BURNING INTUITION (Intuition Series Book 2) Page 2

Once his door clanged shut he sank onto his cot. The practiced sneer slid from his lips. His head throbbed. Sweat drenched his shirt from neck to waist. If the other inmates didn’t kill him, the stress would.

  He flung the sturdy rubberized pillow to one end of his bunk and pulled up his legs. Someone with a sense of humor had named this place as if it were a country club. Oak Park Heights. He’d survived nearly a year in Minnesota’s only Level Five maximum-security prison. It had taken this long to get out of the Protective Custody Unit where he might as well have had a target on his forehead.

  Take aim boys, I’m in PC with the child molesters and the rats.

  He threw his pillow against the cinderblock wall. After he’d signed the PC Waiver he’d finally walked among the men in general population. Word spreads fast inside prison when a high value target is in sight. There would always be someone coming for him but the first time he’d stepped onto the grass in the exercise yard under the clear blue sky, he’d decided it was all worth it. The isolated PC Unit, with its tiny fenced exercise pad, had been unbearable.

  He unfolded the shiv from his sleeve and examined it. Someone had broken the blade from a disposable razor and melted it into the handle of a toothbrush. Simple but deadly. He scratched the scar at his thigh where he’d nearly bled to death his first week inside and counted how many times he’d been attacked. Five times in one year. His nose had healed crooked after the second assault, but he’d learned more each time.

  By now, he could feel the attitude change in the other inmates and knew when someone was coming for him. This was the first time he’d been aware of collusion by a guard. He made a mental note to find out which guard was involved. He had fifty years to serve, plenty of time for payback.

  He rubbed his finger where his ring had been. The tan line was gone. It hadn’t taken long for his wife to file for divorce. Was it right after his arrest? She’d wanted an excuse and had finally found it. She got the house, his Mustang, his new boat. Everything.

  His daughter had been sent away without a chance to say goodbye. He’d never hurt his own child. Who’d made her say that he had? He smoothed the creases from a pencil sketch she’d given him before this had all started. Well, she hadn’t actually given it to him. He’d found it crumpled on the seat in his car after he’d dropped her off one day. He’d snatched it up as if she’d drawn it just for him.

  It was a picture of a little house in the woods. A house with a picket fence. He brought the drawing closer. It looked a bit like the Johnson house. The one where he’d investigated a fire. He turned it over and read the back. The word NEXT was scrawled in pencil.

  Why would she…?

  He folded it in half and put it on the shelf. No. His kid had nothing to do with that old woman’s death.

  He wanted his daughter back, and he wanted to find her mother. Tiffany, the love of his life since high school, had disappeared years ago without so much as a note. The child had gone to live with her grandfather and rumors had swirled. Rumors that amounted to smoke. Tiffany had vanished.

  Now he had no one. His entire family had disowned him. The only ones who still talked about him were those mysterious acquaintances that kept popping up on talk shows. He didn’t recognize most of those people but now everyone was an expert on his life. They didn’t know a thing. Everything he’d loved, he’d lost.

  Derek turned the shiv over in his hands. The weapon was crudely built but the razor was securely attached to its hilt. It would cause major damage. He angled the blade at the inside of his wrist, its cold point sharp against his skin. What was he doing? That was a pussy way to go. He held it to his throat. How long did it take the average man to bleed out?

  No hesitation buddy, just finish it.

  “Inmate Peterson.” A voice boomed through the intercom. “You have a visitor.” The lock hummed and his cell door slid open.

  Lily! Was she back? Had she come to visit? Derek shoved the contraband into his sleeve and hurried to his feet. He slid his hands through the slot in the metal door and waited. Seconds later, a guard approached and snapped cuffs around his wrists. The door opened and the guard positioned himself behind Derek to the right, in escort position. They made their way through the maze of hallways.

  “Who’s here to see me?” The only visitors he’d had in the past year were lawyers and his now-ex wife. He hadn’t had a single visitor in over two months. “Is it my daughter?” He turned halfway to the guard.

  “Eyes forward, inmate.”

