A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1) (3 page)

A sob rose from her throat, trapped in a never-ending slide show of the night that had happened almost sixteen years before. “Please,” she whimpered into the darkness.

But no one would come to save her from the five faceless men who chased her. She shot up into a sitting position with a scream, sweating and breathless. Her eyes darted around her pitch-black room before, realizing where she was, she closed them and cupped her hands to her face. She exhaled through a rough throat and brushed the tears away, trying to calm herself with slow, deep breaths.

She’d woken this way every day for the past two weeks, and the grief that hit her every time she opened her eyes was all too familiar. She shook her head, exhausted.

Her doctor had told her not to stop taking her sleeping pills all at once, but to lower the dose gradually. Kat had dismissed her advice, determined to make it through one night without the aid of chemicals. It seemed her determination was wasted. She beat her fist on the mattress in frustration, then flicked on the bedside table lamp. But the light didn’t ease the fear and utter helplessness her nightmares brought her.

With a defeated sigh, she got up and went toward her bathroom, flinching at the bright lights. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and frowned. Christ, she looked a lot older than twenty-four. Her face appeared drawn, her green eyes dull and lifeless. She traced the dark shadows under them, then ran her hand through her hair. Instead of being its usual voluminous chestnut red, it hung lank and dry past her shoulders.

Her mother had told her that she’d lost weight, but Kat had dismissed her words. She always had to comment on something.

Kat was in no way skinny—having always been more curvaceous than skin and bone—but her size-ten jeans
had
become a little loose recently.

She opened the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills. She desperately wished for the night when she wouldn’t have to rely on medicine to sleep. It wasn’t like the pills helped all that much anyway; they simply numbed a pain that would never disappear. After taking two blue capsules, she padded back across the bare wood floor to bed.

Kat had realized a long time ago that there was no sleep deep enough to escape her nightmares. They were ingrained, part of who she was, and she’d never be rid of them. She knew no pill or therapy would ever erase the darkness and grief within her. Subsequently, she’d grown into a woman who was fiery and strong-minded. It was a safe way of keeping other people at arm’s length, hiding her despair and fear behind a quick wit and sharp tongue.

She sank against her feather pillows. Would it ever get easier?

She didn’t know. All she could focus on was the fact that sunrise would mean a new day, another day away from her past.

The following morning, Kat got into her car outside her apartment building in SoHo. The nightmares always left her cloudy and tense, and wondering why the hell she’d taken a job teaching in a prison.

Since she’d started tutoring a little over a month ago, it had not only brought on the nightmares but was also creating a deep division between her and her mother. Their relationship had always had its ups and downs, but when Kat had called to say she was going to work at Arthur Kill, the argument that followed was the most awful they’d ever had. Eva Lane was a complex and stubborn woman, and she would never understand Kat’s need to do the job.

Kat understood her mother’s and some of her friends’ concerns. Although there were no murderers, their crimes were worrisome enough: vandalism, car theft, drug use and possession. But she knew without a doubt that this was what she wanted to do. For deep inside, a sworn promise to her father itched at her soul.

It had been there since her father had died. It was there the day she finished high school, and the day she graduated from college with an English literature degree. Teaching was what Kat had wanted to do since she was a kid, and she’d loved every second of it.

She’d been lucky enough to travel to London and China, teaching in private schools that made her fall in love with the job more and more. She made friends, experienced other cultures, and built enriching relationships that would never be broken. Nonetheless, she knew deep down that working in $50,000-a-year schools wasn’t fulfilling the promise she’d made.

Gifted, hardworking children weren’t whom she was meant to help.

“We have to give back, Katherine,” her father had said the night he died.

She’d considered taking a job at an inner-city school, but that option didn’t scratch the relentless itch, either.

Working in a prison was what quelled it.

She had to be nearer to her fears, nearer to men who thought little of breaking the law, of turning other people’s lives upside down with no consideration of the consequences. She had to be closer to understand what could make a person capable of such behavior. She hated her fear; she hated the root of it, and she knew she had to face it head-on—even though she was terrified of it.

