she loved him. That would never change.

MISTO THOUGHT ABOUT Falon in Becky?s house rummaging through Becky?s clothes, peering up at the closet shelf knowing something was there, never guessing that a ghost crouched inches from his face, an angry invisible tomcat who could have clawed and bloodied him if he?d wanted. Misto had simply crouched there entertained by Falon?s fear, he could still see Falon shiver and back away. Falon had been even more afraid when Misto streaked through the air letting his tail trail across Falon?s neck. Falon?s reaction would make any cat laugh.

Now as Sammie drifted into sleep Misto slept, too, as deep and restorative a sleep as if he was a mortal cat; a sleep that helped embolden him against the dark that not only tormented Lee but so often traveled with Falon. As the little cat slept he knew in his enduring feline soul that he was not alone, that neither he nor Sammie was alone, that they could never be abandoned; eternity didn?t work in that way.

12

ANNECHESSERSON HAD grave reservations about allowing Becky and the child to move in with her. She had never been close to Caroline, even when they were children, for reasons her younger sister wouldn?t have understood. Now she was already sorry she?d let Caroline manipulate her into letting Becky and the little girl live there. What had possessed her? She wasn?t comfortable with children, she had never wanted a family, she liked her life as it was. She didn?t like changes in her routine. She didn?t care much for houseguests, though she had room for them, and of course she had Mariol to wait on the few visitors she did invite.

Anne was a handsome woman, meticulously turned out, her black hair coiffed in a sleek French twist, her dresses custom made of pale silks which, on anyone else, might become quickly spotted or watermarked. Her winter coats were confections of beautifully draped cashmere. Her couturi?re, in Morningside, was so well situated that she had an unlisted phone. Anne had invested wisely the money John had settled on her when he left. While Caroline, with much lower goals, ran a bakery business that couldn?t be very profitable. Anne couldn?t find much sympathy for Caroline or herniece in this present situation. Becky knew, when she married Morgan Blake, that he ran with a troublemaker in high school. Caroline should never have allowed her to marry the boy?Morganhad been only a boy when they married. Then when Morgan came out of the navy all he wanted to do with his life was become an auto mechanic. No one could support a wife as a simple mechanic; no wonder he?d resorted to theft. The Atlanta papers had been full of the robbery and murder, it was an ugly business that she would prefer to keep at a distance. She could hardly do that if Becky was staying with her. But the decision had been made, so she wouldn?t back out.

At least Becky and the child would have the basement suite, downstairs where Becky?s early rising to go to work, and the child?s noisy play, might not disturb her. Mariol lived on the main floor in the back bedroom; Anne?s own bedroom suite took up the smaller, second floor where she could look out over the rooftops of Atlanta. Anne believed in stairs; the exercise kept her waist and legs trim. She liked to cook, and on the nights she was home she prepared their meals, though Mariol did the shopping. Anne had been a temperamental, nervous child, and had been treated with extra care. Their mother had kept her perfectly groomed, immaculately dressed, not a wrinkle allowednor a hair out of place, while she let Caroline run as she pleased in ragged dresses or boy?s jeans. Caroline had been a sturdy child, Anne had not. Anne?s interest in perfecting her outer self had helped to build a wall of protection, hiding her inner fears; that was the best shelter their mother could provide for her.

BECKYANDSAMMIE moved into the basement suite on a Friday afternoon, slipping almost subserviently down the carpeted stairs from the foyer carrying their tattered suitcases. The Tudor house was built all of pale stone, with sharply peaked slate roofs and diamond leaded windows. From the basement sitting area one could step out onto a stone patio surrounded by an expanse of velvet lawn and carefully shaped azalea and rhododendron bushes. The downstairs suite seemed as big as Becky?s whole house, occupying three fourths of the large basement, with a laundry off to one side. The bedroom wing had twin beds done up with elegant satin spreads. This room could be hidden by cream velvet draperies drawn across. The other wing of the guest suite, the sitting area, featured a LouisXV?style desk and a rose marble fireplace. The rooms were carpeted in off-white wool carved in a Chinese pattern, the cost per square yard a sum that would have kept Becky and Sammie in luxury for months. The storage chests and dressing table were finished in hand-laid gold leaf. The room terrified Becky. She couldn?t feel comfortable here; she was afraid that either she or Sammie would mar the furniture or leave a stain on the carpet, on the velvet settee or on the two brocade chairs, would mar this perfect grouping arranged before the marble mantel and gas log. Even now with the chill nights of early fall she wouldn?t dare light a fire.

There was no kitchenette and no possible place to comfortably open a can of tuna and a package of crackers except the bathroom. That room was done in mauve marble and mauve tile with both a shower and a tub, the shower protected by three layers of shower curtains, the outer, mauve one deeply ruffled. Stepping in the shower made Becky feel as if she was slipping into a closet filled with lacy ball gowns. The one new addition to the bedroom was the phone with a private line that Anne had had installed for her. Whether this was added out of thoughtfulness or to keep Becky from interrupting Anne?s own calls, the phone was welcome and made her feel more accepted.

She had brought half a dozen of her own bedsheets to spread over the carpet where they would walk the most and to cover a six-foot square between Sammie?s bed and the wall so Sammie would have a play area. She had not allowed Sammie to bring paints or crayons, only a drawing pad and pencils. Sammie had specific instructions about keeping the carpet clean?Becky gave her more instructions than either of them wanted to deal with. Sammie was a good child, she was never intentionally destructive, but children were children and Becky worried obsessively about damaging Anne?s perfect house.

For the first few days she made their breakfasts and dinners from cans, she and Sammie sitting on the bathroom floor on a folded sheet pretending they were having a picnic. Maybe she was making too much of trying to keep the rooms clean, but she hadn?t been invited here, she couldn?t help feeling like an intruder.

She had turned the bedspreads wrong side up to keep them clean and now, after her third day of job hunting, she lay across her bed, exhausted. Her feet ached from walking the streets, her head ached from filling out countless job applications, answering the same probing questions over and over, and dealing with countless interviews. The questions always included the same inquiry about her marital status and her husband?s occupation. In the last week and a half she had applied for eighteen jobs and had been told eighteen times, after filling out all the applications, that there were no openings or that she didn?t fit the qualifications or that they would call her if something came up. What did she expect whenshe told the truth, that Morgan was in the Atlanta pen for a robbery and murder that he hadn?t committed, that she was working with an attorney on an appeal?

On the nineteenth application, where she must check either married, single, divorced, or widowed, she marked widowed, and she used her maiden name, Tanner. She had to find a job, and soon, and then a small apartment near a school for Sammie. The problem of after-school weighed heavily, she hadn?t solved that one yet. Now, when she was out job hunting, Sammie stayed quietly in their room but she couldn?t leave Sammie alone in an apartment.

On their visits to Morgan she found it increasingly hard to hide her despair at the lack of a job. When she was with him she talked hopefully about their request for an appeal, but too often he would simply hug her and change the subject, knowing she was holding back her stress and doubts. She worried, too, because Sammie wasn?t sleeping well. And now Sammie wouldn?t talk about her dreams, though she had never before been secretive. Sammie had started to make a picture book of small pencil drawings in a plain, unlined tablet, but she didn?t want to show Becky, she made her promise not to look.

But soon, when Anne was out at one or another of her club meetings, Becky would come home to find Sammie upstairs in the kitchen with Mariol; at first that disturbed her, but Mariol herself put Becky at ease. The housekeeper was a handsome Negro woman to whom Becky had warmed at once. She had been with Anne since before John left, before the divorce. Soon Mariol was giving Sammie a hot lunch, and then she had them both coming upstairs to a hot breakfast. Anne was quiet during those meals but she seemed to tolerate the arrangement. Mariol would hug and cuddle Sammie, but of course Anne didn?t put aside her own reserve, Becky knew she never would.

One thing was certain?Anne didn?t want to talk about Morgan or the trial. If Becky mentioned Morgan, Anne grew ill at ease. Becky wanted her to understand that Morgan was innocent, but after three awkward attempts she gave up. Anne would think what she pleased. Becky was surprised when after only a few days, Mariol?s kindness to Sammie seemed to stir a subtle change in Anne. Several times Becky found her watching Sammie with a puzzled frown and once, when Becky was tucking Sammie in bed and hearing her prayers, Sammie said, ?Bless Aunt Anne and please make her less lonely.?

But then came the night when Sammie woke screaming,?Look out! Look out! Get away from him! Get away!? Becky lunged for the lamp switch, turned it on to find Sammie sitting up in bed still half asleep but trembling and terrified. Becky crawled into bed with her, holding her close. ?What was it?? she said softly. ?What did you dream??

?I don?t remember,? Sammie said, clearly lying. ?It?s gone now. I want to go to sleep now.? Whatwere these new dreams, that she wouldn?t talk about them? Prison dreams? Ugly prison incidents that no child should see and that Becky couldn?t stop her from seeing?

?Whatever you dreamed,? Becky said, ?there?s more good in life than ugliness. We have to hold on to the bright part, so we?ll be stronger.? They lay holding each other until at last Sammie slept?leaving Becky wakeful, certain that Sammie had seen Morgan hurt. No matter what she told Sammie, she couldn?t shake her own fear. She had no notion that across the room brightness did touch them; that the yellow tomcat sat on the mantel watching them, reaching out an invisible paw to ease them as he, too, considered Sammie?s dream.

MISTO HAD SEEN the child?s drawings, had looked carefully at the little sketches. In one a man was falling a great distance tied to a rope, and that puzzled him. The tomcat had been in and out of the Chesserson house ever since Becky and Sammie had arrived; he had prowled the opulent rooms getting to know Anne and Mariol, seeing how each interacted with Sammie. He had rolled luxuriously on the fine upholstered furniture and the dense imported carpets, leaving no mark; he had sampled Mariol?s good cooking, licking his whiskers; he had stalked the neighborhood rooftops. Galloping along the steep angles of the Tudor?s slate roof, leaping into the high foliage of the great oaks and across the roofs of the big Morningside homes, he had spied down through mullioned windows, and peered down into lush, shaded gardens; but always he returned to Sammie. He was shocked to a rigid stillness when Anne Chesserson realized that something unseen wandered the house.

If Misto drifted into the room with her, she would turn in his direction with a puzzled frown. If he stood on the kitchen table licking a plate or peering down at Sammie?s drawings, Anne would look around the room, frowning. She never seemed afraid. When she became too intently aware of him Misto would vacate the house, would return to prowl the prison beside Lee, abandoning the luxury of Morningside, watching for the shadow that, too often, followed his cellmate.

13

LEE?S MORNING WAS brightened considerably on his next visit to the dispensary by the sight of Karen Turner coming down the corridor carrying a sheaf of files, the zipper of her short uniform pulled low, her dark hair clean and bouncy.?Hi, Fontana. You look chipper today.?

Lee grinned at her, the very sight of her made him feel lighter.?Guess I do feel pretty good, I just got myself a job.? Thanks to Gimpy, when a job had opened up in the cotton mill, Lee was in?with some reservation from his counselor, on a try-and-see basis. He was to start the next afternoon on a short, three o?clock shift.

?I?m glad for you, Fontana.? Karen?s smile warmed him clear to his toes. She went on past him, but before she entered the next office she turned and gave him a wink and a thumbs-up.

His counselor had been hesitant about the job, but Lee persisted until Camp said he could give it a try.?Wear a handkerchief over your face, Fontana. Or get a mask from the dispensary, the air isn?t the best in there.?

Lee said he would, but he wasn?t going to go in there acting like a sissy, with some kerchief tied around his face.

He moved on down the hall to the doctor?s office, still thinking about Karen?s smile and wink. Swinging up onto the examining table, he took off his shirt, wincing as Dr. Floyd slapped the cold stethoscope on him. With the doctor preoccupied, thumping his chest and back, telling him to take deep breaths and listening to his heart, Leescanned the small, square room. A tray of several sizes of adhesive tape and bandages sat beside the sink, along with a bottle of antiseptic. There were no small, sharp tools to be easily slipped into a guy?s pocket. But across the room on the wall hung dispensers for rubber gloves and paper towels, a disposal bin for waste products and another one for used razor blades: a simple metal box with a handle that operated a dump bin at the bottom. Lee studied this as Dr. Floyd took his blood pressure. He was looking innocently at the doctor when an orderly stuck his head in the door, a thin guy in a pale blue lab coat. ?Can you take a phone call from the warden??

Floyd glanced uneasily at Lee, then looked around the room, making sure that no sharp instruments had been left out.?Stay put, Fontana.? He moved away, leaving the door wide open, stopping to speak to the orderly. The orderly disappeared from Lee?s sight and Lee moved fast. When the orderly reappeared, stepping into the room, Lee sat on the table as before, his legs dangling.

Dr. Floyd wasn?t gone much longer. Returning, he nodded to Lee. ?You can put on your shirt, Fontana. So far you look good. Keep doing your breathing exercises. I want to see you in a week.? As Floyd moved to the sink to wash his hands, Lee left the room walking carefully, conscious of the tangle of double-edged razor blades wrapped in a paper towel; he had slipped them into his pants pocket in the second before the orderly stepped in, blades that must have been used to shave around wounds before they were stitched and bandaged.

As he left the clinic, pushing out through the iron door, an icy wind hit him, cutting down the open walk. As he passed the cotton mill he casually checked its trash bins, glanced around, and removed a length of cotton cord from among the detritus.

From there he headed for the automotive shop, where the sound of hammering on metal rang sharply. Even from a distance the wind carried the smell of oil and solvent and wet paint. He found Morgan at work on a sleek red roadster. They could hardly talk for the noise echoing through the busy shop, and then the rumble and cry of a freight train. At least a dozen men worked in the shop, sanding car parts, carefully tapping out dents with rubber mallets, filling tiny flaws in fenders and door panels, spraying on primer. Three men at the far end stood under a lift working on the axle of an old Model T. Lee smiled, watching Morgan. It was clear that Blake liked his work. When Blake turned to look at Lee his usual anger was gone, his expression almost happy. Lee made small talk, admiring the red roadster and the work Morgan was doing, the newly painted fender replacement, the new tan upholstery. They visited for only a few minutes. As Lee turned to leave, blowing his nose, he managed to drop his handkerchief over a lost machine nut that had rolled beneath a tire. Picking up both, he left the auto shop with everything he needed for a good, no-nonsense weapon.

