Storm's Cage by Mary Stone (uplifting novels .TXT) 📕

Opening and closing his mouth, Erbach shook his head vehemently. “I…I can’t. The others, they’ll kill me.”

“No, they won’t.” Amelia stepped away from the wall, her heart picking up speed. They were close to getting him to break. She took the chair across from him, giving him her best concerned expression. “You tell us what happened, and we’ll make sure you stay in this room, unharmed, until the prosecutor gets here to take your statement in writing and send you into protective custody. After you testify, we’ll ship you off to serve your time on the other side of the country. New name and everything.”

Wringing his hands, Erbach dropped his stare down to the table as the room descended into silence.

“Get ahead of him.” Amelia rested her hands on the table, her palms up to show her openness to him. “Tell the truth.”

The irony of the suggestion made her stomach turn. Here she was, encouraging an inmate to give an honest report of a crime he’d committed, all while she tried to play nice with Joseph so he wouldn’t tell the FBI about how she’d killed Alton Dalessio.

She didn’t need this little dose of irony to realize that, under normal circumstances, she’d have told Joseph to piss off each time he’d touched her over the past week.

But circumstances hadn’t been normal, and every day, she’d let him push the boundary a little more.

Because he knew. And what he knew could send her to prison for the rest of her life, ruin her career, or both.

Going to SAC Keaton to come clean had crossed her mind, but Amelia told herself that Joseph’s thinly veiled infatuation would pass. Eventually, he’d find a new woman to hold his interest, and they might be able to return to a normal working partnership. In the meantime, all she had to do was keep her cool.

The task seemed easy enough, but her skin still crawled every time he got too close. If he decided to push his luck further, she wasn’t sure how she’d handle herself.

Pissed that she’d let her fellow agent and his antics sidetrack her thinking, she focused on the wiry man on the other side of the table. “So? What’s it going to be? Are you going to let this CO play you, or will you turn the tables on him?”

When Erbach’s gaze turned to Amelia and Joseph, a glimmer of ire had edged its way in beside the paranoia. Amelia didn’t have time to discern who’d inspired the anger before his head bobbed.

“Okay, yeah. That guy can go to hell. Never liked that sumbitch anyway, you know? Only did it because he paid me, and he swore nobody would ever find out.” He snorted. “Not much, mind you. Guess he thought someone like me didn’t understand the value of things the way he did. Condescending prick.”

Amelia didn’t need small talk. She needed answers. She met his eyes with an intense, no more bullshit glare. “We need a name, Waylon. For the official record.”

“Russel Ulmer.” Erbach spat the name like a king cobra spat venom.

As the tentative relief washed over her, Amelia straightened to her full height. “Thank you for that confirmation. Now, let’s go over the details and get your statement of events, for the record.”

Shrugging his thin shoulders, Erbach turned his gaze to the dingy ceiling. “I’d done some favors for him before. Last time I was locked up in County, back when he worked over there. It sure wasn’t a pleasant surprise seeing him here, I tell ya that much. ‘Bout a week ago, he came up to me out in the yard and told me he had a job if I was interested. Said it needed to be done quick, and that it’d be easy. He’d take care of all the hard parts.”

Joseph scratched his chin. “I don’t suppose he mentioned what any of these ‘hard parts’ were?”

Erbach’s mouth hung open silently, as if his brain and vocal cords weren’t attached. A minute of dumbfounded silence passed before he managed to send some words through his gaping maw. “The camera, that was a big one. That’s the first thing I said to him, as a matter of fact. I asked him, ‘Russel, how the hell am I supposed to do this without getting caught when there’s cameras every three feet in this damn place?’ He told me not to worry about it. He’d deal with the camera, and he’d make sure I got in and out without being seen.”

Wasn’t that nice of him?

Amelia kept the sarcastic comment to herself and gave Erbach a silent nod to continue.

“I met him over by the showers, like he said.” The prisoner leaned down to scratch his temple with the limited reach of his shackled hands. “We went to one of those locked doors that only the guards can get to, and I followed him through some sort of breakroom. I’d never been in there before, but when we stopped at a door, I could tell that we was somewhere by the cafeteria. I asked him about the camera again, and he told me it was off, and I had to hurry. Something about Carlo’s routine, and about how he knew he’d be coming down the hallway right after he ate.”

“Did Russel Ulmer ever say why he wanted you to kill Carlo Enrico?” Joseph shifted in his seat. Clearly, the rickety chair hadn’t been designed for comfort.

“No.” Erbach shook his head. “Just said that someone needed him gone, and that he was one of those fellas who liked to hurt little kids. So, we waited for a few minutes, and then he handed me a knife and said that Enrico was heading this way. I’m guessin’ you know the rest.”

Joseph’s eyes narrowed, and Amelia rubbed her forehead. Apparently, a child predator had no qualms about selling out one of his own ilk. Never mind that Carlo allegedly hadn’t touched any of the girls who’d come through Alton Dalessio’s exploitation ring. Russel Ulmer