Her therapist had been very concerned about her decision, asking constantly if Kat was happy with her choice, if she thought it was right for her and why, even using her mother’s worries to try and talk her down.

But it was Kat’s choice to make—no one else’s. And once the decision was made, there was no going back. Whatever the outcome, whatever her mother would say, she would live with it, because Kat knew what it would have meant to her father.

* * *

The building of Arthur Kill, Staten Island, looked as if it had fallen right out of an episode of
Prison Break
. Guards with huge, angry-looking dogs patrolled tall lookout towers surrounded by wreaths of vicious barbed wire fencing.

Kat pulled up to the gates of the parking lot and waited for the officer on duty. After silently taking her ID badge, he disappeared into the guardhouse and soon returned, directing her toward the morose-looking structure she worked in.

Once parked, Kat glanced to her left to see a large group of inmates playing basketball behind a huge metal fence. With their green coveralls tied at the waist, their sweat-covered chests gleamed in the hot June sunshine. The walk from her car to the building seemed miles long, especially when she heard wolf whistles and catcalls from the basketball court.

She hurried her step and grabbed the handle of the large door like a lifeline. Inside, pushing her bangs back with a flustered hand, she was welcomed by a low chuckle. She looked up to see Anthony Ward, the narcissistic prison warden.

Ward was in his late thirties, and while his face was round and youthful, his hair was combed and gelled to within an inch of its life. He assessed Kat with dark gray eyes and a quick smile that revealed a large dimple in his left cheek. “Miss Lane,” he said, extending his hand.

Kat ignored it and tried to compose herself by running a palm down her knee-length charcoal skirt. “Mr. Ward.”

Pulling back his hand with an embarrassed nod of his chin, he stood poker straight in an effort to look taller. Kat noticed he did this a lot, especially around the inmates. It didn’t work. Poor guy was born stumpy.

“So,” he began. “How are you? Settling in well?”

Kat smiled. “Yes. I think so.” Her classes had been fairly event-free so far. And her students no longer used the F word like a comma when they spoke to her.

Ward adjusted his tie. “Good. Well, don’t forget I’ll be observing your session this morning. And anything you need, just come and see me.”

“I will, thank you.”

She walked past him, ignoring the way his eyes stayed on her chest a touch too long. His lecherous tendencies and his inability to view the inmates as anything other than scum rubbed Kat the wrong way. He didn’t see how the inmates could possibly better themselves while incarcerated, unknowingly making Kat’s job appear pointless. As a result, she avoided him as much as she could.

When Kat entered her classroom, she was grateful for the cooling breeze of the AC window unit. The rest of the facility was like a damned sauna. Twisting her hair off her neck, she turned when her teaching assistant, Rachel, entered looking flushed.

She blew a breath through her cherry-stained lips. “Christ, it’s hot as Hades today,” she complained, flapping her T-shirt in a futile attempt to cool down.

Rachel had been a lifesaver since Kat started. Qualified in assisting the inmates with learning difficulties, Rachel had helped Kat get to know her students quickly—especially Riley Moore, a colorfully large personality who suffered terribly from dyslexia. Not that it had stopped him from achieving a business degree from NYU.

Riley was one of her favorite students. Inside for dealing stolen car parts, his six-foot-three frame and broad shoulders would put Atlas to shame. He was funny and flirted with both women shamelessly. Unlike Ward, however, Riley was charming and uttered every word with his tongue firmly in his cheek. It was hard not to find his relentless yet harmless innuendos endearing, especially with his dancing hazel eyes and bearded cherubic face.

There were four other students in the class, all of whom worked hard and tried to keep themselves in check. Kat was more than a little proud at how quickly she’d brought them all to heel. Their progress had been fantastic.

At two minutes after nine, Riley’s booming voice broke the quiet. Kat grinned when she turned to see him, flanked by a guard, followed by her other students.

“Miss L!” he bellowed, holding up his hand for a high five, which Kat met with a small slap. “Good weekend?”

“It was lovely, Riley. Thank you. And yours?”