So far he had been passive with Coker and Delone, had played it low-key. But those two were half crazy, the kind who got a jolt from bullying and hurting and worse. That night after supper, alone in his cell, Lee checked the cells across the way to be sure no one was idly watching. The custodian had already done the count, the cells were locked for the night and that was the most privacy he?d get. He glanced the length of the cellblock, then, sitting on his bunk with his back to the bars, a pillow behind him as if he was reading, he got to work.

In the half-light from the corridor, keeping the materials close in his lap so he could pull the blanket up, he cut the cotton cord in two and unraveled the shorter piece to produce lengths of heavy-duty thread. He stretched out the other cord, and at one end he tied the heavy, half-inch-thick machine nut. Moving down the length of the cord he commenced to tie on the double-edged blades with the heavy thread, taking care not to slice his fingers. He was lucky to have gotten them. In the cellblocks the guards kept tight count of every razor blade a fellow was issued and collected them again pretty quick.

Down at the end of Lee?s cot the tomcat appeared as the faintest shadow watching with kneading claws the enticing lengths of thread twist and writhe as they unraveled, watching the heavier, snakelike behavior of the long cord. He wanted to leap into the tangle playing and rolling, biting at the threads. The sharp blades stopped him?though they couldn?t hurt a ghost, memories of past lives and sharp tools were too indelibly a part of his nature. Restraining himself, he only let his shadowy tail lash as Lee fished each thread through the narrow slot of a blade and around the cord and back.

In order for the weapon to be effective each blade had to be strongly secured at both ends. Working on the garrote Lee found himself thinking about Morgan Blake, puzzling over the young man?s story. Why did it keep nudging at him, why did he keep thinking about Blake?s version of the crime and the trial? He?d heard a million sob stories, all of them as fake as counterfeit twenties, so why did he believe this one?

But somehow he did believe, and that bothered him. They?d had breakfast together several times when Blake sought him out; each time Blake got onto the bank robbery and the events leading up to that day. Lee didn?t want to listen, but his instinct said Blake was telling the truth, said Blakehad been set up, that a carefully planned robbery and killinghad been smoothly pulled off at the young man?s expense.

Lee was irritated that he believed Blake; it bothered him that he?d begun to care about the guy?s predicament. Getting involved in someone else?s life, in prison, was the best way Lee knew to jeopardize his own life. There was no way he could help Blake even if he was stupid enough to try. Yet he couldn?t shake his growing interest.

It was late when Lee finished tying on the razor blades, working in the dim light of his own shadow. Every time he heard the guard?s soft footsteps walking the rounds he pulled up the blanket, picked up his pulp novel and bent over it. Sometimes he rattled and wadded up a candy wrapper, tossing it on the floor. When the guard had moved on, Lee would continue with the garrote. The weapon was about twenty inches long. At the opposite end to the nut he tied a loop large enough to slip his finger through. The blades, crowded close together, started ten inches from the loop and ended four inches from the steel nut. Turning to check the cellblock, Lee let the weapon hang from his right forefinger.

Along the rows of cells, the men he could see were either asleep or busy with their own concerns, lying in bed reading, writing letters. Satisfied no one was watching, he moved back into the shadows.?Get out of here,? he hissed at the ghost cat. Misto disappeared but reappeared at the head of Lee?s cot, the faintest shadow. Lee could just see his whiskers and ears flat to his head, but Misto?s toothy hiss was all bravado. Free of the cat, he swung the garrote in a circle, letting the weight of the nut pull the cord taut, whirling it until a faint light flashed off the sharp blades, then the garrote began a faint whistle. At the sound he stopped its motion, glancing across the way. Carefully he rolled the nut and blades up inside the cord until the finished product looked like no morethan a ball of string. He dropped this in a Bull Durham bag he?d fished out of the trash behind the mess hall, slipped it under his mattress, and crawled into bed. If Coker and Delone wanted to play rough, he was ready.

14

THE COTTON LOOMS thrashed and banged as if they?d tear themselves from the floor; the big room rocked with rows of clattering looms, the thread feeding into them faster than Lee could follow. His job was to keep the spindles supplied to machines fourteen and fifteen so they?d never stop running, and he had to stay on his toes. Red lines painted on the floor cautioned him where to keep clear. As the canvas fabric edged its way out of each loom, Lee?s freckle-faced partner guided its dropping in folds onto a rubber-wheeled cart.

Gimpy had warned him that no matter what job a man did in here, he had to be careful, everything in the place was dangerous. When Gimpy had introduced him to the foreman, the middle-aged, military-looking man walked Lee through the routine just once and then put him to work. The cotton came into the mill already ginned, the seeds removed. It was air-blown in a big metal hopper up on the second-level loft, was sent from there through a large tube to machines that spun it into thread, wound the thread on spindles, and the spindles sent down to the busy looms. The room?s thunder seemed to rip right through Lee. He had put cotton wads in his ears, as his partner wore, but it didn?t help much. The air was murky with cotton dust, but he wasn?t wearing a sissy mask. He thought he could breathe shallowly until he was out in the fresh air again. Only when he left his machine to get more spindles did he find something to laugh about.

Glancing into the adjoining room he saw the woven canvas being sewn into large bags, and each stamped in black letters,U.S. MAIL. He was helping make the exact same bags he?d buried in the desert full of hundred-dollar bills. The bags he?d taken at gunpoint from the Blythe post office. And didn?t that make him smile.

By the end of his shift his cough was bad and his body ached from the noise, the clatter penetrated clear to his bones. The most positive thing about the job, he thought, was that it allowed him to drop out of group counseling?but even that didn?t work. As he left the noisy cotton mill, the guard stopped him.

?You?re to go from here to your counselor, Fontana.? The man had a face like a bloodhound, drooping jowls, no smile. ?He?ll set up a new time for your group sessions.?

Lee swallowed back his reply, which would only have gotten him in trouble. Heading for Paul Camp?s building, walking back between rows of desks, he found Camp leaning over his own desk tamping tobacco into a dark, carved pipe. Leaning back in his chair, Camp took his time lighting up. Drawing the smoke in deeply, he handed Lee his new counseling schedule. Lee wanted to argue, but what good?

Camp sat looking him over in a way Lee didn?t like. ?I have a request from Morgan Blake.?

Lee waited. Why tell him about Blake?s problems?

?Blake wants you to accompany him on his wife?s visiting days, says she?d like to meet you.?

?Why would she do that? What the hell is that about? Visiting is for families.? Why would Blake want him there during that private time? Why would the woman want to meethim?

?It?s an unusual request,? Camp said. ?Did you know Blake before you were transferred to Atlanta??

?Never heard of him. Why would I want to get involved in someone else?s family??

Camp leaned back until his wooden chair creaked.?You?ve gotten friendly with Blake pretty fast.?

?He?s a nice enough kid. But visiting day? I don?t think so.?

Camp just looked at him.

?I listen to him,? Lee said, ?the kid needs someone to vent to, but I sure didn?t put it in his head to meet his family.?

?Morgan says that talking to you has helped him accept his situation. You think you?re some kind of counselor??

?I listen good,? Lee said, hiding his amusement.

?Whatever you?re doing,? Camp said, ?seems to be working. I?ve noticed a change in Blake.?

?So what do I get, a medal? Maybe I can counsel the whole family.?

Camp gave him another long, hard gaze. Lee was about to rise and leave, but his curiosity got the best of him. What harm would it do, a few minutes in the visiting room? It might answer some questions about the way Blake watched him, frowning and puzzled.?What the hell,? he said. ?I can give it a try.?

Camp studied him, made a notation on a pad, and handed Lee a list of visiting hours. Lee moved on out of the office wondering why he?d agreed. Wondering why Blake had made the request. If there was something Morgan knew that Lee didn?t, maybe now he?d find out.

Bushed from the cotton mill, he skipped supper and headed for his cell. One day on the job and his cough was bad. His body ached, his head pounded, he knew he should have taken the kitchen job.

But he wasn?t going to call it quits, he?dwear a damned handkerchief around his face, he?d getused to the noise.

In the cellblock, as he climbed the metal stairs and moved in through his barred door, his bunk looked mighty good. He collapsed onto it, his strength gone. He was getting old. The thought sent a chill through him. He was deep asleep when Misto dropped onto the cot and stretched out beside him, lying close, listening to Lee?s ragged breathing.

?She will come now,? the cat whispered, placing a soft paw on Lee?s cheek, sending his words deep into Lee?s dreams. ?The child will come now. You?ll know soon enough why Morgan watches you. You?ll know soon enough why, all these years, you?ve carried Mae?s picture with you. You?ll begin to see now that you can defeat the dark spirit. You will take strength not only from me, but from the child.?

LEE DIDN?T WAKE until morning, to the sounds of men starting the day, coughing and grumbling, the water running, an angry shout, springs creaking and metal clanging. He washed, dressed, stood for the count and then headed for breakfast. Collecting his tray, he found Morgan already at a small table.

?What?s that about?? he said, setting down his tray. ?Why would your wife want me to visit? What kind of scam is this??

Morgan looked down at his plate, his face coloring.?Actually, it?s my child who wants you there, it?s Sammie who asked for you.?

Lee scowled at him.?How does your kid even know about me? What have you told her? Why would .†.†. ??

Morgan drizzled syrup over his pancakes.?I didn?t tell her anything about you. She .†.†. she dreamed about you. She .†.†. said you came here from California.?

Lee looked hard at him.

?She?s only a little girl,? Morgan said, forking pancakes. The clatter of breakfast dishes and the staccato of men?s voices echoed around them, bouncing off the concrete walls. ?She .†.†. Sammie has these dreams. About people, about things that will happen. Sometimes,? he said, looking almost shyly at Lee, ?sometimes her dreams turn out to be real.?

?What do you mean, real?? Lee said uneasily.

?She knows what you look like. She knows you worked in the desert, driving a truck, and she dreamed of you flying in a small, open plane. She knows you, Lee, though you?ve never met.?

Morgan?s words chilled Lee, pulled a memory from deep within and nearly forgotten, incidents from childhood that he?d put away from him, that he hadn?t wanted to think about. Secrets came alive again, his sister Mae?s secrets when she would whisper her dreams to him, dreams that later turned out to be real.

Once Mae told him that their milk cow, Lucy, would birth triplet calves, and triplet calves were rare. Lucy bore three live calves, all healthy little bull calves. The predictions frightened Mae; she would tell them shyly, painfully but earnestly, only hoping the adults would listen. Once she told Pa that he?d better fix the roof of the hay barn before the next snow or it would cave it in. Pa didn?t fix the roof. In the heavy winter it did collapse, ruined half a barn full of good hay, but luckily none of the animals was hurt. Pa was angry at Mae that the roof fell in, like it was her fault, and that was the last dream she ever told Pa.

By the time Lee left home, either the dreams had stopped or Mae stopped talking about them. Pa grew angry if she mentioned a dream, and their mother didn?t want to hear it, either. Lee was the only one who listened, uncomfortably, then he?d put the dreams away from him. Mae never knew how much they frightened him, this seeing into the future, predicting a future that hadn?t yet happened, that no one should be able to see. Now again the shadowed memories from that long-ago time filled him. ?Your little girl dreams of something that hasn?t happened?? he asked softly.

Morgan nodded.?She described you exactly. She dreams of you and feels close to you. She wants you there on visiting day,? he said awkwardly.

Lee shivered.

?She?s only nine, Lee. She?s my child and I love her and she has these dreams, that?s all I can say. What will it hurt to humor her??

?She dreamed about me because you talked about me.? Lee said nothing about Mae, he wasn?t telling Morgan about Mae.

Morgan laid down his fork, fixing his attention on Lee.?I never talked about you. I never mentioned you. I can?t explain why she dreams of you. She dreamed of you and me talking together in the automotive shop.?

?That?s because you told her you were working there. That?s where she pictures you, in a place like your shop in Rome.?

?In her dream there was a red Buick roadster up on the rack.?

?How would a little girl know a Buick roadster from a hay wagon??

Morgan smiled.?She helps .†.†. used to help me in the shop, handing me tools. From the time I came home from the navy she?s hung around the shop, she knows all my automotive tools. She knows the makes of most cars, she can stand on the street and rattle off the make, model, and year of nearly every car that passes.

?It was hard on her,? Morgan said, ?being without a father. Hard on all the service kids, those years without a dad to lean on and to learn from. Becky took the best care of her, but when I got home Sammie clung to me, wanted to be with me in the shop.? Morgan shook his head. ?We were so happy, the three of us together again, our life starting again as it should be. And then, long before the robbery and murder, Sammie dreamed about me being locked behind prison bars.

?Becky and I thought this dream was just a simple nightmare, we knew such a thing couldn?t happen. But then it did happen,? Morgan said. ?The afternoon and night I was drugged? Sammie, at the exact same time, reacted in the same way; she was groggy, she kept falling asleep, she couldn?t stay awake.?

Lee said nothing. To believe in the ghost cat was one thing, and to know the dark spirit was real, he had learned to adjust to that unseen world. But to bring alive the future as Mae had done, to reach forward into unformed time?that bruised something young and painful in Lee, brought back an unsteady fear he didn?t want to deal with.

?Yesterday,? Morgan said, ?Sammie told me that when she dreamed of you in the shop, you dropped your handkerchief on the floor. She said when you picked it up, you picked up a metal nut off the shop floor, that you made sure it was hidden in the handkerchief that you put in your pocket.?

Lee choked, couldn?t swallow. When at last he got the coughing under control, Morgan said, ?Come on, Lee, humor a little girl. What can it hurt to meet her, to spend a little while with us next visiting day??

Lee knew now that he?d better do that. This kind of thing would turn a man crazy unless he knew what it was about.

15

BECKY LEFT THE drugstore at five feeling good after her first day at work. She?d found a bookkeeping job at last, after multiple tries. She liked the people she was working with; she liked the fact that the Latham family had slowly, over the years, established a small chain that gave five areas of Atlanta excellent pharmacy service. She would be paid at the end of each weekand she badly needed the money to pay their attorney. The shop windows along Peachtree were bright with Thanksgiving color, a hint of Christmas scattered among them, and the air had turned crisp and chill. She had started to cross the street to the department store meaning to buy some stockings before her last pair gave way when she thought she saw Brad Falon.