  Derek snapped back around. He knew better than that. Don’t make the guard nervous. “Is my daughter here?”

  “They said it’s some cute blonde. Didn’t say who.”

  His heart leapt. She was here. The weight of the shiv suddenly became onerous. He bent to sneeze and dropped it by his foot. The guard took a step away and he covered the weapon with his shoe. When the guard motioned him forward, he straightened and coughed, simultaneously toeing the shiv into the crease where floor met wall. With his attention on the inmate’s hands, the guard missed it. The next person who passed might spot it, but Derek would be gone.

  They continued to the visitor’s cubicles. When he’d last been here, he’d been served divorce papers. This time would be different. Lily had come to see him. Derek shuffled around the stool and sat. He held up his wrists. The guard snapped his cuffs on a chain secured to the floor and exited.

  * * *

  A uniformed prison guard held open the heavy door and Erin Ericsson stepped into the no-contact visitor’s room. Derek bolted upright on the other side of the unbreakable glass partition. His movement strained the chain that tethered him.

  "Remain seated for the duration of the visit, inmate.” A guard’s voice boomed over the intercom. Derek sat but the startled look remained. He’d lost weight and his fair skin was gray.

  Erin settled on the cheap plastic chair and inched closer. The entire room was painted a dull institution brown, enough to make even those with the sunniest dispositions contemplate the darker side of life. She plunked her notepad onto the narrow ledge that served as a counter and picked up the phone receiver wired to the wall. The mouthpiece looked sticky. She grimaced and rubbed it against her sleeve before she brought it to her mouth. It didn’t touch her lips.

  Derek’s eyes went to the closed door behind Erin. His pupils constricted and his gaze reluctantly settled on her. He reached over and yanked his receiver from its bracket.

  “Da fuck you want?”

  “Only a year and already you sound like one of them.”

  He glared at her and rapped the receiver against the wall. A painful squeal burst from Erin’s earpiece and she wrenched it away. What a juvenile trick.

  "Damage to institution equipment will result in the termination of your visit.” The bored guard sounded as if he was reading off a cue card. Erin couldn’t see him, but the omnipotent being presided over everything.

  Derek held up his hands in submission to the round-eyed security camera and slouched in his seat. Handcuffed at the wrists, he could only raise his hands to his waist, but the gesture was unmistakable. She suddenly understood his posturing. Everything that happened in prison was noted, and remembered. Prison gossip was worse than station house gossip and they both knew how that worked. Now that he had established his tough guy persona, and disdain for his police visitor, he was done showboating.

  “Ah, same old Derek,” Erin mocked. “Always happy to see me.”

  He pressed the phone to his ear. “What are you doing here?”

  His voice was raspier than she remembered and a shiver of guilt niggled her. The last time she’d been this close to him, she’d been crushing his windpipe. She might have killed him if her girlfriend Allie hadn’t intervened. The snappy retort withered on her tongue and she stared at his Adam’s apple. It was off-center. Was she responsible for that?

  “What the hell, Erin?” He met her gaze, eyes flat and cold. A shark.

  She took a deep breath. “I need your help.”

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nbsp; He reeled back in his chair and let out a harsh laugh. “Are you out of your mind? After what you did to me? You are unbelievable.”

  She focused on an imaginary spot on the counter and drummed her pen on the ledge. “I know about Lily.”

  There was a spark in his flat green eyes and he brought his face closer. His angry breath steamed a fuzzy semi circle below a red sign that warned him not to touch the glass. “What do you know?”

  “I know she’s your daughter.”

  The spark winked out. Everyone with a television had heard about the cop gone bad. The cop who’d abducted his own kid. Everyone knew he’d confessed to burning a woman to death, poisoning a man, and almost killing a second woman. Every man in prison knew he had been taken down by a diminutive female officer. Everyone knew he would rot in jail until he was ninety-two. But Erin knew more.

  “You couldn’t have killed Dolores Johnson. And you didn’t poison Gunther Schmidt.”

  “I don’t kill old ladies.” The spark flickered again, but he was wary. “And I’d never hurt the old man. We were friends.”

