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  “Go link him up. I can’t take any more of this nonsense. We have the confession recorded.” The captain knocked on the glass, signaling Hank.

  I pulled my cuffs from my waistband and walked around. I opened the door.

  “Charles Riaola, you’re under arrest for the murder of your wife, Susanne Riaola,” I said.

  Hank stood and motioned for Riaola to get up. “Face the wall and link your hands behind your head,” I said.

  He obeyed.

  Hank held his arms while I linked him up. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I understand. It was an accident.”

  “I wish you luck with that defense,” I said.

  Can you escort Mr. Riaola to booking, Hank?”

  “I got him.”

  Hank walked him from the room. I let out a breath of relief.

  As long as no one murdered anyone else before the day was out, I could leave without anything actively open.

  I poked my head into the observation room. The captain was working the video recorder, to burn a DVD of the confession.

  He looked over at me. “I’m going to have someone go grab us some grub from Dotana’s. It’s on me. Do you know what you want?”

  “Philly cheesesteak and fries. Hank probably wants the same. It’s all he’s been eating since Karen has been out of town. Speaking of Hank, what did he ask that got Riaola to confess?”

  “Nothing. He just sat there in silence and read your notes. Riaola just all of a sudden started singing.”

  “Good. I didn’t want to hear him gloat all day about how he broke him as soon as I left the room.”

  The captain smiled.

  “I’ll get whatever comes in on the case the rest of the day put together with the file and drop it on your desk before I take off tonight.”

  “Sounds good, Kane.”

  I headed back toward my office.

  Chapter 10 - Viktor

  A bang came from the other side of the door.

  “Hands in the slot.”

  Viktor looked over, to see the guard’s face peering through the small safety-glass window. He pulled himself from the mattress and walked to the door. The key clicked in the small food slot, and the door flipped up. Viktor stuck his hands through. The guard clicked the handcuffs around his wrists.

  “Get on the wall,” the guard said.

  Viktor walked to the back of the room and faced the wall.

  The door was unlocked and opened. The guard walked to him and clicked ankle cuffs around his legs. He linked another chain from the ankle cuffs to the handcuffs. “Time for the dog to go outside.”

  Viktor smirked.

  The guard shoved him through the door. He pulled Viktor by the elbow down the hallway of the SHU. Both gray walls had a single red stripe running horizontally. The red was the same color as the metal mesh ceiling. Viktor caught glimpses of the other inmates behind the small windows of their cell doors. The guard pushed Viktor’s shoulder to turn him left, toward the door leading outside. The guard pulled his keys from his waist and unlocked the first metal-grate door. They walked through. With a loud clang, the door slammed and relocked at their back. Twenty feet ahead was the door leading to the yard. The guard swiped his security badge through the slot and pulled the handle. The door opened, and a rush of air passed Viktor’s face. Viktor breathed in deeply. The dank smell of the prison faded as they stepped outside. Warm sunlight hit his face.

  “Walk. You’re going in the first one,” the guard said. He shoved Viktor in the back. He had no intentions of letting Viktor stop to enjoy the day.

  Viktor stumbled forward to the chain-link cage. The guard removed his ankle shackles and unlocked the gate for the fenced-in, twenty-by-forty-foot rectangle.

  Viktor stepped inside. He turned and watched the guard close and lock the gate. Viktor placed his wrists through the small opening before him. The guard unlocked the cuffs around his wrists.

  “Forty-eight minutes,” the guard said.

  Forty-eight minutes was all Viktor had to enjoy the sunlight, to see the sky, and to breathe fresh air. A six-minute walk from his cell to his cage outside, and a six-minute walk from the cage back to his cell took twelve minutes of the one hour he got out of his cell in the SHU. However, that was better than constantly watching over his shoulder for a shiv.

  Viktor took a spot at the back of the fence, leaning and staring at the sky. The sun inched closer to the concrete fence at the end of the yard. It would be down within the hour. Past the chain-link roof on his cage, a couple birds flew in the distance. He looked left to right across what he could see of the horizon beyond the various prison buildings. The sky was clear—not a cloud could be seen. Depending on the rotation, it would be at least two weeks before he would see sunshine again. Every day, his yard time came an hour later. The next day, it would happen between six and seven o’clock, dusk. He had two weeks before him of going out during the nighttime hours—that is, if they let him stay in the SHU. Viktor looked out at the other, four, empty cages. He wondered where the other three inmates were. He’d never been outside when the other cages were empty. He looked around the yard some more. The grounds were empty other than him and the two guards he could see in the tower in the distance.

  While safety was his main concern, he hadn’t taken into consideration just how much solitary confinement would take its toll. Viktor had zero human interaction aside from the sentence or two a day of instructions from the guards since being placed in the SHU.

  Viktor thought about trying to pay off a guard to get him a cell phone.

  The sound of a door opening in the distance caught Viktor’s attention. He had no way of knowing how much time he had already spent outside, but it definitely wasn’t forty-eight minutes. He figured guards were coming out with other inmates. Viktor looked toward where the sound had come from. An uneasy feeling overtook him. Three men walked from the side of the building toward his cage. They weren’t guards or staff or grounds crew. The men were white, and tattoos covered their arms. They wore prison issued jumpsuits and were getting closer.