Catching her breath, she drew back into the shadow of a doorway. The man moved swiftly away from her; she could see only his back, a slim man, Falon?s height. Same narrow head, light brown hair combed into a thick ducktail. He turned the corner and was gone and she hadn?t seen his face. Had he seenher, was that why he hurried away? She wanted to follow him, but that wasn?t wise. Instead she returned to the pharmacy, stood in the shadow of the doorway for a long time watching the street.

He didn?t return. Maybe it wasn?t Falon, maybe only someone who resembled him. The man had been visible for only a minute, and was half hidden by shoppers. How could Falon have found out so soon where she?d gone? Moving on into the drugstore as if she had forgotten something she smiled at Amy, the small, blond clerk, and went on into the back office. She sat down at her desk, feeling shaky. She stared at the neatly stacked ledgers, at the chrysanthemums that Mr. Latham had brought from his garden to brighten her first day on the job, a homey, kindly gesture.

The Latham?s pharmacies were small shops selling prescriptions only and over-the-counter medications, no ice cream counter, no magazines or toys. The plate-glass windows were kept sparkling, the marble floors immaculate. Near the front door were two benches where customers could wait for their orders. Behind the pharmacist?s counter was a large safe where cash and a few narcotic drugs were kept, a refrigerator, and shelves of prescription medicines. The inner office was lined with file cabinets facing the two desks. Becky?s job was to keep daily accounts for the five stores. Invoices and sales records were put on her desk each night, after John Latham had made his rounds. Latham was a slim, quiet man, with a habit of smoothing the top of his head, where his hair was thinning.

Becky had found the job through an agency after two weeks of looking on her own. She had chosen the agency with the most comfortable atmosphere, and had indicated on her registration forms that she was a widow. Two days later she had the job. The previous bookkeeper, who was leaving to have a baby, had interviewed her, and then Mr. Latham had talked with her. Her salary was more than she had hoped, and this downtown branch was a five-minute drive from Anne?s, an equal distance from the grammar school. Sammie should already be in school, but Becky was still reluctant to send her off by herself. Now, if shehad seen Falon, she would have to keep Sammie home.

If he had tracked her this far, he would find the house?or had already found it, was already watching the Morningside neighborhood. Fear and anger made her heart pound. She breathed deeply, trying to relax. She couldn?t let panic paralyze her, she had to think what to do, had to watch more carefully around her, further caution to her aunt and Anne?shousekeeper to be aware, to keep the doors locked. And she?d have to carry the .38. An empty gun was no good, lying in the bottom of a suitcase.

She waited at her desk for twenty minutes, then left by the back door, crossing the small parking area to her car. She drove home to Anne?s by a circuitous route, watching for Falon?s black coupe. The next morning when she dressed for work she unlocked the .38 from her battered overnight bag, loaded it and put it in her purse.

Leaving Sammie at home with Mariol, Becky drove to work, warily watching the streets. Pulling into the narrow parking area behind the redbrick building, she left the gun under the seat of the locked car. Maybe she was being paranoid, carrying a gun, and maybe not. Falon had been in their house more than once. He had killed one man that she knew of, and he had nearly killed bank teller Betty Holmes. He might well have killed her and Sammie that night when Sammie was small, when he broke into their house and Sammie?s good cat attacked him. Sammie was so little then. Neither of them had forgotten Misto?s bravery and the terrible shock of his death.

Could she shoot Falon if she must? Oh, yes. If he came at Sammie, she?d kill him. She had warned Anne and Mariol about Falon, though she wasn?t sure that either one took the threat seriously enough. She had made them promise not to open the door to any stranger and not to let Sammie play outside alone.

On her second day, arriving at work, she didn?t glimpse Falon or his car, and when she didn?t see him the next day or the next, her tension began to ease. Very likely that wasn?t Falon she?d seen, but a stranger, a coincidence not a threat. She had been at work a week when she came out of the drugstore at four feeling good, her first week?s pay in her purse, feeling strong and secure to be making a regular salary again. Things were better at Anne?s, too; something was changing that puzzled her, Anne seemed almost pleased that they were staying there, she wasn?t nearly so grim and cold as when they arrived.

To further lighten her mood, Quaker Lowe had called not fifteen minutes ago, just before she left work. He said he should know about the appeal within the week, and he had sounded hopeful. That cheered her considerably. She didn?t let herself think they might be denied. Leaving the pharmacy by the rear door, she checked the alley, glanced between the parked cars, then moved toward her own car. She unlocked the driver?s door, tossed her purse on the seat?and was jerked backward. Hard fingers dug into her shoulder, jerked her off balance, she hit her head on the door frame. Falon spun her around, threw her to the ground, the rough surface ripping her outthrust hands.

He crouched over her, pawing at her dress. She tried to shout but was mute with fear. When he shoved his hand under her skirt she clawed him and tried again to scream. It was broad daylight, four o?clock, there were people on the street, people in the drugstore, someone had to hear her if only she could make some sound. He grabbed her hair, jerked her up so hard blackness swam, pulled her close, pawing and stroking her. When he leaned down as if to kiss her she bit him in the throat. He struck her hard across the cheek. She grabbed his face, dug her fingers in his eyes. He let go, knocked her hands away, and bent over, pawing at his eyes. Free of him, she pulled herself up into the car, but again he lunged at her. She kicked him in the crotch and reached frantically under the seat, feeling for the gun.

She couldn?t find it. Searching, she hit her head on the steering wheel. Behind her Falon was bent over groaning, holding himself. She spun around and shoved him off balance. He stumbled back. She jerked the door closed and locked it, snatched the key from her pocket, jammed it in the ignition and started the car. As the engine roared she pressed her face to the window, he was getting up. She backed out fast. She?d like to put the car in low and ram him. Careening out of the parking lot she swung into traffic nearly hitting an oncoming car. Falon would be parked nearby, would be behind her in seconds, and she didn?t dare lead him to Anne?s. Turning off Peachtree she sped two blocks to a gas station and swung in. Staying in the locked car with the window half down, she asked the attendant to call the police. The grizzled old man stared at the black car swerving in behind her and raced for the office phone. Falon paused, watching the attendant, then swung a U-turn, narrowly missing the gas pumps, and took off again.

When the police arrived she told them only that a man had attacked her behind the drugstore, that he had chased her, that she didn?t know who he was. The attendant gave them the make and model of the Ford but he hadn?t been able, at the angle and speed it moved, to see the license plate. She gave the police her Rome address, she said she was in town only for the day. If Falon didn?t know where she was staying, she didn?t want him finding out by some fluke at the police station, by some clerical indiscretion. If her lies caught up with her, she?d deal with them later.

Falon would be back, she was only grateful that he had come after her and not Sammie. Driving around the business district watching behind her and watching the side streets, she kept seeing the look in his eyes.

She drove around for half an hour and didn?t see the sporty black Ford. She hurried on to Anne?s, got out quickly, opened the garage door, pulled her car in beside Anne?s Cadillac, jerked the door closed from within. Locking it, she could hear the fiery music of Stravinsky coming from the living room. Mariol had told her Anne didn?t use the record player often, usually when she was upset, perhaps after some conflict in one of her women?s club meetings. Fishing her compact from her purse, looking in the little mirror, she frowned at the bruises already darkening her forehead and cheek, wondering how she was going to explain that.Carefully she combed her hair, straightened her blouse and jacket, tried to put herself in some kind of order.

Letting herself into the foyer, she looked into the empty living room, its ivory-toned velvet furniture and pale Oriental carpet pristine and untouched. The cream-colored afghan lay tangled on the couch among the throw pillows as if Sammie might have been napping. Following the scent of hot chocolate she headed past the dining room to the kitchen, pausing just outside the half-closed door.

Sammie was crying, a shaky sniffle; then she blew her nose. Anne?s voice was soft. ?I cried, too, I cried after such a dream. Oh, so many times. But she?s all right, Sammie. Your mother?s all right now.?

?But sheisn?t all right. That man hurt her, that Brad Falon?the man who watches us, who broke into our house. The man who killed my Misto.?

Becky stood dismayed. Had Sammie had a daytime nightmare, had awakened from seeing Falon?s attack? Awakened frightened and crying?and Anne had been there for her, had reached out to her? Something tender in Anne had reached out?

She moved into the kitchen. Anne sat at the big kitchen table, her back to Becky, holding Sammie in her lap, cuddling her close and tenderly in a way Becky would never have guessed.?I cried, too,? Anne repeated softly, ?but your mother?s all right. And you and I are all right.?

Sammie looked up at Anne and reached to touch her face. Around them the airy white kitchen was fresh and welcoming with its mullioned-glass cabinet doors, white tile counters, and the three deep-set windows crowded with pots of green herbs. Mariol stood at the double sink washing vegetables, her back to Anne and the child.

?We?re together now,? Anne said. ?Now, when the nightmares come, you have not only your mother to tell, you have me and Mariol to tell, if you want to.?

When the child glanced across at Mariol, the slim, mulatto woman turned to look kindly at her. Anne said,?Until now I have trusted only Mariol to keep my secret. But you have all three of us, Mariol and me and your mama, to hold you when the ugly dreams come, to hold you and keep you safe.?

?But you can?t change what I see,? Sammie said. ?No one can. He hurt Mama and he?ll try again.?

Shaken, Becky moved on into the kitchen. Sammie leaped from Anne?s lap and flew at her, hugging her. ?Are you all right, Mama? He hurt you.? When Becky knelt, holding her, Sammie gently touched Becky?s bruised forehead and cheek. Pulling out a chair, Becky sat cuddling Sammie as Anne had done, smiling across at her aunt.

?He got away?? Anne said. ?How badly are you hurt??

?Just bruises,? Becky lied, not mentioning the pain where she?d fallen and where he?d hit her. She watched Mariol empty an ice tray, wrap ice in a dish towel, and hand it across to her. As she pressed the coldness to her face, the pain and bruises didn?t matter, only Anne?s words mattered.I cried, too, after such a dream. Oh, so many times. What was this, where had this come from? To hear Anne confess to the same prescience as Sammie?s left her indeed shaken. Did Sammie?s strange talent, then, belong within their family?

Two half-empty mugs of cocoa stood on the table beside Sammie?s open picture book, and a third mug where Mariol had been sitting. That was another strange thing about Anne, Becky thought, that while most Southern households would not permit colored help to sit at the table with their employers, this was not the case here. In this house, even as proper as Anne was in other matters, she and Mariol were equals, were dear friends. Mariol might, Becky thought, be the closest friend Anne had, maybe her only true friend.

Mariol poured fresh cocoa from a pan on the stove, set the mug on the table before Becky, then took her own place again, her dark eyes, when she looked up at Becky, filled with concern.?Youare all right??

Becky nodded, drawn to her kindness.

?She?s a special child,? Mariol said. ?She?s fortunate to have parents who understand.? She looked at Anne companionably. ?And lucky, too, to have an aunt who understands.? And Becky wondered if Anne, in her own childhood, had not been so lucky.

16

LEE PAUSED IN the doorway, watching across the visiting room where Morgan stood hugging his family. The minute Morgan entered, the little girl had flung herself at him, he?d hugged her tight and drawn his wife close. Lee couldn?t see much of the child from the back, her long blond hair, one strand caught on the collar of her blue gingham dress. Her gangly legs with several scratches, tomboy legs. And the eager way she clung to Morgan, the three of them wrapped around one another, their voices soft and caressing. Lee wanted to turn away, this emotional family reunion had nothing to do with him. Painfully out of place, he?d rather head back to his cell and crawl in his bunk.

The room itself seemed out of place, had no relationship to the rest of the prison; even the bars on the wide windows were half disguised by the potted white flowers on the sills. He stood not on hard concrete but on a tan tweed carpet, the walls painted white instead of government green. Soft-looking couches and chairs were set about in little family groupings, the effect cozy and unreal. Taking in the unnatural scene, he turned to leave?but he didn?t leave. He had promised Morgan.

And something else held him, the child held him, her likeness to Mae made him turn to watch her. From the back she looked so like Mae that he felt jerked into the past, returned to their childhood. Her thin body as light-boned as a fledgling bird, just like Mae, her long legs and the way she stood as if she might leap away any instant. He wished she?d turn around, but he was afraid of what he?d see.

Last night he hadn?t slept well, he?d coughed all night, after the cotton mill. Awake and choking, he had tossed restlessly thinking about today, thinking about the child who was so like Mae, who dreamed as Mae dreamed. Periodically he had sat up on his bunk and done his breathing exercises, but it had been impossible to get enough air. He?d skipped breakfast this morning, had drunk some coffee and then sat in the thin winter sun hoping it would warm him. It would be Christmas soon; some wag had tied a red bow on the railing of the stairs that led down from the industries buildings. He had stood looking at it and thinking about this visit, about Sammie and about Mae, feeling curious and uneasy.

Now he sat down in the nearest chair watching the cozy family. Watched Morgan draw his wife and child to a couch where they sat close together. Becky was tall and slim, built like her daughter but with dark hair falling to her shoulders. She wore a plain tan coat over her skirt and white blouse, sheer stockings and flat shoes. He was watching the way Morgan held her so tenderly when the little girl turned, looking across the room at him. The shock sent him weak.

He was looking at Mae. This was Mae, this was his sister. The long-ago memories flooded back. Holding her hand as they waded in the drying stream on a scorching summer day?bundling Mae up in scarves and gloves in the freezing winter, lifting her onto his homemade sled. Mae slipping away from their mother to the saddled horses, scrambling up into the saddle by herself.

Mae crossed the room to him .†.†.But not Mae. This was Sammie. She ran to him reaching for him, same dark brown eyes as Mae, same long blond hair tangled around her ears, Mae?s own elfin smile. She stopped a few feet from him, shy suddenly. But then she flew at him, she was in his lap, her arms around him as if she?d known him forever. How warm she was, like a hound pup, shockingly warm and sweet smelling. Thiswas Mae, this was his little sister, her hug infinitely comforting.

