Before she could ask what it was, the two guards yanked Strickland away from the table and hurried him toward the door and out of sight.
“What’s going on?” Ferguson demanded.
But Maddox was already out of the room, shouting into a radio that had appeared in his hands seemingly out of nowhere while Burnett was on the phone, speaking in a low, urgent voice.
“What the hell happened?” Ferguson asked when the warden hung up. “Where did they take Strickland and when can we get him back?”
“An inmate killed another inmate in Cell Block 7,” Burnett said with a sigh. “The guards took Strickland back to his cell for mandatory lockdown. He’ll be there until a full search of every cell in the block is completed and evidence collected for the investigation. It’s state protocol. No exceptions.”
Ferguson’s mouth tightened. “How long is that going to take?”
“Four hours at least, maybe more,” Burnett said. “We should be able to get the interview going again by three o’clock this afternoon. You and Dr. Delacroix can come back if you want, though you’re more than welcome to wait in the staff cafeteria. The food isn’t the greatest, but the coffee is outstanding.”
Hadley glanced at her watch before pushing back her chair. “While I appreciate that offer for coffee, I’m going to have to decline. This interview request was rather short notice, so I had no chance to clear my calendar. I have a session with a patient later this morning.” She looked at Ferguson. “I’ll be back a little before three.”
Ferguson probably would have preferred her to hang around in case the guards wrapped up their search of the cells early but he didn’t say anything. That was a relief. Hadley had no desire to hang around the prison for six hours. Especially a prison with people like Eugene Strickland in it.
Besides, she really did have to see a patient, and for reasons that she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want to miss her session with Corporal Nelson.
CHAPTER THREE
“Something happen on your morning run?” Dr. Delacroix asked casually from the other side of her large cherrywood desk, not looking at Carter as she jotted down notes on a lined pad. “You seem a little more tense than usual.”
Carter was caught off guard by the all-too-perceptive question. Definitely not ready to get into this morning’s meeting with his omega quite yet, he made a sound he hoped was noncommittal and prayed Dr. Delacroix would let it slide.
Fortunately, she seemed willing to let his non-answer go for the moment, nodding as she continued writing in her notepad. He had no idea what she was scribbling—it wasn’t like they’d talked about anything—but he had no doubt he’d find out soon enough. He’d only been seeing Dr. Delacroix for two weeks, but he’d already learned that she never let anything go for long.
As he sat there distracted by the jar of Hershey Kisses in front of him on the desk, waiting for the session to start, Carter reminded himself not to stare at the beautiful woman seated across from him. But the effort was beyond him. Limiting himself to quick peeks every few seconds was the best he could do.
Three sessions into this thing with the doctor, Carter could readily admit that Hadley Delacroix was not what he’d expected.
He knew it was stereotypical, but he’d assumed that as a psychiatrist, she’d be more uptight. But with her wavy brown hair and blonde highlights, expressive dark eyes, stylish clothes, and perfectly manicured nails, she looked like she should be modeling the newest fashions on a Paris runway. But it was more than physical. She was a woman who was completely comfortable in her skin, powerful and no-nonsense in her own unique way. Definitely not like the reserved academic image he’d constructed in his head.
Dr. Delacroix flipped a page in her notepad, the movement causing a shift in the air current through the room and wafting her scent his way. He couldn’t deny that she had very good taste in perfume. It was a mix of strawberry and vanilla, and it was intensely appealing.
Carter realized at some point after their second session that he had somewhat of a crush on his therapist. He was also well aware that it wasn’t healthy to have inappropriate thoughts about the woman who was supposed to pull him off the psychological ledge. But there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. In the end, he simply took it as one more sign of how far gone he was.
“Since it seems you don’t want to talk about whatever happened this morning,” Dr. Delacroix said, interrupting his train of thought as she looked up at him and smiled, “perhaps we can talk about the exact chain of events that occurred at the Patterson Auto Assembly Plant that led to you coming to my office in the first place?”
Carter tensed at the thought of reliving the events from three weeks ago. He’d found himself surprisingly open with Dr. Delacroix during their first two therapy sessions—more than he’d ever been with anyone in his life. He supposed it was all the shrink training, but she was exceptionally good at getting him to talk to her. While they hadn’t gotten around to delving into what had happened at the assembly plant yet, they’d chatted about his time in the Marines and how he’d ended up in SWAT.
But discussing those parts of his life—even the Marines—was a cakewalk compared to opening up about one of the most mortifying moments of his life. He definitely wasn’t ready to go there right now.
“I’m pretty sure the department is still keeping the details of that night under wraps,” Carter said, scrambling for an excuse to avoid saying anything. “I don’t think I can share anything about it with you yet. You understand, right?”
Dr. Delacroix gazed at him for a moment. “Of course, I understand. I wouldn’t want to openly discuss anything the DPD isn’t comfortable with me knowing. Fortunately, Corporal Taylor was able to provide me with a detailed police report of the night’s events.” She flashed him another smile. “So, now you don’t have to worry about telling me things I shouldn’t know.”
Carter sighed. There was no way to get out of this now, not after his squad leader had betrayed him like this. Not that he blamed his teammate. Mike almost certainly knew he would never willingly talk about what had happened that night, so he’d given Dr. Delacroix the crowbar she’d need to get him talking—whether he wanted to or not.
“I’ll start to ease you into it, okay?” she murmured, picking up a piece of paper from her desk that must have been Mike’s report. “As I read, I’ll pause now and then to ask questions. You stop me if you want to clarify something or if it gets to be too much.”
Carter didn’t say anything. She must have taken his silence for agreement because she looked down at the paper in her hand and began synopsizing the report.
“It says that the ribbon-cutting gala at the auto plant was already in complete chaos when you and your partner, Officer Hale Delaney, arrived,” Dr. Delacroix said in her calm, but businesslike voice. “Three heavily armed men were attacking the guests as well as the owner of the plant and his son, correct?”
Carter forced himself to control his breathing as the memories of that night rushed back—the panicked crowd of people shoving and pushing against each other as they tried to get out of the building, the scent of their fear washing over him in waves, their hearts pounding like drums.
“Yeah,” he murmured roughly, pleased that heat rate was behaving itself. Damn, he wished he knew which version of the official story Mike had given Dr. Delacroix. It’d be a lot easier to do this if he didn’t have to worry about getting caught in a lie. “We think the men who attacked the event had been paid to kill the owner as part of a scheme to get their hands on his high-tech manufacturing technology.”