  “You didn’t try to kill Gina Braun either,” Erin said. “Maybe you wished you had.”

  His eyes narrowed and the corner of his lip lifted. “What do you want?”

  “I told you. I need your help.”

  “Why the hell should I help you?” His ropy forearms tensed when he clenched his fists.

  “Because you want to protect your daughter and you want to find her mother.”

  Derek’s sneer drooped.

  “Because you don’t want to spend your life in jail for something you didn’t do.” Erin laid her pen against her notepad.

  "Nobody else believes me." He rubbed a scraped knuckle against his unshaven chin. "There is not a single man in here who admits he did the crime. You know how it is. We’re all innocent, right?"

  "Your case is different."

  "I ain’t no choirboy." His gaze flicked to the spot between her elbow and shoulder.

  She touched her bicep. The scar beneath her sleeve was still pink where his knife had cut through skin and muscle. She’d fought back. She’d mangled his vocal chords and half-drowned him. Then she’d arrested him.

  “Why did you confess to all those crimes?”

  “I had my reasons. It was a mistake.”

  “A helluva mistake, Derek.” Nobody confessed by mistake. Was protecting his kid really worth all this? Aside from the phone and her chair, the room was completely empty. A lone bulb affixed to the ceiling was encased in plastic. The rest of the prison would be an extension of this. Sparse. Industrial. Depressing.

  “Now we both know the only crime I’m guilty of is that.” He jutted his jaw at her arm.

  That, and threatening her with his pistol. Not to mention beating her senseless with a chunk of driftwood. Had he gotten what he deserved? “I think she’s doing it again.” Erin averted her eyes from his throat.

  A crease formed at the corner of his mouth. To his credit, he didn’t denigrate her by pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Lily’s gone to live with Gunther’s nephew and his wife.”

  Derek grunted.

  “Gunther’s in no shape to parent anyone. When I last saw him, he couldn’t even walk. They’re telling him to sell his place and move into assisted living.”

  Derek’s complexion took on a lighter shade of gray. “He’ll never do it. He’ll die alone at his own house before he lets them force him into a nursing home.”

  “There are nice retirement villages. He could be mostly independent.”

  “Drool slobbering down his chin? Gunther won’t let that happen.”

  They’d skirted the issue long enough. She steered them back on topic. “Lily is in Winnipeg with Albert and Barbara Schmidt. She just tried to kill Barb.”

  His body froze. “How?”

  “It sounds the same as what happened to Dolores Johnson. Gas explosion.”

  His head dipped in deference. He’d been lazy when he’d ruled that case accidental.

  “Did anyone tell you we found fingerprints at that crime scene?”

  “Fingerprints.” He leaned forward. You can’t get fingerprints off ash.”

  “Someone had been watching the house from a spot outside the fence, near the bog.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It was definitely an observation post, with flattened grass and a couple of stashed beer cans. I brought those in as evidence.”

  “You were busy behind my back, I see.” He tensed his jaw.

  “Kathy in Ident found fingerprints from a young woman or child. Lily was watching the house.”

  “That’s a stretch.” The chain rattled when he tried unsuccessfully to cross his arms. He laid his hands in his lap.

  “Lily knew what kind of car Dolores drove. She’d been watching her. I think she did it.”

  “You got a vendetta against my family, Ericsson?”

  “She’s going to keep doing it, Derek. Open your eyes. This time the fire crew rescued Mrs. Schmidt. She’s in the hospital with severe burns.”

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  “The newspaper reported that a female teen,” Erin air-quoted, “that’s got to be Lily, escaped unharmed.”

  “No! Lily’s only a little girl.” He frowned at his knuckles as if he was counting on invisible fingers. “She just turned thirteen,” he said slowly. “I guess she is a teenager now.”

  “Did you miss the part where a home was destroyed and a woman is in the hospital?”