  Viktor looked at the guard tower. No one was there. The largest of the three men approaching outweighed Viktor by at least fifty pounds. Something swung from his hand. The last bit of the day’s sunlight flashed off of what he held—keys. He approached the chain-link gate of Viktor’s cage.

  He smiled at Viktor, showing brown-yellow teeth. Viktor recognized him as the man Waylon White had spoken with in the mess hall. The man slipped the key into the door’s lock and turned it. Two of the three men entered while the other, the smallest of the group, stayed outside. He closed and locked the door.

  Viktor’s heart raced, his adrenaline pumping. Those men had paid off whoever they needed to in order to get to him. The empty yard and cages were orchestrated. No help would be coming. Viktor clenched his fists and stood away from the chain-link wall. The two men continued toward him.

  “Relax,” the larger of the two said.

  He stopped four feet from Viktor. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Darryl Stills. This is my buddy, Kenny Winter.” The man outstretched his arm for a handshake. A large swastika tattoo covered the back of his hand. The word hate was written across his knuckles.

  Viktor stared at him. He was Viktor’s size, plus fifty pounds. His head was shaved clean. The tattoos from his hands continued up his arms. A brown-and-white beard hung three inches down from his chin.

  “You should shake his hand,” the other man said.

  Viktor turned his attention to the man introduced as Kenny. He had shoulder-length blond hair and wore a white handkerchief headband. While taller than Viktor, he didn’t weigh as much. He also was covered in Aryan ink.

  While Viktor didn’t doubt he coul
d handle the smaller of the two, both of them combined would be a problem. Also, if he did somehow get the upper hand on the pair, the third coming in would quickly sway the odds.

  Viktor reluctantly reached out and shook Darryl’s hand. “I’m Viktor Azarov.”

  “We know exactly who you are. You see, when someone comes into our little world here and starts building a crew under our nose, we take notice. We had a couple of friends do a little looking into you.”

  “If they did, you would know I make a better ally than enemy. I can’t say things always turn out well for people on my bad side.”

  “Is that a threat?” Kenny asked.

  “More like a life-altering decision for you… and anyone you care about.”

  Kenny took a step toward Viktor.

  Darryl blocked him with a large hand. “That’s not why we are here. This is a social visit.”

  Kenny sneered and backed off.

  “What do you want?” Viktor asked.

  “We need retribution for Waylon. The man who did it, he’s dead. That’s non-negotiable. From you, we will need financial compensation.”

  Viktor leaned back into the chain-link fence and scoffed. “Financial compensation, huh?”

  “Is there something funny about that?” Darryl asked.

  “Waylon tries to kill me but gets himself killed in the process, and you want me to pay you? Yeah, I find that funny.”

  “One of your guys killed our chief. If you don’t want to be green lighted, you’ll pay,” Kenny said.

  Viktor smiled. “If you keep running your mouth, I’ll have my people outside find your people outside.”

  “You throw a lot of threats around for someone with not many friends here,” Kenny said.

  Viktor said nothing.

  “Look, you may have been some big-shot organized-crime figure outside these walls, but in here, you’re just another convict. We run the world inside these walls. Your little attempt at forming a crew is going to get squashed,” Darryl said.

  “I don’t know if you have realized it or not, but outside these walls, you guys are nothing. All I have to do is say the word, and anyone you care about will be in pieces,” Viktor said.

  Viktor stared at the two men. They stared back. No one said a word.

  Darryl broke the silence. “Fifty thousand.”

  “No,” Viktor said.

  “The number isn’t negotiable”

  “Everything is negotiable,” Viktor said.

  “This is one of those times when it isn’t. Fifty thousand within two days. Someone will come and visit you. You can give them the contact information for who will get your money to us.”

  “What happens in two days?”

  “If you don’t have our money, you’re dead. Simple as that.”

  “Two days gives me a lot of time to find those close to you on the outside.”

  Darryl headed toward the gate in the fence. Kenny followed. Darryl looked back over his shoulder. “It would, except you won’t be making contact with anyone. Remember when I said we run things inside these walls? That includes the guards. You won’t be speaking with anyone except my friend who comes to visit.”

  The man waiting on the other side of the fence unlocked the gate. Darryl and Kenny walked through. The door was relocked.

  Kenny faced Viktor and banged his fist against the chain link. “I hope you had a big dinner. You’ll be getting empty trays until you pay us.” He laughed. The three men walked back toward the building.

  Viktor shook his head in frustration. “Shit.” Paying would show weakness, and weakness inside was as good as death. Viktor had to come up with something. He had forty-eight hours.

  He leaned back against the fence and interlocked his fingers behind his head. A protruding piece of the chain link scratched his finger. Viktor turned to look. A two-inch piece of the metal had rusted away from its mounting point. Viktor scanned the guard tower. No one was watching. He pulled at the piece, and it moved. Viktor looked around again. One of the guards was retaking his position. Viktor put his back to the fence and clasped his hands behind his head as they had been just a few seconds prior. Behind his head, he worked at the metal.