But of course she wasn?t Mae, this was Morgan Blake?s child, this was Sammie Blake who had dreamed of him in the same inexplicable way that Mae dreamed, seeing what she couldn?t know.

Seeing his unease, Sammie lowered her eyes and drew back, her look as coolly shuttered as any grown-up?s, shy and removed suddenly, plucking at the doll she carried. From the couch, Morgan and Becky watched them in silence, Becky?s hands twisting in her lap, the moment as brittle as glass?until Sammie reached to touch his face.

?Where is your horse??

Lee stared at her.

?Where is your gray horse??

No one knew about the gray, Lee had never talked to Morgan about horses, the young mechanic had no interest in horses. Certainly he would never mention the gelding on which he had escaped after the post office robbery; he had never told Morgan about the robbery.?I don?t have a horse. You can?t have a horse in prison.?

?But you do. You have a horse. The gray horse. Where is he??

If she had dreamed of the gray, had she dreamed of the robbery, too??Sorry,? he said. ?No horse. The prison guards won?t let me keep one.?

This child knew secrets she shouldn?t know, she had seen into his life as no normal person could do. He didn?t know what else she might have dreamed, he was sorry he?d come, today. When he looked up, Becky?s face was closed and unreadable, her hands joined with Morgan?s, their fingers gripped together telegraphing their unease.When again Sammie started to speak, Lee rose, lifting her. He needed to get out of there. But when he tried to put her in her father?s lap she clutched him around the neck and wouldn?t let go.

He pried her arms loose.?You have to stay with your daddy, I have to leave now.? He handed her forcibly to Morgan, muttered a weak good-bye, and quickly turned away. Hurrying across the big room he could feel Sammie?s hurt and disappointment. Unfinished business weighed on the child?and weighed on Becky and Morgan. Too much had been left unsaid, urging him to turn back. But he didn?t turn; he pushed on out through the heavy door, nodded to the guard and hurried through the corridors to the safety of his cell. Crawling under the blanket shivering, he didn?t want to deal with this. But at the same time, hewas drawn to Sammie and to the mystery of the Blake family that seemed, that had to be a part of his own life.

LEE WOKE WHEN the Klaxon rang for first shift supper. He had slept for over an hour. He thought of skipping the meal, he didn?t want to sit with Morgan, didn?t want to try to explain how uncomfortable the child made him, he didn?t want to talk. But in the end he decided he?d better eat something. Maybe Morgan would eat later, slip in at second shift. He washed his face, combed his hair, pulled on the wool jacket the prison had issued when the weather turned cool, and headed out along the catwalk. They?d have to talk sometime, he just hoped it wasn?t tonight.

In the mess hall, getting his tray, he chose a table in the farthest corner, hoping Morgan wouldn?t show. But of course when he looked back at the line, there he was. In a few minutes he set his tray down across from Lee.

Lee had invented a number of fake explanations for departing the visiting room so abruptly; but this morning, leaving his cell, something had made him slip Mae?s picture in his pocket. Now, when Morgan began quizzing him, he handed it across the table.

Morgan looked at the picture, frowning. Sammie was dressed as he had never seen her in a white pinafore, shiny black shoes, and white socks. She was standing before a three-rail pasture fence, a couple of steers off in the distance, a place Morgan had never been.

?My sister,? Lee said. ?Taken when we were kids. Mae was about eight.?

Morgan frowned at Sammie?s dark eyes and perky smile, Sammie?s pale hair hanging down her thin shoulders. Except for her old-fashioned clothes, this childwas Sammie. Morgan looked for a very long time, then looked up at Lee.

?Mae had dreams,? Lee said, ?the same as Sammie. Not often, but she would dream of the future. She didn?t talk much about them except to me, they upset our mother. And Pa would pitch a fit. Mae wasn?t very old when she quit telling Pa what she saw, telling him what would happen.?

Morgan handed the picture back, treating it with care.?Where is Mae now??

Lee shook his head.?I didn?t keep in touch, I lost track. I tried to find them in North Carolina, in a town where I thought they might be, but my letters were sent back. Someone wrote on one, ?Try Canada,? but they didn?t say where, in Canada. I had an older brother, and two sisters older than Mae, I knew they?d take care of her.

?I heard from our neighbor when Pa died, there was a saloon where he knew to get in touch. It took a couple months before I rode that way. He said Ma and the kids had moved to North Carolina, that?s when I tried to write to them. He wasn?t certain about the address. I never heard from them, but I wouldn?t have, I was always on the move.? He knew he could have tried harder. He was ashamed about that. Well, hell, he was so caught up in his own life. All that young wildness, always another train to test him, another woman?s smile to entice him.

?I was fourteen when we moved to Arizona. Two years later I went off on my own. I took the best two cow horses we had and I know Pa wasn?t happy about that.? He didn?t know what made him talk so much. Maybe the fact of Mae?s and Sammie?s strange likeness made him ramble on, drew him to confide in Morgan.

IT WAS LONG after supper and lights out, as Lee lay coughing and sleepless, when the tomcat joined him as he liked to do?as if he was tucking his wards in for the night. Landing hard on Lee?s bed, this time the cat was fully visible in the overhead lights. Quickly Lee rose up from the covers, effectively hiding Misto, and turned to scan the cells across the way.

No one seemed to be looking back. He guessed the cat would know. Misto pricked his ears as a train thundered, its small earthquake deafening the cellblock. The ghost cat seemed quite to like the noise and hustle, the excitement. When the train had faded, he sat watching Lee again, alert and waiting.

Lee said,?That child is the spittin? image of Mae. You?re the spirit, you know these things. You tell me what that?s about.?

Misto lashed his tail but said nothing.

?Talk to me.? Lee scratched the cat?s ragged ears.

?I can?t know everything. But I can tell you this. You are meant to be together, you and Morgan and Sammie. A path is taking shape, just as certain as the route of that train. A path that you and I have followed, just as the devil follows.?

Lee looked up again along the tiers of cells. Still no one was looking or seemed to be listening.

?He not only wants your soul,? Misto said, ?he would take Sammie if he could. There is something in the child that he can?t touch, but still she is part of his plan.?

Misto licked his paw.?The child is strong. Her deepest nature is to resist him, so deep an instinct that often she is hardly aware of him. She will help you, just as I will?as best a child and a small ghostcan help,can try to save your scrawny neck.?

17

THE FULL MOON was hidden by clouds, the Morningside neighborhood cast in shadow except where an occasional porch light had been left to burn past midnight. No light illuminated Anne Chesserson?s large Tudor house as Brad Falon approached, his footsteps silent passing broad gardens and luxurious homes. He had sat in his car for some time parked on the hill several doors away, had seen the lights come on in the Chesserson woman?s second-floor bedroom, had seen her come to the window, close it, and pull the shutters across as if the night air had turned too cold. No light reflected from the basement suite where Becky and Sammie were staying. He had watched the house at different hours of the day and night until he felt sure of the layout and the sleeping arrangements. This morning he had surveyed from the backyard, dressed in gray pants and shirt like those worn by the local meter readers.

Now, with the house dark, he headed down the sloping lawn between the Chesserson house and its plantation-style neighbor, descending a cover of pine straw between manicured rhododendron and azalea bushes. In his pocket he carried a roll of masking tape, a glass cutter, a rubber mallet, and a crowbar. His left eye was swollen and black where Becky had hit him, in the parking lot. Even after three days his throat was still torn and bruised where she?d bitten him, the vicious bitch. He?d known, when he attacked her at her car, that she?d fight. He hadn?t thought she?d bite like a wild animal.

Heading for the wide French doors that opened to the spacious downstairs, he stood in the dark garden listening, looking around him. Had something moved in the shadows, had he heard some small, stealthy sound? He waited, puzzled. Something had alerted him, made him uneasy. He waited for some time; when nothing more bothered him he moved on up the three steps to look in through the wide glass panels. The rooms within were dark, the drapes partly open as if Becky might have pulled them back after she turned out the lights. Silently he tried the handle. Of course the door was locked. Fishing the tape from his pocket he tore off four short lengths, stuck them to the glass to form a small square that, when cut and removed, would leave an opening big enough to put his hand through.

When again he felt uneasy he turned to survey the garden. The clouds were shifting, the exposed moon sending more light. He wasn?t armed, wasn?t carrying the new S&W automatic, he didn?t need it to take care of Becky Blake. If something happened to screw him up, he didn?t want to be caught armed. Though of course he wasn?t in possession of the .38 that had killed the bank guard, that gun was where no one would find it.

When the wary feeling subsided he applied the glass cutter in four quick, precise strokes, then used the rubber mallet. One small, sure tap neatly loosened the glass square. He removed it. Nothing stirred now behind him. Within the rooms, all was still. He had seen, this morning, that this door led into a sitting area. Beyond was the sleeping wing, one corner of a bed visible. Beside the bed, the carpeted floor was covered with a sheet spread out to full size and scattered with the child?s drawing books. Reaching through, quietly he turned the knob of the lock. He was easing the door open when the kid screamed. The piercing ululation sent his heart racing, it went on and on, driving him off the terrace into the bushes.

As he crouched among the foliage, his dark clothes blended with the shadows. Had the girl heard that smallest tap when his hammer hit the glass? Or heard the lock turning? Inside, a faint light came on. From this angle he could see most of the bedroom. Sammie sat up rigid in bed, still screaming, her shrill voice jangling his nerves. He watched Becky slip out of her own bed into the child?s and take the girl in her arms. For one moment, as they clung together, Becky?s back was to him, her shoulder blocking Sammie?s view. Quickly he slipped from the bushes, slid the door open enough to enter, silently closed it and eased behind the couch out of sight.

SOMEONE?S THERE,? SAMMIE said softly.?In the other room.?

?It was the dream, it was in the dream,? Becky said, hugging her.

?No. Not this time.?

With the small lamp switched on, Becky looked through to the sitting room, as much as she could see from the bed. No one was there. Thin moonlight slanted in, but picked out only the couch and two chairs. She could see no darker shadow at the French doors as if someone stood looking in.?It was a dream,? she said again, holding Sammie close.

But something had awakened Becky, too. Before Sammie started to scream. She was trying to remember what had jerked her to consciousness when she saw that the drapery hung awry. The bottom corner was folded back as if it had been disturbed. Had she left it that way? She didn?t think so.

Slipping out of bed she grabbed her purse and unholstered the loaded Colt revolver, the .38 that Morgan had so carefully taught her to handle. As she moved toward the sitting room, the scents of the garden and of freshly crushed grass were sharp. As if the night breeze had blown in, though she knew she?d left the door locked. The sitting room was empty?unless someone crouched behind a chair or behind the couch. Cocking the .38, she approached the shadowed furniture, shaky with the pounding of her own heart. She stopped suddenly when, behind her, Sammie screamed. Holding the gun down and away, she whirled toward the bedroom.

Sammie?s cry stopped abruptly, turned into a muffled sound of rage. Falon clutched the child against him, Sammie twisting and kicking. Grunting, he jerked her arm behind her so hard she caught her breath?but suddenly Falon stumbled. He struck out at the air as if someone had hit him. There was no one, he swung at empty air. Becky, holding the weapon low, moved to the bedroom. ?Drop the child. Do it now.?

He swung Sammie down into her line of fire, nearly dropped the fighting child. Clutching her with one hand, again he swatted at empty air then ducked away. Grabbing Sammie to him, he ran straight past Becky, ignoring the gun, racing for the door. Did he think Becky wouldn?t shoot? She lunged, grabbed him by the shirt to pull him off balance, aimed at his legs away from Sammie, and fired.

He jerked and dropped Sammie. She fled. Falon stumbled out the door ducking, swinging his arms, nearly fell down the shallow steps. He beat at his shoulder and chest as if something clung to him. Becky heard Sammie in the bedroom calling the police. Falon struggled up, pushed his unseen attacker away, and ran through the azaleas and up the hill. Becky fired once at his retreating back, but then he was too near the neighbor?s house. She ran chasing him up to the street but didn?t dare fire again among the many houses. His limping footsteps pounded into the shadows beneath the trees; she heard him stumble again then heard a car door slam, heard the engine start. Tires squealed, and the car careened away. Becky turned and ran, burst into the sitting room.

Sammie stood between the two beds pale and silent, the phone still in her hand. Becky, with four rounds still in the chamber, checked the suite for a second assailant, though she doubted Falon had a partner. She pulled on a robe over her gown and dropped the gun in her pocket, then sat on the bed holding Sammie, waiting for the police. If they didn?t find Falon and lock him up, if they didn?tkeep him in jail, he?d be back.

Not tonight, but soon.

Maybe her one sure shot had damaged his leg enough so he?d look for a doctor, someone who would treat him without reporting the shooting. She knew he?d keep coming back, harassing them until he had hurt them both or killed them.

Or until she killed Falon.

Could she have wounded him bad enough to make him stay away? When she looked at the threshold, there was blood on the carpet and on the steps. She was sorry she hadn?t killed him and put an end to it. If she had trained more, she might have been more effective in stopping him without harming Sammie. What training she?d had, Morgan had given her long ago. When the war was over and Morgan was home again, neither of them dreamed that her life and Sammie?s might depend on added training. The world seemed at peace then. They were caught up with being a family again, with being together and being happy. She started when a shadow moved through the bushes toward the French door. She rose, her hand in her pocket on the gun, and stood waiting.

?Police,? a man shouted. His back was to the light, he was only a silhouette, she couldn?t see a uniform. At the same moment she heard Anne call from the top of the stairs, then the figure on the terrace moved into clearer view where the sitting room light struck across his badge and sergeant?sstripes. A tall, thin man with sandy hair.

She told him she was armed, slowly drew the gun, opened the action, and laid it on the dresser.?Come in,? she said dryly.

?Sergeant Krangdon,? he said, entering, glancing at the gun. Anne was coming down the carpeted stairs beside a second officer. The two men searched the suite while two more officers searched for Falon outside, their lights moving among the bushes, circling the garden and the neighbors? gardens and then up the hill. The sergeant took samples of blood and photographed bloodstains, out to where Falon?s trail disappeared among the mulch and bushes. Anne didn?t stay downstairs long. Seeing that Becky and Sammie were safe, she went up again, as Sergeant Krangdon asked her to do, to avoid disturbing any evidence. Sammie stood huddled against Becky, cold with the aftermath of fear. But something else shone in Sammie?s eyes. She looked up at Becky with a deep and secret amazement. Becky looked back at her, shaken with what she?d seen.