“Ah, you know.” He shrugged. “Causing shit here and there, making Ward’s hair recede more and more by the day.”

Kat repressed a snicker as Ward entered the classroom with her other students: Sam, Jason, Shaun, and Corey. Jason smiled meekly from under his floppy brown hair, while Corey and Shaun lifted their chins in greeting. Sam scurried to his desk and sat down without any gesture at all. At first this had bothered Kat, but now she accepted it as part of the routine they’d built up. A routine that, Rachel had explained, was paramount to the men in Kill. For many of them, a schedule was all they had to keep them sane.

Ignoring Ward at the back of her classroom, Kat began her lesson, reviewing their last session and asking the men to describe their favorite places by using metaphors and personification. They set about writing quietly.

“Okay,” she called, bringing the class’s attention back to her. “Who’s brave enough to read theirs out lou—”

The classroom door flew open so hard, it smacked into the wall behind it. A harassed-looking guard, breathing raggedly, stared at Ward, who shot to his feet.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir,” the guard gasped. “But we have a situation in room six.”

“Who?” Ward barked, storming across the room.

“Carter, sir.”

Ward’s eyes narrowed and his mouth snapped into a sharp line. When the door slammed shut behind him and the guard, Kat looked around the room.

“Carter?” she asked.

Riley laughed loudly, immediately clearing the tension Ward forever left in his wake. “Carter. Dammit. That boy never fuckin’ changes.”

“You’re not sleeping well, are you?” Ben, one of Kat’s closest yet most irritatingly observant friends smiled sadly as a waiter placed a triple espresso in front of her.

Even without the numerous yawns she’d been stifling all through dinner, Kat knew she looked like crap. Even Estée Lauder couldn’t hide the weariness around her eyes. Besides, he’d known her for six years and nothing got past him. “I tried,” she replied, shaking a packet of Sweet ’N Low.

“You’re still having nightmares?” Beth asked from her seat at Kat’s left. She and Kat had been friends since high school and, despite Beth only returning to New York a few months earlier after teaching in Texas for four years, they’d fallen back into their friendship easily.

It was nice to have her close again, completing their friendship trifecta, even if their constant worrying drove her near distraction. Kat knew they both meant well, but, along with her mother’s continuous anxieties about Kat’s job, it was becoming exhausting.

Ben shook his head. “You can always call me, you know?”

Like protective siblings, he and Beth frequently offered to stay the night when the nightmares hit, or offered the spare beds at their places, but she always declined.

“And wake you and Abby?” Kat asked with a lift of her shoulders. “Why would I call you?”

“Because we’re your friends and we care about you,” Beth said before spooning a large helping of crème brûlée into her mouth.

“Especially with this job,” Ben added.

Kat glared. “Don’t start.”

Ben held his hands up. “Who’s starting?”

Kat stirred her spoon around in her cup. “This job—”

“Is important to you—we know,” Beth interrupted. She was a little sharper around the edges than she’d been in high school, but her chestnut eyes and crazy cropped ash-blonde hair reaffirmed she was still the same girl Kat had known for years. “But we still worry.”

Ben rested a hand on Kat’s. “You have a lot coming up in the next few months.”

Kat dropped her gaze to the table.

“Your father’s anniversary isn’t far away. Just know that Abby and I are here, okay? We love you.”

“And I love you, too.” Beth grinned. “Even though Adam bought me a diamond, you’re still my number one, you know.” She wiggled the finger that held the gorgeous square-cut diamond engagement ring.

Kat tried to smile. “I know. Thank you both.”

Ben replied, “And remember, I’m a lawyer. If anyone in that place gives you a hard time, I’m your man. You know I could dig up shit on the pope if you needed me to.”

Beth and Kat laughed. It was probably true. Ben won most of his cases through sheer dogged determination, dirt digging, and favors. Like a hunting dog, he could sniff out scandal and blackmail at twenty paces.

“Hey, has your mom called?” Beth asked.

Kat exhaled hard. “Three times last night alone.”

Beth’s brow furrowed. “She called me, too. She’s worried, that’s all.”