  Chapter 11 - Kane

  The rest of the day went by in a blur. The fingerprint analysis sent down from Atlanta confirmed Charles Riaola’s prints around and behind the rental car’s instrument cluster. He’d undoubtedly tampered with the odometer. A search warrant was issued on his property. Hank and I spent a few hours going over everything there but found nothing incriminating. We found no suitcase, blood, or further evidence. We wouldn’t need much, either way. His confession and the fingerprints, combined with the pending blood and DNA samples, would seal his fate by the time his trial date arrived.

  I was on my way back to the condo a couple minutes before seven o’clock. Hank shot out to his house to change, planning to meet Callie and me at our place within the hour. I pulled my station wagon through the gated entry to my parking spot at the back. While I’d wanted to replace my Corvette with another one, exactly the same, my reality said that was no longer an option. After researching for a week or two, I found the perfect all-around family car: a white five-hundred-fifty-six-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V wagon. They’d killed production on the car after the 2013 model year, but luckily the Chevy dealer I had purchased my Corvette from had a gently used one on the lot. With a little over a thousand miles on it, it was still new in my book. I just picked it up the prior week.

  I killed the motor and walked toward the elevator. I looked over to see Callie’s new Jeep parked in one of the three guest spots. We would have to bite the bullet and lease another parking spot pretty soon before the neighbors started to complain. I hit the button to go up. The elevator doors slid open, I stepped in, and the elevator kicked me out on the fifth floor.

  Toward the end of the hall, I twisted the knob of our front door and knelt—no escaping cat. I pushed the door open and walked in. Across the condo, Callie was sitting on the patio out back. I kicked off my shoes, walked toward her, and slid the door open. She wore a pair of blue jeans and a tight-fitting light-blue T-shirt. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Butch sat on her lap, staring off the balcony. He turned his head and gave me a quick glance. I rubbed his head and scratched his ears.

  “He loves it out here. He just watches everything,” Callie said.

  “I was always afraid he’d jump.”

  “You’d never jump from me.” Callie patted his head. “Would you, Butchy baby?”

  He meowed and dug his head into her hand. She definitely had a way with him. Callie let Butch past me into the house. She stood and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Hey, hon. How was work?” she asked.

  “Ah, okay I guess. I got everything wrapped up that I needed to, so that’s good.”

  “That is good. So you’re saying that you won’t be worrying about a case while we’re gone?”

  “Nope. No cases to worry about.”

  “I missed you today.” She squeezed me hard and kissed me.

  I held her by the small of her back. “Careful, you’ll crush my son.”

  “She’ll be fine. She’s tough.”

  I smiled. We’d been going back and forth on boy or girl for a while. We decided that we would wait and be surprised.

  “I missed you too,” I said. “How’s the packing situation going?”

  “Um, I’m almost done. I started a bag for you as well, but there are a few things in the dryer yet. Just think, tomorrow at this time, we’ll be in Wisconsin.”

  “Yup. Freezing our asses off,” I said.

  Callie let her arms drop and slid past me into the condo.

  She talked over her shoulder. “Oh, come on. You spent your whole life there. You should be used to it.”

  “Cold is cold.” I followed her in. “Did you pack warm clothes?”

  She walked to the kitchen and pulled out two beers. “I checked the weather. It’s not supposed to be that bad. But, yes, I
packed warm clothes.”

  “I just know what February is like up there. It sucks. Every single day is gray and cold. I’m sure we’ll get snowed on. It’s like being in an old, cold, black-and-white TV.”

  She popped the top on one of the beer bottles and then looked around. “Where’s Hank?”

  “Not here yet. He had to run home and change.”

  “Oh, guess he won’t need a beer, then.” She slid the beer back into the refrigerator and hip bumped the door shut. She handed me the open beer. “Well, I’m looking forward to going up there in the cold. I haven’t seen snow since I was a little kid.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. My parents took me to see the snow in the mountains once or twice when I was little. That was it. They don’t ski or anything, so there wasn’t too much of a reason to see it again. I’ve been in Florida since I was twenty. No snow here.”

  She took a seat at one of the stools at the breakfast bar. I walked to her and wrapped my arms around her. She rested her head against my bicep.

  “Are you freaked out to meet my family?” I asked.

  She shook her head and looked up at me. “Not about meeting your dad and stepmom.”

  “Good. You don’t need to be. They are surprisingly normal. What about Melissa?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A little, I guess. I mean, I know she is close with Samantha, which kind of makes me an enemy doesn’t it?”

  “No. You’ll never be an enemy of anyone in my family.”

  “Has she called you lately?”

  “Who? Mel?” I asked.

  “Samantha.”

  “Nah. I think she got the point after we talked last. It was starting to get ridiculous.”

  Callie smiled. “That was mean, by the way.”

  “That wasn’t mean. That was honesty. I told her I’m having a child with someone I’m in love with, and while I cared about her as a friend and couldn’t apologize enough about what happened with Cross, she needed to leave me the hell alone.”