Earlier, after Falon attacked Becky in the parking lot, Sammie had said,Misto couldn?t help you, Mama, the dark was too strong.

If the cat couldn?t help her then?if therewas a real ghost cat, Becky thought?why had he been powerful enough tonight to attack Falon? To make Falon pause so shecould get in that one telling shot?

Had the difference to do with Sammie? With the fact thatSammie was in danger?

When Sergeant Krangdon returned she watched him unload her gun and bag it for evidence. He didn?t seem concerned that he was leaving her with no protection from Falon. Quietly she answered his questions. Told him how Sammie had awakened screaming, and that she had grabbed the gun from her purse. She showed him where she had stood when she fired. She didn?t tell him who the man was, she didn?t say she knew him, and Sammie remained silent.

?If you could ID him,? Krangdon said, ?if you would file a complaint, you can take him to court, put a restraining order on him.?

?How can I? I don?t know him. I can?t identify a man I?ve never seen before.?

If Falon were caught, if he learned that she had identified him, and if he were then released, as he likely would be, he would come after them with even more vengeance. And what did the police have, to hold him? They had only her word against Falon?s. They couldn?t hold him long on that. She had heard of women attacked, brutally beaten, where the story proliferated, in gossip, even in the papers, that they had led the man on, had enticed him. Maybe the day would come when women were treated more fairly, but it hadn?t arrived yet and she wasn?t taking chances.

Most damning of all, Falon?s testimony had helped convict Morgan. If she identified Falon for the breakin, what would the police or the court say? That she?d filed the complaint to get back at Falon? That she had enticed Falon, had set him up?

She thought of calling Quaker Lowe, but maybe she didn?t want to know what he would advise. If she called Lowe now, in front of the police, they?d know there was more to the story, that this hadn?t been a random breakin. She was courteous to Krangdon, cooperative in every other way. When he?d finished the interview he assigned young Officer Bishopto stay on the premises so that Becky and Sammie might get some sleep. He suggested they get a carpenter to install a metal barrier over the French doors. ?An open grid,? he said, ?that can be locked but will let in air in hot weather. Make sure he installs it so the drapes can be pulled. And,?he said, ?you could put better locks on some of the solid doors, replace the thumb locks with dead bolts.?

When the thin-faced officer had left them, moving out into the yard, Anne came down again and sat on the bed, holding Sammie.?It?s all right. The police are here, it?s all right now.? But Sammie, like Becky, didn?t have much faith in the police, after Rome PD had abandoned Morgan, had done nothing to uncover the real facts of the Rome murder. When Anne had said good night, Becky turned out the lamp and crawled into bed with Sammie. Not until the next morning did she call Quaker Lowe.

When she told him about the breakin and that she had shot Falon, Lowe was quiet, noncommittal. Did he really understand why she had withheld Falon?s name? He said, ?A complaint against Falon might have been useful in getting the appeal. Did you think of that??

?I did. And it might also have gotten me or Sammie killed.? Had she been wrong in not identifying Falon? She didn?t want to cross Lowe, she couldn?t afford to turn him away. She didn?t want to lose the appeal. She ended the phone call feeling alone and uncertain, more frightened and upsetthan she would have thought, at losing Lowe?s sympathy.

18

LEE SAT ON the metal examining table, his shirt off, waiting for Dr. Floyd to come in and poke the cold stethoscope at him. He?d felt rotten this morning, he?d coughed so bad in the cotton mill that the foreman had fired him and sent him straight here to the infirmary. He wasn?t sorry, he should have known when he started that it was a dumb thing to do. But even now, sitting on the table staring at the orderly who stood in the doorway, what Lee was seeing in his mind wasn?t the cotton mill but Sammie Blake and Mae, their mirror images that had stayed with him ever since visiting day. He was fretting, wondering if Mae was still alive somewhere, when Dr. Floyd came in.

The doctor took one look at Lee and shook his head.?You?re pale as a dead flounder.? He pressed the stethoscope against Lee?s chest, listened, moved it again and again, listening. ?You should have known better. The slip from your counselor said you?d wear a mask. Why didn?t you? Even so, it was iffy. What did you think that lint would do to your lungs? You don?t have much room in those air sacs, at best.?

?I didn?t have any choice if I wanted to work.? Lee didn?t mention that he could have asked for kitchen duty. ?I don?t like just sitting around,? he said crossly.

?You?ll be sitting around now. You?re done with the cotton mill, you?re going to sit in the sun and do nothing until you feel better.?

?You ruling out all jobs? What about the kitchen??

Floyd hesitated.?The kitchen would be all right, if you can work around the steam equipment. Steam would be good for you.? The doctor shook his head. ?You?re a stubborn SOB, Fontana. I?ll talk to Bronski about a job.?

Lee pulled on his shirt and slid down from the table.?I didn?t see Karen Turner when I came in.?

That made Floyd laugh.?You?re as bad as the young bucks. I think she?s down in the lab.?

?Guess you were right,? Lee said, ?it?s nice to see a pretty face, gives a guy a lift.?

Heading out, he was halfway along the corridor when he paused beside a closed door, listening. A series of soft thuds, then a muffled cry. He grabbed the knob and flung the door open.

Karen writhed on the floor beside a desk, fighting Coker. He crouched over her, pinning her down with his knee, blood streaking his dark hair. She hit and struck at him, her white uniform open to her waist and bloodstained, her brassiere torn away. Coker had wrapped a telephone cord around her neck and was pressing a prison-made knife to her throat. Lee lunged, brought the toe of his shoe crashing up under Cocker?s arm, lifting the knife away. Coker came up swinging at him. Lee got in a kick to Coker?s groin and dodged, shouting for help. Coker grabbed him, threw him against the desk, and bolted out the door, his eyes cold with hate and with promise.

Lee knelt over Karen, unwinding the cord from her neck. Long red lines circled her throat. Her forehead was already swelling and turning dark; she was bleeding pretty bad, red stains soaking her uniform. Lee propped her up against the side of the desk and ran for the hall, shouting again, but already Dr. Floyd was there, an orderly behind him. They dropped to their knees beside Karen.

?Who was it?? Floyd said, glancing up at Lee. ?Did you see him??

?Coker,? Lee croaked, coughing hard, then he ran, chasing Coker.

By the time he reached the double doors of the dispensary he was gasping for air. He saw Coker between the buildings, making for the mess hall. Lee slowed, moved across the yard taking deep, slow breaths. Why chase him? There was no place Coker could hide for long. When Coker turned and saw him he quickened his pace and headed for the cellblock. Moving fast across the compound, his crew cut dark against the pale buildings, he swung in through the heavy door. Lee ran, pushing into the cellblock behind him.

From the entry he had a full view of the zigzag metal stair leading up. Hamilton, at his desk, saw Lee looking and followed his gaze. Coker was already scrambling onto the third tier. Ahead of Coker on the catwalk, Bronski was coming along, his eyes down on the book open in his hands, reading as he walked slowly toward the stairs. Lee thought Coker meant to play it innocent, to go on casually by Bronski and into his cell, but when Bronski glanced up at him, then looked over the rail toward Lee, Coker froze.

He stared down at Lee and Hamilton watching him, knew he couldn?t go down again, that he was cornered. Swinging around he charged Bronski, his knife flashing. Bronski crouched, dropped his book, grabbed Coker?s arm, diverting the knife inches from his own face. Bronski clutched Coker?s belt and in one move lifted and rolled Coker up over the rail. Coker hung for an instant over open space, then fell, arms flailing, his body twisting down the three tiers. He hit the concrete headfirst with a sound that sickened Lee.

Behind Lee the big doors burst open and armed guards came running. Shaken, Lee headed for the stairs and his cell. They?d be locked down now, until the guards got it sorted out.

He sat on his bunk hoping Karen Turner would be all right, seeing her blood-smeared uniform, the red marks circling her throat. He?d been right in the first place, the authorities were damn fools bringing a woman in here. He heard the guards? shouted orders, heard the prisoners moving in for the lockdown. He didn?t see Karen Turner again.

The prison staff got the action sifted out in a hurry when Karen told them what had happened. Lee heard that she?d left the prison, that she was working in a civilian hospital. A week later, Dr. Floyd was gone, too. Whether he was fired or took an ?early retirement,? as they called it, Lee never knew. And even though he was glad Karen was out of there, he missed that pretty smile. Two days later he wasworking again, this time in the warm, steamy kitchen.

19

ANNE SAT AT the kitchen table sipping coffee.?Did you and Sammie sleep at all?? Becky and Sammie had just come upstairs, Sammie moving to the stove to watch Mariol flip pancakes. Becky poured a cup of coffee and sat down.

?Surprisingly, we did sleep.? She didn?t say they?d slept with a warm cat between them, Sammie?s arms circling that unseen presence who had comforted Becky, too.

?Last night .†.†.? Anne said, ?I wish you?d killed him.? That shocked Becky, coming from her proper aunt.

?I?ve prayed every night,? Anne told her, ?that Brad Falon was dead.? She seemed amused at Becky?s expression. ?He tried to kill you, he?s made nothing but trouble, he?s doing his best to ruin your lives. What good is he, in the world?? This Aunt Anne whom she was seeing now wasfar different, indeed, from the way Becky had always thought of her.

Beside the stove, Sammie turned.?I dreamed he broke in, I dreamed of a hand reaching through.?

Anne nodded.?That dream may have saved your lives.? And, as if half to herself, ?The same .†.†.affliction .†.†. our mother called it, that our aunt Mae endured. She had the dreams, too,? Anne said softly. ?Mother did tell me that, because of my own dreams, but she told me as if they were shameful.Otherwise she seldom talked about family, I know only a smattering of our history. I know that Mae was the youngest of our great-aunt Nell?s five children.

?Nell and her three girls moved to North Carolina after the children?s father died. He left them with very little, they sold their Arizona land for practically nothing, they had nowhere else to go but to her sister there. Mae?s two older brothers had already left home. Later Mae?s sister Nora married and settled in Georgia, our mother Nora.?

Becky laid her hand over Anne?s. ?Do you know where Mae is now??

Anne shook her head.?I don?t. It?s strange, embarrassing sometimes, shameful knowing so little about our family. Most Southern families are steeped in their history, from before the Civil War. But that?s the way we grew up. No discussion, so Caroline or I weren?t really interested. I didn?t realize then the emptiness that left in me, having no real ties to our past.?

Anne sipped her coffee, looked up at Becky.?I had a sense, too, that there might be more in our past even than the dreams, other ?shameful? things that Mama didn?t want to talk about.?

Becky, too, sometimes felt adrift not knowing their family history. Caroline had kept no letters, no pictures, nothing to define the past. She watched Mariol pour a glass of milk for Sammie and set her breakfast on the table. When Sammie slid into her chair, reaching for the syrup, Mariol kissed the top of her head, then turned away to test the skillet and pour more batter. Interesting, Becky thought, how comfortable Mariol seemed with the mention of prophetic dreams. As if she and Anne might have talked openly about Anne?s dreams. Maybe, in Mariol?s family, such talents were not considered strange. Whatever the case, Mariol?s acceptance comforted Becky, made her feel easier.

THREE DAYS AFTER Fred Coker died on the cellblock floor, Coker?s friend Delone cornered Lee between the buildings, flashing a thin, a prison-made knife. Lee had just left the kitchen after his shift and was heading for the automotive shop, when he heard the crunch of gravel behind him. He spun around, saw Delone coming on him fast, a blade shining in his palm.

?You cruddy old bastard, it?s your fault he?s dead.?

Lee wanted to reach for the garrote but something told him no, told him to get away. Puzzled, not used to backing off, he swung in through a side door of the masonry shop, a big, cavernous room. He saw no one, heard no sound. Dodging away among the freestanding practice walls and tall piles of stones and bricks, he lost himself in their shadows. He heard Delone behind him, heard him trip, maybe over a wooden support that steadied the masonry barriers. Dodging toward the back of the building where, Lee knew, another door led out again, he didn?t see above him the yellow shadow slipping across the tops of the stone and block walls, a shadow thin as smoke.

The tomcat could not have materialized if he?d wanted to. He was spent, his attack last night on Falon, as he diverted the intruder to protect Sammie, had left him weak as a new kitten. If this was Satan?s influence, he didn?t like it much. This happened sometimes when he sought to function in both worlds; and he had heard, last night as he dropped into sleep, the cold laughter of the dark prince; he didn?t like that much, either. Now he followed Lee along the tops of the freestanding walls until, at the far corner of the dim room, Lee slipped into darkness between the back door and tall piles of blocks.

Lee tried the door and found it locked. There was no knob to turn, no key in the keyhole. He shouldered uselessly against it, was unable to force it open, and, at the scuff of shoes behind him, swung around, waiting. Stood palming the ball of string, his finger in the loop.

It all happened too fast. A chunk of concrete fell and Delone rushed him, the knife-edged ice pick low and lethal. Lee saw too late there was no room to swing his weapon. He dodged but Delone was on him, the knife flashing as Delone rammed him into the wall. Lee felt the knife go in, low in his side.

Delone jerked the blade free, blood spurted. The weapon flashed again. Lee kicked Delone in the knee and kicked the blade from his hand. The effort doubled Lee over, the cat could feel the pain of his wound as if it were his own. He crouched to leap as Delone closed in, but instinctively backed off when Lee swung the garrote. He watched it circle Delone?s leg. Lee jerked the cord hard, the blades cut through cloth and flesh, Delone stumbled, clutching his torn leg. But when Lee jerked the weapon free again, Delone lunged. Lee dodged and swung higher, the cord whistled, light shattered off its arsenal of blades as it snaked around Delone?s throat. Lee grabbed the heavy nut, yanked the cord hard. Delone fell, clutching his torn throat. The ghost cat crouched lower, his yellow eyes burning, his own fear eased, his sense of Satan?s presence fading.