  “No, I didn’t miss that.” He sighed and his shoulders sagged. “It’s just that… well, she’s my daughter. I always wanted kids but that wasn’t in Karen’s life plan.” He steadied his gaze on Erin. “It can’t do any more damage now to tell you this, but I didn’t even know I had a kid until a few years ago. When Tiffany finally told me, the news blew me right out of the water. I figured she got pregnant in high school by some other guy but the first time I saw Lily I knew she was my blood.”

  His voice wavered. “Tiffany was always there for me and understood that I wasn’t ready to be a father at the age of seventeen. I was too selfish. Even after I married Karen, I still saw Tiff on the side sometimes. Being with Karen made me lonely.”

  Erin felt the skin around her eyes tighten in judgment.

  Derek looked at the floor. “I was going to leave my wife and marry Tiffany, swear to God. I gave her a ring and everything. I can’t believe, after all that, she left. It sounds stupid, but I thought we were soul mates.”

  “Lily killed Dolores. She tried to kill her grandfather and Gina. Is it possible she was also responsible for her mother’s disappearance?”

  “She’s just a kid. She’s all I’ve got left.” His eyes hardened.

  “I’m going to stop her, Derek. I’m going to Winnipeg.”

  “Nooo!” He howled like a feral animal and lurched forward. His forehead collided with the glass and a bright red crescent welted above his eyebrow. “Leave her alone.” He lunged again and the chain that tethered his wrists jerked taut.

  “Inmate. Remain seated!” The guard’s voice crackled over the intercom. The steel door behind Derek opened and two uniformed men entered. Derek didn’t even look up. He drove his shoulder into the belly of the first guard within range. Chained to the floor, the blow lost its force and was easily deflected. Both guards leaned their weight onto him and flattened him. Derek pawed at them from the side but they overpowered him. Two more guards appeared in the doorway with a flat Velcro-strapped board.

  On her feet, Erin turned at a hand on her elbow.

  “This visit has been terminated. Please follow me.”

  It was not a request. A guard led her away. “You’re the cop that arrested him right?”

  She nodded.

  He whistled. “You must have enjoyed seeing that.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “They’re gonna board him until he cools off. It don’t hurt but it’s not fun.”
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  Erin could visualize a pissed-off Derek strapped to a wooden plank until he calmed. That might take a while. She looked up and her frown reflected back at her from the convex mirror mounted at the corner of the hall.

  “He don’t usually give us trouble,” the guard volunteered, “but I heard he had a rough day. A couple other inmates tried to take him out in the stairwell and we seized a shiv in the hallway a while ago. I’d put the two incidents together.” He grinned. Gossip was prison entertainment. “He’s tougher than he looks. The two guys who attacked him are in the medical wing.”

  Derek’s bellows followed them to the lobby. The guard shrugged and buzzed the last door.

  “Have a nice day,” he said. The guy at the fast food restaurant had told her exactly the same thing this morning when she’d paid for her breakfast sandwich.

  It was not a nice day for Derek and it would be the last day of his daughter’s undeserved freedom when Erin caught up to her.

  CHAPTER 3

  Socked feet propped on the Tacoma’s dash, Allie thumbed to the next page in her e-book while she waited. She focused on the screen and blocked out everything but the words until a vivid story built. It muted the omnipresent drone of intrusive thoughts. She sighed in relief.

  In the story, Pearl was about to fall for the wrong girl. The words the author had chosen were sheer deliciousness. Allie tucked her knees into her chest and turned another page. Would she make this huge mistake?

  No Pearl. Don’t do it. Ruth is way better for you.

  The story was sappy, the characters fantastical, but she loved the way she could never guess what they would do. Reading was so much easier than being around actual people. Real people had conflicting emotions and energy to absorb. It was hard to block it all out. Gosh, it made her tired. This particular story was so entertaining, and spicy, that it offered her a welcome reprieve.

  Above the digital book, she spotted her girlfriend’s exit from the prison and hurried to finish the paragraph. When she closed it, everything she’d blocked assaulted her senses.

  Erin wrenched open the driver’s door and Allie cringed at the jagged spikes of negative energy that intruded. Anger, fear and despair permeated every crevice of the truck’s cab.