This one’s a little off script, but I’ve learned it’s important to ask.
“Just one,” he says without pause. “Are you happy?”
It catches me completely off guard. For the space of a breath, I’m convinced he’s asking about Hazel. About these fresh, fairy-tale feelings around fatherhood and family.
“I—”
“With your job, I mean. It’s going well? You like your boss and all?”
Ah, got it. He wants to know if he can trust the guys who sent me to talk with him.
“Yeah, it’s great,” I say, meaning it. “Has its challenges, but it feels good to make a difference, you know?”
“Yeah.” With a shrewd nod, he drags a hand over his chin. “Yeah, I get that.”
The guard clears his throat. “Wrap it up, guys.”
Inmate D467 stands, fingers flexing at his sides before relaxing. I get to my feet, sizing him up again. He’s a big guy with calm, gentle eyes and a scar on the bridge of his nose. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.
Once, on the outside, I ran into someone I met through one of these jobs. If it happens, we’re strictly instructed to pretend we don’t know each other. I followed orders, but he didn’t.
“Thank you,” the ex-inmate murmured when we passed on the street. “You changed my life.”
That moment there is why I keep doing this. Well, that and the money. I don’t need to know details. I don’t need to know who I work for.
But I trust that I’m doing some good in the world.
Inmate D467 and I embrace like old pals, clapping each other on the back. With my mouth near his ear and the guard about five feet away, I decide it’s worth the risk. “Take the deal,” I whisper. “You won’t regret it.”
We draw back again, and the man wears a perfectly bland expression. But I see in his eyes that he’s grateful. He screwed up somehow to get here. What happens next is his choice.
“Good seeing you again,” I say, as the guard starts propelling him back to his cell.
“Take care,” he calls.
“Will do.” I push in my chair and start for the exit. I’m halfway there when raised voices behind me catch my ear. One sounds familiar, and the other?—
“Dammit, Hazel. Why are you being like this?”
I freeze in my tracks, turning to face the far corner of the visitor room. Hazel’s wearing her dark hair pinned up on top of her head, and she’s dressed down in jeans and a sweater.
But I’d know the sharp snap of her voice anywhere. The ramrod set of her posture and the curl of her fingers on the table in front of her. “Gee, I don’t know, Dad.” She’s taking no shit from her father. “Maybe because you’re not trusting me to handle things.”
I watch as two guards angle closer, concerned by the fire in their voices. It’s then that I notice these aren’t the same guards from two minutes ago. There must have been a shift change.
Maybe nobody noticed I haven’t left yet.
“It’s way too much pressure on you,” says an unwise Owen Spencer to his hormonal daughter. Not that she isn’t a force to be reckoned with anyway. “Look at you, Hazel. You’re pale with dark circles under your eyes. I don’t like what this job is doing to you.”
Hazel huffs out a breath. “I’m perfectly fine, and I don’t think it’s necessary to—Luke?” She blinks like she’s seeing things as her gaze locks with mine. “You’re here.”
Keep it simple, stupid, I coach myself.
“Visiting,” I manage, clearing my throat. “Mr. Spencer. Good to see you again.”
His forehead crinkles. “You work for me, right?”
Hazel responds before I can. “Luke works for Spencer Development, yes. He’s one of our foremen.”