LEE, WATCHINGDELONE die, knewhe could have been dead in Delone?s place. He worked the garrote loose and backed away from the body. He found the lavatory, untied the nut from the cord, washed it off, and tossed it in the corner. He flushed the bladed cord down the toilet, stringing it out long, hoping it wouldn?t get stuck. He washed the blood off his hands and pressed a wad of paper towels under his shirt against the knife wound. The blade had gone through at an angle, piercing the flesh along his side and maybe cracking a rib; it hurt like hell. He prayed it hadn?t reached anything vital.

He stripped off his shirt and pants, soaked and scrubbed the blood out as best he could and dried them with paper towels. Tearing the towels in pieces, he flushed them down a little at a time. He cleaned his shoes and disposed of those towels the same way. He dressed in his wet clothes, securing the wadded towels under his belt. He scrubbed the floor, using the last of the towels; the pain turned him dizzy when he knelt. He walked out slowly, stopping only once on his way to the cellblock, at the back door of the cotton mill.

He got up to his cell all right, keeping his arm over his side against the bleeding. He pushed inside, chilled not only with the pain but with fear. This could blow his release, could put him in prison for the rest of his life. He?d snuffed a few men in his time, every one of them trying to kill him. He?d been lucky so far. This time maybe his luck had run out?

Lying on his bunk keeping pressure against the wound, he must have dozed some. He heard the Klaxon for supper, he?d have to skip that meal. He rose from his cot meaning to clean the wound better. He was standing at the small steel basin, his back to the bars, his shirt open, washing the jagged knife hole with soap and water, when he heard a thump behind him. Turning, he saw no one. On the floor inside the bars lay a little rag bundle.

He retrieved it fast, going sick with pain when he bent over. Inside were adhesive bandages, gauze pads, iodine, and ten aspirin tablets wrapped in a tissue. Thanks, Gimpy. Gimpy hadn?t batted an eye when Lee told him his needs. Lee swallowed three aspirin and, his back to the bars again, smeared on the iodine, working it in deep, clenching his jaw against the pain. He bandaged the wound, listening for the guard?s footsteps on the catwalk. He tore the bloody paper towels intosmall pieces and flushed them. He changed to his other shirt, pulling on the thick, prison-issue T-shirt under it. He hung the wet shirt on the hook to dry, and why would the guard ask questions? He often came in from the kitchen splashed with dishwater. When he stretched out again on his bunk hefelt the cat land on the bed.

?Does it bother you,? Misto said softly, ?that you killed him??

?He tried to kill me,? Lee said gruffly.

?Does it bother you??

?Maybe,? Lee growled. ?What difference? If I hadn?t done him, I?d be dead.?

Misto lashed his tail against the blanket. Lee felt him curl up as if prepared for sleep. Maybe Lee slept, too, he wasn?t sure. The wail of a Klaxon brought them both up rigid, the cat standing hard and alert beside Lee. The body had been found. The cellblocks would be locked down, double security set in place. Fear chilled him at thoughts of the search. Before the guards reached his cell he rose, took three moreaspirin, and lay down again, listening to the clang of barred doors as the search began.

WHEN THE PRISON team reached Lee?s cell, he stood in the middle of the small space, sucking in his gut when the guard patted him down. He willed the man not to feel the bandage under the heavy T-shirt. The guard jerked off his bedcovers, flipped and examined his mattress, inspected his damp shoes and wet shirt. ?You fall in thedishwater, Fontana??

?The guy works beside me,? Lee said, ?sloppy as hell.? He waited, hiding his nervousness until the man finished his nosy prying and left, giving Lee a last appraising look. Alone again, Lee crawled back under the covers. That was when the devil returned, descending as if Delone?s death had kept him near. Again the cat stiffened, the air grew icy, and Lucifer?s grainy voice struck through Lee.

?That guard,? Satan said, ?hecould have made you strip down, Fontana. He would have if I?d nudged him a little. Or,? the devil said, ?think of this. When you killed Delone, Icould have led a guard in there at that moment, led him into the masonry room to find you standing over the body.

?I took pity on you, Fontana. Now, you can return the courtesy.?

?Go to hell.?

?I have a mission for you.?

?I don?t want to hear it. Get someone else for your lackey.? Lee rolled over, turning his back, gritting his teeth against the pain.

The wraith shifted again so it faced Lee.?I want you to gain Morgan Blake?s full confidence, I want him to completely depend on you.?

Lee stared at the heavy shadow.?What do you want with Blake??

?I want him to trust you in all matters, to follow you unquestioningly. In return, I will let up on you, Fontana. I will make your life easier. Blake is already your friend, you are special to him because of his child. Now he must seek your wisdom in whatever he undertakes. It should be easy enough to manipulate him in this way.?

?Why? What do you mean to do??

?Blake thinks you can help him, Fontana. And you can help. When you do so, my pressure on you will ease. The wound will heal, the pain will be gone. So easy to do, to gain Blake?s absolute confidence no matter what you might ask him to do .†.†. A fine bargain,? the devil said. ?Think about it, Fontana .†.†.? And the voice faded, the shadow faded, the dark wraith was gone. Lee was left only with questions.

IN THE NEXT days, as prison authorities investigated Delone?s murder, Lee?s wound continued to throb; everything he did, even eating a meal, left him chilled and weak. He didn?t change his work routine, he took painkillers, went to the kitchen as usual and pulled his shift. The pain came bad when he carried the heavy trays. The third afternoon near the end of shift, as he hoisted a stack of trays, cold sweat beaded his face, and he saw Bronski watching him. Bronski stepped over and took the trays from him. ?Go sit on the steps, Fontana. I?ll take care of these.? It was the only indication he ever had that Bronski knew how Delone died.

By the time security dropped back to normal, Lee?s wound had begun to heal. Gimpy passed by the back door of the kitchen twice, slipping Lee more aspirin, iodine, some sulfa powder, and fresh bandages, turning away quickly as Lee slipped the package under his shirt. Lee and Gimpy went back a long way, and Lee was mighty thankful for his friendship. He had no idea that, within only a few days, he would abandon Gimpy, that the Atlanta pen would be the last time he would ever see the old safecracker.

20

LEE HAD STARTED down toward the big yard, meaning to sit quietly in the thin morning sun and try to ease his hurting side, when he saw something that stirred a shock of challenge?but sent a jolt of fear through him, too. He was heading down the hillside steps when he noticed something different about the thirty-foot wall towering over him. The way the sunlight fell, he glimpsed a hint of shadow running up the concrete, the faintest blemish. Not a cloud shadow, it was toothin and straight. Some imperfection in the wall? He paused to look, leaning casually on the metal rail.

In the yard below, half a dozen younger inmates were jogging the track. Two men were playing handball against the wall itself, and beyond them three convicts were throwing a baseball, the figures dwarfed by the giant wall. He looked carefully at the thin line but when he started down the stairs for a closer view it disappeared, was lost in the way the light fell.

He moved on down, trying to recapture the shadow, but not until he reached the lowest step did he see it again. A thin vertical line running from the ground straight up thirty feet to the top. When Lee moved, the line disappeared. He moved back a step, and there it was. He propped his foot on the lower rail, looking. It must be an interlocking joint, though he couldn?t find another like it. This was the only flaw he could see along the bare expanse between the near tower and the distant one, away at the far corner. Could this be a defect when the forms were up? So faint a blemish that when the forms were removed it was missed, had been left uncorrected with no last-minute touch of the trowel to smooth it away? His gaze was over halfway up, following the line, when he saw something else.

Some six inches on either side of the line he could see a small round indentation, the faintest dimple picked out by the slanting sun. Following the line itself, he found two more dots, and two above those, blemishes so indistinct that his slightest move made them vanish.

He noted where the line struck at the base of the wall in relation to the curve of the jogging track. Taking his time, he moved on down the stairs, across the yard and the jogging track. He sat down against the wall just at the joint, casually watching the joggers and ballplayers. No one paid him any attention. When he ran his hand behind him he could feel the joint. When he felt up and down, he found the lowest small dimple. He scraped it with his thumb, then pressed it hard and felt the heavy paint break away. He pushed his finger into the hole. A snug fit, but so deep he couldn?t touch the end.

If all the dimples were this deep, a man had only to figure out how to use them. He found the chip that had fallen behind him, and took a good look. Layer after layer of dried paint hinted at the venerable age of the wall. He visualized it being built. First, a metal interstructure, then the plywood or metal forms both inside and out to receive the wet cement. The line had to be a joint between two sheets of the form. The forms themselves, angled in from the thicker base, would have had supports to keep the cement from collapsing as it dried.

There had to be other lines and other groups of holes. Or did there? Maybe the other holeshad all been carefully filled, the lines smoothed away and plastered over. How could this one joint have been overlooked? Maybe this was where two workers met at quitting time? Maybe they had applied one coat of spackle, and the next day they moved on, forgetting to finish this joint? Soon it was painted over by other, uncaring workmen? Leaning back against the wall, he looked up its great height to where it rounded at the top.

If a fellow were to push an iron bar into each hole, he could climb this baby, easy as going up spikes in a telephone pole.

Except, the guards in the tower would pick you off like a cockroach on a barn door.

But when he looked up toward the tower, he couldn?t see the windows that circled it, not from where he was sitting. He could see just a little of the room?s base flaring out atop the wall. Frowning, he glanced toward the farther tower down at the end but couldn?t see any more of that one. If he couldn?t see the windows, the guards inside couldn?t see him, unless they leaned dangerously far out.

Maybe they wouldn?t see a climber scaling the wall until he got near the top, and that thought ripped a thrill of challenge through Lee.

When he looked down the full stretch of the wall, sighting in both directions, he could see that it bowed in. The forms had been bowed here, something had gone badly awry. Either no one noticed or no one wanted to take responsibility. No one had wanted to tear out the forms or maybe tear out part of the wall itself and rebuild it. Maybe some foreman thought no one would ever notice, and that it wouldn?t matter anyway. Once the cement was dry and painted over, why would such a tiny flaw matter? Excitement made his hands tremble. Had he stumbled on something that maybe no one else in this entire prison knew or didn?t think important? Sitting there against the wall, Lee had to smile.

You wouldn?t need a bar at each hole. All you needed was three short iron rods to push in and out. One to hold on to, one to stand on, the third to set for the next step. Lean down, pull the lower pin, insert it over the handhold pin. Step higher, pull out the bottom pin, and replace it in the hole above you. At the top where the guards could see you, you?d have to be quick. You?d leave the last pin in, hook the looped end of a rope over it, and slide down the outside. Slide to freedom.

Lee?s own time was so short that he had no need to escape. But Blake, if his appeal was denied, could be looking at the rest of his life in this trap.

If Blake was to get out of here, if he and Blake together left this joint and could find Brad Falon and get new evidence, maybe make Falon tell where he?d hidden the bank money, Blake would have a chance. The chance he?d never had when, before he knew there?dbeen a bank robbery, before he knew anything about the crime, he was handcuffed and hauled off to jail.

If they could get out of there, get their hands on Falon, make him tell where he hid the money .†.†. Maybe it was still in the canvas bank bags where the tellers had stuffed it, bags like the one Falon had planted in Morgan?s car. That was the evidence Morgan needed. Those bank bags, most of them, were edged with leather around the top and had leather handles, and leather should retain fingerprints. If the cops got lucky and found Falon?s prints, that was all Becky?s lawyer would need. He could get a warrant based on new evidence, and the DA would have to indict Falon. There would be a new trial and, if it was a fair trial this time, Blake would be on his way to freedom.

Leaning back against the cool concrete, Lee wondered. Had he stumbled on this by accident? Or had he been led, could this discovery be Satan?s trap? Had he been enticed into this view of the wall? Was he being teased to make an aborted try that could leave them both locked up for the rest of their lives or get them shot and killed?

Picking up a handful of dirt, he crammed it in the hole in the wall and smeared it across the concrete, then he rose and left the big yard. Crossing toward the cellblock he told himself he wasn?t going to think about this, that the idea would never work. That he wasn?t going to screw up his release and mess up what chance Morgan might have for an appeal, he wasn?t going to blow Morgan?s possible new trial all to hell.

But in the next few days it wasn?t easy to leave the idea alone. He thought about the wall at night when he woke with his side hurting. Thought about it when he woke in the morning and all during his shift in the kitchen, thought hard about it when a train rumbled screaming by headed across the country. Thought about it until hewished he?d never seen the damned flaw.

21

TWO DAYS AFTER Becky shot Brad Falon, she and Sammie headed for Rome just for supper and to stay overnight. Despite Anne?s and Mariol?s support she needed to be with her mother, and Sammie needed her grandmother, they needed Caroline to talk with and to soothe them both. She watched the streets as they left Morningside but was sure that no black car followed them. She wondered if Falon might have made it back toRome, to Natalie or to his long-suffering and usually ignored mother. She hoped he was holed up somewhere in Atlanta hurting bad from the wound she?d inflicted. They left directly after work, Becky swinging by Anne?s to pick up Sammie and tuck their overnight bag in the car. The traffic wasn?t heavy once they were out of the business and residential areas and on the two-lane highway heading north. Before they pulled away from the house she had slipped her new revolver from under the seat and belted it to her waist.

The day after the police took her gun for evidence she?d driven out to a gun shop on Decatur Road and bought a .32-caliber snub-nosed revolver and a holster, a gun small enough to wear under her suit jacket or under a two-piece dress. Such a move might seem silly, and even the .32 felt unnatural against her side, but it might save their lives. She?dgiven Sammie strict instructions about not handling the gun, and they had gone over the rules carefully. Becky had also shown her how the revolver worked, in order to fully understand the principles of safety. Maybe she was foolish to be driving to Rome when she didn?t know where Falon was. Maybe he?d found a doctor who wouldn?t report the wound, maybe he?d been properly treated and was up and moving again. She?d read that some psychopathic personalities could ignore a lot of pain. As they moved north between vegetable plots and chicken farms she was sharply aware of any car parked on a side road, as well as those few approaching from behind. Sammie wanted to know when she could start school, she talked about the hamsters they?d had in her classroom in Rome, the playhouse they?d built from cardboard cartons, about the colored Georgia map on the wall and the stories theirteacher had read to them. Sammie didn?t mention Falon?s attack; she sat close to Becky, a favorite book in her lap, was soon buried in the story. Only when she?d turned the last page did she look up, her words startling Becky.

?Are you going to tell Daddy you shot Falon??

?No, I?m not. Daddy has enough on his mind.? Becky pulled Sammie closer, hugging her. ?We don?t need to worry him. I hope, after I shot Falon, he?ll stay away from us.? She looked down at Sammie. ?We?ll be watchful, though?? Sammie nodded. Becky knew the ugliness mustn?t be buried, that they must talk about it. If they shared their fear, discussed what to do about it, tried to understand it, she thought Sammie could deal with it better. They were perhaps an hour north of Atlanta on the narrow, deserted two-lane when she saw a car pulling up fast behind them.

She thought it would pass them quickly, a black car, sleek and low, but there were plenty of black cars in the world. Probably some local farmer who had turned out of his gate behind them. Though few locals drove so fast, knowing there might be loose livestock or a dog on the road. This was all open country, pastures and woods separating the scattered farms. They were east of Kingston, had already left the larger town of Cartersville behind. They would not pass through Kingston, only near it, and then there were no more towns until Rome. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, she eased her jacket open to better reach the revolver.

But when the car drew close she saw that it wasn?t black at all, it was dark blue, and was pulling a small trailer. It passed them, a low, dark blue sedan driven by a white-haired woman, pulling a slat-sided trailer with a big yearling calf inside. Becky felt silly, as if she were too wildly dramatic. Falon was probably miles away, laid up fromher gunshot. The next car that approached gained on her quickly, speeding up behind her. She slowed to let it pass, watching in her rearview mirror the lone driver?then staring at him, at the silhouette of his thin head and puffed hair, backlit behind the car?s windshield. As he drew up on hertail, her rearview mirror reflected back to her Falon?s thin, pinched face.

They were nearly ten miles from Rome, there would be no more gas stations, no towns before Rome, only small homeplaces that didn?t have police but depended on the county sheriff, who might be miles away. She scanned the passing farms, praying to see a sheriff?s car parked in one of the yards and wishing she had a more formidable weapon than the small revolver. When Sammie started to turn in the seat, to look back, Beckystopped her. ?Don?t, honey, don?t turn. Don?t let him know you see him.?

Sammie sat very still, looking straight ahead. They were coming to a narrow bridge across a creek that fed the Etowah River. When, starting across, Becky gunned the car, Falon sped up beside her, crowding her against the rail. She floored it, burning rubber. He slammed against her so hard she skidded and careened, thought she?d go through the flimsy rail. She slammed on her brakes, grabbed Sammie to keep her from going into the dashboard. They were in the middle of the bridge, her fender crumpled against the rail. She spun the wheel, jammed the gas pedal to the floor, and swerved out. Their fenders caught, metal screaming against metal. She leaned on the gas; it took everything her car had to jerk free, bent metal squealing as she surged ahead. She was past him for only an instant, enough to careen off the bridge onto the rough road, and now his car was even with her again. She unholstered and cocked the .32, laid it on the edge of the open window. She fired, hardly taking her eyes from the road.

?Get that box in my purse. The bullets.? She fired again, and a third time as Sammie scrambled to find the box. She wondered if she could reload while driving. But suddenly Falon?s car slowed and fell behind. Had she hit him? Or he was only afraid she would? Wishing she?d killed him this time, she jammed her foot to the floor, took a curve on squealing tires, and headed fast for Rome.

22

THEY PULLED INTO Rome still shaken, Becky still watching behind her though she?d seen no more of Falon?s car. Easing along the familiar streets beneath the bright maples, their red leaves half fallen, past the familiar houses where she had played when she was small, she began to relax. The cold sky was silvering toward darkness, the shadows beneath the wide oaks pooling into night, the lighted windows beckoning. She didn?t head for their own empty house but made straight for Caroline?s. Pulling into the drive behind the bakery van, she gathered Sammie up as if she was still a small child, not a gangling nine-year-old, and hurried inside.

A fire burned on the hearth, in the big living room. Only when they were safe in Caroline?s arms did Becky feel her pounding heart slow. Caroline held them quietly, seeing how upset they were. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, her jeans old and faded, her apron a colorful patchwork. They stood for a long time holding each other, then moved into the big kitchen, the bright room warm from the ovens and filled with the scents of cinnamon and chocolate. The timers ticked away in a rhythm that was part of Becky?s childhood. The bakery racks were filled with trays of brownies and cinnamon rolls, with lemon cakes and sweet potato pies. The aura of home, the rich patterns and scents of Caroline?s kitchen seemed, for a moment, to wipe Brad Falon from their lives.

Becky hadn?t stopped at the police station to file a report that Falon had tried to run her off the road and that she had shot at him. What good? Why face more of their disdain, their chill disbelief?

Not since Morgan was first arrested had she come to terms with the change in the officers of Rome PD, these men who had been his lifelong friends, with their cold disregard for Morgan?s own version of what had happened to him the day of the robbery. All the time Morgan was in the Rome jail, and all through the trial, she couldn?t believe the hard, judgmental testimony from those officers, from the men Morgan had trusted.

Granted, evidence of the robbery had been found in Morgan?s car, the empty canvas bank bag with blood on it, the scattered hundred-dollar bills. But never once did a police witness suggest that those items could have been planted. These were men they had played with as children, men whose weddings they had attended, who went to the same church, the samepicnics and celebrations. Even Morgan?s own attorney, the lawyer Becky had picked herself only to regret it later, had done little to help him; everyone in town, it seemed, had thought him guilty.

Now, sitting at the bakery table as Caroline warmed up homemade soup and made sandwiches, Becky described Falon?s midnight breakin, the shooting and his escape. She described how, this evening on the deserted road, he had forced them against the bridge rail. ?Trying to drive and fire, I most likely missed him,? she said regretfully. ?But your poor car, Mama .†.†. You don?t want to look at your car.?

?It?s only a car, Becky. You can leave it for Albert to work on,? Caroline said, setting supper on the table. ?You can take your own car now, he already knows how to find you. Did you stop by the station to report Falon??

Becky shook her head. Caroline rose, turned to her planning desk, and picked up the phone.

?Don?t, Mama. Don?t call the police. What good will it do??

Caroline turned to look at her.?You can?tnot call them. This is evidence against Falon. As is the breakin at Anne?s,? she said, starting to dial.

?Please, Mama. I didn?t identify him for the breakin, either.? She let her glance linger on Sammie. Caroline nodded but went right on, identifying herself, making the verbal report and discussing a written report. When she hung up, she was smiling. Becky was rigid with anger.

?The desk sergeant said they?d send someone out.? She rose and moved to the table. ?Becky, they?ve already talked with the Atlanta police. Sergeant Trevis is coming, let?s have supper before he gets here.?

Becky looked at her, puzzled.?They know about the breakin at Anne?s? But why .†.†. ?? She picked up half a sandwich. She didn?t feel like eating, but then found herself wolfing the lean roast beef and good homemade bread. ?Atlanta PD knows I live in Rome, it?s on my driver?s license. But why would theycall Rome?? She looked at Caroline. ?To see if Rome knows me? To get a character witness?? she asked angrily.

?Falon lives in Rome,? Caroline said. ?Did Atlanta take fingerprints? Maybe they?ve identified him from those. Maybe they?re interested, for some reason, even if you didn?t file a report.?

It was full dark when they?d finished supper and moved in by the fire to wait for Sergeant Trevis. As Caroline pulled the draperies to shut out prying eyes, Sammie leaned, yawning, against her grandmother. Caroline led her to the window seat, settled her among the cushions, and pulled a warm throw over her. Becky, watchingthem, was filled with nostalgia for when she was small and was sick. Caroline had tucked the same plaid blanket around her, warm and safe. Within minutes, Sammie was asleep. Becky and Caroline stood looking down at her until they heard a car pull up the drive, heard the static of the police radio.

Answering the door, Caroline led Sergeant Trevis through to the kitchen, where they wouldn?t wake Sammie. She set a cup of coffee and a plate of brownies on the table before him, and coffee for her and Becky. Trevis took off his cap, laid it on the table beside his field book. The tall, lean officer had just had a haircut, leaving a pale line against his fading tan.

Becky described Falon?s attack on the bridge and, at Caroline?s insistent look, she told Trevis about the breakin, and that Falon had attacked her earlier behind the drugstore.

?You filed reports in both cases? And identified Falon?? Trevis looked doubtful. He knew she hadn?t given Falon?s name, the department had already talked with Atlanta.

?I filed a report only for the breakin. I said I didn?t know who the man was,? Becky told him.

?Why?? Trevis asked.

?I was afraid. That when they released him, if he knew I?d given his name, he?d be all the more dangerous.?

?Is that the only reason??

?I was afraid for Sammie.? Trevis?s look puzzled her. ?What else would there be??

?There?s nothing between you and Falon??

She stared at Trevis.

?I didn?t tell her,? Caroline said. ?She hasn?t heard the gossip.?

Becky looked from her mother to Trevis.?What gossip??

?There?s a story around town,? Trevis said, ?that you?re seeing Falon. That you and Falon planned the bank robbery, that the two of you set Morgan up, wanted him sent to prison, to get rid of him. Some folks say you?re living with Falon, in Atlanta.?

She looked at him in silence. Her closest friends couldn?t think this. She found it hard to believe that Morgan?s automotive customers, or even the bookkeeping clients who had let her go, would believe it, and certainly not the members of their church.

Yet nearly the whole town seemed to have bought into what the jury believed, to the lies, under oath, on the witness stand. So why wouldn?t they believe this??Does everyone think that?? she said softly

?Where are you living?? Trevis said.

?With my aunt, Mama?s sister. But if you talked with the Atlanta police, you already know that. How long .†.†.? she said, ?how long have people been saying this??

?Not everyone?? Trevis began.

?How long??

?The stories began shortly after the trial.?

She looked at her mother.?Why didn?t you tell me? Is this part of why I lost my accounts, not just Morgan going to prison, but these lies?? She didn?t know much about the rest of the world, but gossip, in a small Southern town, was a cherished commodity, a traditional and beloved pastime.

?For a long time,? Caroline said, ?I didn?t hear the stories, no one said anything to me. I suppose they knew I?d be furious. No one treated me any differently, except maybe for a look or two, as if some people felt sorry for me. I didn?t hear this story until you?d moved to Atlanta.? She put her hand over Becky?s. ?When you had so many other troubles, I couldn?t add one more ugliness, there seemed no point in it.?

Across the table, Sergeant Trevis busied himself with his coffee and brownie. Becky said,?The police, all of you, believed Morgan was guilty. So when you heard this, you believed that, too.?

?We didn?t believe Morgan was guilty,? Trevis said.

?You acted like you did. You were terrible to him.?

?We are not supposed to voice judgment.?

?Youshowed judgment,? she snapped. ?You?re supposed to be fair. The way you treated Morgan, the way you acted, you believed he was guilty from the minute you hauled him out of the car that morning, after he?d been drugged. You thought he was drunk when you know he doesn?t drink. You thought he killed the guard and robbed the bank. Afterward, when Morgan was in jail and Falon broke into my house, the officer who came was unforgivably rude.?

?Sometimes,? Trevis said, ?when we have to keep a professional distance, we seem?gruff, I guess.?

She just looked at him.

?Some of us were wrong,? Trevis said. ?Becky, we want Morgan to get an appeal.? He looked at her evenly. ?To be truthful, I don?t know what made us so surly. We were all caught up in something, some violent feeling that I can?t explain, that was not professional.? Trevis?s face colored. ?Like a bunch of little boys torturing a hurt animal. You?re right, we weren?t fair to Morgan.

?Not until after the trial was over,? he said, ?after Morgan was down in Atlanta, did we seem to come to our senses, realize how ugly we?d been, how grossly we let him down. Becky, I don?t believe the story about you and Falon. I went to school with Falon, I know what he?s like.? He was quiet, then, ?I do have some good news.? Trevis grinned, his tall frame easing back in his chair. ?There?s a warrant out for Falon.?

?What, for the breakin? Not for the bank robbery??

?No. He?s wanted in California. The warrant came in this morning. That?s why I got over here so fast. Seems he was involved in a series of real estate scams out there, and fraud by wire. The bureau traced him from California to Chattanooga, to some large bank accounts there under fictitious names, and then traced him here.?

?Then when you find him, he?ll be in jail? He?ll be locked up where he can?t reach us??

?If you didn?t kill him, on the bridge,? Trevis said with the hint of a smile. ?If we can find him, he?ll be transported by the U.S. marshal?s office to California, he?ll be held in jail there to await arraignment and trial.?

She wanted to hug Trevis. She couldn?t stop smiling.

?The U.S. attorney in L.A. seems hot to move on him,? Trevis said. ?There were five men involved. The other four have been indicted. With any luck, Falon should be in federal court in L.A. fairly soon.?

?And if he?s convicted?? Becky said. ?Oh, he won?t be sent back here, to prison in Atlanta??He won?t be imprisoned with Morgan, she thought,where Falon would hurt or kill him.

?If he?s convicted in California, there?s no reason to return him to Georgia. Terminal Island, maybe, that?s the closest to L.A. where he?d be tried.?

?How long would he be there? How long would he get??

?On those charges, the maximum might be thirty years, the minimum maybe twenty. With parole and good time, maybe half that.?

?Ten years at least,? she said softly. ?Ten years, free of Falon.?

?If he comes out on parole,? Trevis said, ?and is caught doing anything out of line, he?ll be revoked and sent back.? He swallowed the last of his coffee. ?If you file a complaint now and amend the complaint you filed with Atlanta, give them his name, then the probation department will have that information. That means, if he comes out on parole they?ll do their best to keep him away from you. Have you heard anything on the appeal? Quaker Lowe has been up from Atlanta several times, reading the reports, talking with the witnesses.?

?He?s working hard on it, Trevis.?

Trevis rose.?He?s a good man, good reputation.? He came around the table and hugged Becky. That startled her. His closeness was caring and honest, this was the Trevis she knew. In that moment, she felt as soothed as Sammie must have felt when Grandma wrapped the plaid blanket around her.

23

IN THE NIGHT-DIM cellblock, rain beat down on the high clerestory windows, sloughing across their steel mesh. Lightning flashed, bleaching the cells below as pale as bone. Lee paced his own small cubicle fighting the ache in his side. It had eased off some, until a bout of coughing brought the pain stabbing sharp again. Pain and the cold had kept him up most of the night. He thought Georgia was supposed to be hot and humid. He?d asked the guard twice for another blanket. At last, on his third round, the man had brought it, grumbling as he shoved it through the bars.

Back in his bunk, rolled up in the extra warmth, Lee tried to sleep, the thick scratchy wool pulled tight around him. He badly wanted a hot cup of coffee. He tossed restlessly until daylight crept gray and tentative across the high glass, until he heard the guard?s footsteps again, then the harsh clang of the lever as the overhead bars were withdrawn and the cells unlocked. Lee stood for the count, washed and dressed, pulled on his coat, and moved out to the catwalk. Men crowded him, hurrying him along, surging down the metal stairs and outside into the rain, double-timing to the mess hall hungering for coffee.

In the mess hall he poured two cups from the coffeepot and headed for a small, empty table. He sat with his back to the wall shivering. Rain poured against the glass, its cold breath biting to the bone. Not until the hot brew had warmed him did he get in line, pick up a tray of scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast, and two more coffees, and return to the table. By the time he finished eating, the worst of the storm had passed. He was on second shift for the kitchen, hours away yet; leaving the mess hall, he headed back for his cell. There were advantages to his illness, that he could rest when he pleased. The rain had stopped but wind whipped water from the eaves down across the walk, wetting Lee?s pant legs. A lone slit of sun slanted down between the heavy clouds, reflecting up from the puddles. Ahead on the walk a flock of cowbirds was splashing, drinking, screeching to wake the dead. They went quiet at his approach, then exploded into the sky and were gone; and a figure was walking beside him. Appearing out of nowhere, a tall man in prison blues, an inmate he had never seen. When Lee looked square at him his bony face seemed to shift and change, Lee couldn?t look for long into those hollow eyes.

Where the man stepped through deep puddles the water didn?t move, no ripple stirred. A flock of sparrows soared in on a gust of wind, paused in the sky hovering, then fell dead on the rain-slick walk. When Lee didn?t alter his stride or look at the wraith again the dark presence grabbed his hand, its fingers cold as death, making Lee jerk away. ?Leaveme alone. Back off and leave me alone.?

?I can offer you one more opportunity, Fontana. One you?d be a fool to refuse.?

?I haven?t done what you wanted yet. And I?m not doing it now.? He headed for the cellblock, shivering. The dark one kept pace with him.

?If the authorities find the post office money, Lee, find any track leading to where it?s buried?perhaps with a little help?they?ll have all the evidence they need. They?ll lift fingerprints you only thought you destroyed. You?ll be in prison until you die. Unless,? he said, ?you are willing to strike this one bargain.? The wraith looked at him so intently that Lee had to look back. One instant and he turned away again, colder than before.

?One small favor, Fontana, and it is not a difficult task. You will gain much, when your dream of Mexico is fulfilled.?

Lee kept walking.

?You are seventy-two years old. You are sick. If I choose, I can cure the emphysema. I can make your lungs whole again, make you strong again. You will breathe as easily as a young man. I can give you new life, Lee, many more years of healthy, vigorous life, a whole new beginning.?

?I?d pay hard for anythingyou offered.?

?You would pay nothing, you would acquire the ultimate prize. Not only renewed health in this life, but a new life when this one ends, a new and unblemished future designed to your own choosing. A new life where you?ll be anything you want to be. Meantime, you finish out this life in perfect health and comfort. All you need to do is help Morgan Blake.?

The tall figure warped and shifted so darkness drifted through him, then he was whole again.?If you agree to help Blake, I will see that you escape from here undetected, free and unharmed.?

Lee was silent as they passed other prisoners, though none took any notice, he didn?t think they saw or heard his companion.

?Without my help, your lungs will quickly grow worse. The short time you have left will be even more miserable. When you can hardly breathe at all, panic will entrap you. You will slowly strangle to death, choked by the emphysema. Wouldn?t you prefer perfect health and a long life? Wouldn?t you prefer to escape this concrete trap and enjoy the benefits I promise??

Coughing hard, Lee clutched at the wound in his side.?There?s no way out of this cage. Even if there were, why would you want to help Blake??

?I will help get Blake out of here, help him find Brad Falon, help him force Falon to confess. That is exactly what you are planning, so, you see, I simply want to assist in your venture.?

Morgan?s escape was what he?d planned, ever since Becky came to visiting day so excited she could hardly get it out fast enough, that there was a warrant for Falon. That as soon as Falon was found he?d be shipped off to L.A. for arraignment and trial, with a good chance he?d go to prison out there.

IN THE VISITING room, Becky had spoken in heated whispers, sitting in the far corner on an isolated couch close between Morgan and Lee. She hadn?t brought Sammie; she said Anne had taken the child to a movie. This was a different kind of visit, she was all business, was strung tight with her news and seemed to want no distraction.

But still she?d left a lot unsaid, questions to which Lee still wanted answers. Who had shot Falon? She said she didn?t know but Lee thought she did know. Maybe, if Becky had shot him herself, she didn?t want to upset Morgan? Maybe that was why she hadn?t brought Sammie, because Sammie would say too much?

But Lee sensed, as well, something more left unrevealed. The way Becky looked at him puzzled and embarrassed him; she was holding something back. Yet how could it affect him, when he hardly knew her? Whatever it was, it left him with questions that, he thought, he might not want to ask.

Morgan had sat stone-faced, saying nothing. Lee hadn?t been able to tell what either one was thinking. But questions or not, with a warrant out for Falon, Lee?s plan had begun to take shape. If Falon was arrested, was out on the West Coast?if Lee and Morgancould get to him, could break out of prison, hightail it out there, get themselves arrestedand locked in the same institution, they?d have Falon where he couldn?t escape. Could force a confession from him, make him reveal where the bank money was hidden. Once the money was found, and maybe the murder weapon, Morgan should have more than enough to clear him.

A lot of ifs and maybes, Lee thought. But that was what life was made of.

But it was not the devil?s plan that they force information from Falon. Now, standing there on the wet walkway, the wraith kept pressing at Lee. ?Once you?ve broken out of here, Fontana, and Blake thinks you?re helping him, you will be in a position to crush him. You will raise his hopes high. Then you will destroy him.?

Lee glanced along the walks again, and now they were alone.

?With my help,? Lucifer said, ?you will arrange that Blake kills Falon. That a number of reliable witnesses are present, and that Blake is arrested. The prosecuting attorney will easily prove that Blake broke out of prison with the intention of killing Falon. This,? Satan said, smiling, ?will put an end to Morgan?s bid for an appeal. When he attacks Falon, he destroys whatever chance he might have had.?

?Why would you want him to kill Falon? Falon?s one of yours.?

?Falon has been useful. Now, when all is finished, he will join my ranks. He will work the game from the other side, and that should please him.?

?And when Blake goes down, I would be arrested as his accomplice.?

?Oh, no,? the devil said. ?I will see that you conveniently vanish, into any kind of life you choose. Healthy again, with wealth, with bawdy women, the finest horses, gold, whatever is your pleasure.?

?If Morgan and I got out of here, if that was even possible?and if I didn?t double-cross him, if I continued to help him and kept him out of trouble, what would you do then??

?I would destroy you both.?

?You haven?t destroyed me so far. What makes you think you can take down Blake, either? The truth is,? Lee said, ?you?re more bluff than substance.?

Though, in fact, he knew better. He knew too well how Lucifer could twist human thought. If he and Morgan did escape, it might be more than they could do to fight off whatever influence Satan brought to bear. It might be more than they could handle, not to follow the dark?s lead.

?Once I?ve helped you escape,if you are capable of that feat, and if then you tried to double-cross me and save Blake, tried to make Falon reveal the evidence, it will be easy enough to twist your plan to my own design.?

?If you?re that powerful, you don?t need my help to destroy Blake.?

?I need you to encourage Blake. He is?not an easy subject,? said the dark spirit. ?Too religious, for one thing, and what a waste that is. It is you who must show him the broader way, who must lay out the plan. But first, you must inflame his desire to break out. Blake would never have the courage on his own.?

Lee looked hard at him.?Why Blake? What the hell do youhave against Blake??

The devil didn?t answer. The tall inmate grew indistinct, blending into the building behind him, and he vanished on the rain-sodden wind. It was in that moment that Lee thought about Becky, about her secrecy in the visiting room and her shuttered looks, and he wondered what had made him think of that.

24

BECKY WOKE TO rain pounding at the windows, and to a residue of fear. In the night she had experienced again Falon?s car careening at hers, had fought the wheel again to avoid going off the bridge. Now, waking fully, she lay listening to the comforting clatter from the kitchen, smelling the aromas of baking bread and pies and, this morning, the scent of bacon as Caroline made their breakfast. Rising, she showered and dressed quickly, then woke Sammie, watched as Sammie sleepily pulled her on clothes and ran a brush through her hair.

In the big kitchen Caroline and her assistant, redheaded Nettie Parks, were lifting pecan pies and fresh bread from the two big ovens. Nettie was a neighbor, a widow whose five children had left the nest. She liked getting up early, she liked the extra money, and most of all, she and Caroline enjoyed working together. Nettie was among the few who had stood by them during the trial. Nettie set their breakfast on a corner of the long, crowded table and hugged Becky.?I hope Brad Falon burns in hell.?

That made Becky smile. Sitting down, she cupped her hands around the warm coffee cup while listening to the rain, watched her mother turn out muffins from their tins and ease them into the familiar bakery boxes stampedCAROLINE?S. They ate quickly this morning and didn?t linger; it would take a while at the police station to file the complaints and go over the details of Falon?s attacks. Their overnight stay with Caroline was too short, but they?d had a cozy visit after Sergeant Trevis left.

She had called Quaker Lowe last night, too, on the after-hours number he?d given her. He said, ?I tried to call you, at your aunt?s, Becky. Good news! There?s a warrant out for Falon, he?s wanted in California.?

She laughed.?I know. I?m in Rome, Sergeant Trevis told me.? She told Lowe about Falon?s attack on the bridge, and that she was on her way to the station.

?But you?re both all right??

?We?re fine. Sammie?s a soldier.?

?I?m glad you changed your mind about naming Falon, glad the police have a record of his attacks. This will be a big help if .†.†. if there are complaints on file against Falon,? Lowe said quietly. His unspoken wordsIf we lose the appeal resonated in silence between them.If we lose the appeal and have to start over .†.†.

Now, rising from the table, promising Caroline she?d call when they were safely home, she hugged her mother, hugged Nettie, and went to get her car from the garage?leaving Caroline to deal with her own poor, damaged vehicle.

Getting Sammie settled in the front seat with her books, they headed along the rain-sloughed streets for the station. Becky missed Caroline already. Sometimes she felt as needful of mothering as was Sammie. That amused and annoyed her.

At the station she filed a complaint for each offense: the highway assault, the breakin at Anne?s, Falon?s attack on her behind the drugstore, and the breakin at her house in Rome when Sergeant Leonard had refused to make a written report.

Detective Palmer, a thin, dark-haired officer of Cherokee background, asked that Caroline bring in her car.?Will you call her? I want to take paint samples. With luck, I can lift chips from it, left by Falon?s car. And if we pick up his car, we should find scrapes there from Caroline?s vehicle. One more piece of evidence,? Palmer said. ?Every small thing counts.?

He stood looking down at her.?The FBI will want to talk with you, as part of the federal investigation on Falon?s land scam. The Atlanta bureau will call you at your aunt?s if you?ll give me the number.?

Becky wrote down both numbers, Anne?s and her private one. She saw no animosity in Palmer, she didn?t think he?d been among the many officers who?d turned against Morgan. She found it comforting that the FBI wanted to question her about Falon; that made her feel more in control. As she and Sammie headed for Atlanta she drovethe narrow, rainy highway filled only with positive thoughts, with new hope. She wasn?t in the habit of saying prayers to ask for special favors; such begging was, in her mind, self-serving. Her prayers were more often of thanks, for the many blessings they did have. But last night and now, this morning, she prayed hard that Falon would be found and sent to L.A., that a California judge or jury would convict him for the land scam, that he would be locked up for the maximum time. And that maybe, in prison, someone would kill him. If her prayers were a sin, so be it, that was what he deserved.

It rained all the way to Atlanta, harsh rain slanting across the road in gusts so sharp they rocked the car. They were home at Anne?s just before noon. Mariol had made hot vegetable soup and a plate of cornbread.

?I?m just going to grab a bite,? Becky said, ?and go on to work, it?s payroll time.?

Mariol nodded.?Go in the dining room first, take a look at what was in the attic.?

Becky found Anne at the dining table leafing carefully through the pages of a black leather album, a thin folder so ancient and ragged that the disintegrating covers had shed bits of rotting leather onto the white runner.

?Mariol found it,? Anne said. ?I?d forgotten about those few boxes we?d stored away. We cleaned out most of the relics a couple of years ago, left a few family papers, this album, and a small trunk of antique clothes. I forgot, but Mariol remembered.?

The faded pictures were all in sepia tones, some of men in coveralls standing by their teams of horses, or women in long dresses over laced-up boots, women with serious, unsmiling faces beneath hand-tucked sunbonnets. Becky touched the old pictures gently, thinking how it would be to live in that time when life was so hard. Raising and canning or curing all your food or going without, doing the laundry over a corrugated washboard, traveling on foot or in a horse-dawn wagon or by horseback, maybe sometimes by train. No telephone to call for the sheriff, if there even was one, only your own firearms and your courage to protect your children.

When Sammie came to stand beside them, Anne said,?This is our family,your family.?

Sammie stood looking as Anne turned the pages, then excitedly she pointed.?Wait. That?s the cowboy. That?s Lee.?

The boy was maybe fourteen. He did look like Lee, the same long bony face, same challenging look in his eyes, even at that young age. Sammie looked up at Becky, her dark eyes deep with pleasure.?I dream of him, Mama, we?re family. Lee?s part of our family.?