The Intern(46)

“You just admitted you don’t know if she’s an informant,” Kathryn said. “There are other reasons she might lie. Maybe her brother put her up to it, and it has nothing to do with the feds. Maybe she just wanted the job, and it’s a coincidence that he’s a drug dealer. Let’s figure out why she’s there and what she wants before we let her go. It’s valuable intelligence.”

He pulled into the alleyway behind the town house, face flushed with pique that she was talking back. He’d been in charge since they were kids. As far as he was concerned, he was the boss of her forever.

He waved toward the courtyard, where light spilled from the house.

“She’s in there right now. You have no idea what she’s doing. She could be going through your things.”

“She’s not.”

“You don’t know that. Kathy, I’m telling you, this kid is a threat. The longer you keep her around, the greater the risk. She needs to be eliminated quickly. Either you do it, or I will. And I won’t be nice.”





Part Three

Madison





18


A few hours earlier Something thumped against Madison’s chest. She gasped, opening her eyes to Lucy walking over her body. The cat turned a pirouette and settled at her feet.

“Good morning to you, too.”

It didn’t look like morning, though. When she finally went to sleep, the sun was fully up. Watery light now slanted through the dormer windows at the angle of late afternoon. She rubbed her temples, groaning as she sat up. Grabbing her phone off the bedside table, she saw it was after two, and there were five missed calls from Mom, the last one just minutes ago. Her phone had been on silent.

She tapped the number. Mom answered immediately. It sounded like she was crying.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

The reply was garbled.

“Slow down. I can’t understand.”

Her mother crying hit Madison in the gut. Suddenly, she was thirteen again, standing outside her parents’ bedroom while her father died inside.

“Mom, what happened? Tell me!”

“He’s—he’s gone.”

She went cold.

“Gone? Danny is dead? He’s dead?”

She started to hyperventilate.

“I don’t know. But he’s not there.”

“Where? What are you saying?”

“I went to the jail. They didn’t know where he was. They couldn’t find him in the system. They said he might’ve got moved, but they didn’t know. How could they not know?”

Rage flashed. “Ma! Jesus Christ, why would you scare me like that? I thought he was dead.”

Her mother struggled to get the crying under control.

“He might be dead. He could be dead,” Yolanda said between sobs.

“Don’t say that unless you know it’s true. You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

“Why won’t you—you don’t—take this seriously.”

“Mom. They moved him to another prison. That’s all.”

“The guard said if he got moved, there’d be a transfer order. There’s nothing. Nothing. He’s missing from the computer, like he never existed.”

“It’s a mistake. They don’t lose inmates. He’s got to be somewhere.”

“You don’t know. You’re just saying that.”

“You don’t know, either. Calm down, please. I’m telling you, a prison is a bureaucracy. They move people around. It can take time for the files to catch up. That has to be what happened.”

“He said they were gonna kill him, and now he’s goone.”

She wailed like her heart was broken, and Madison couldn’t bear it. She made soothing noises into the phone, fighting tears of her own. What if her mother was right, and something had really happened? It would be her fault for not believing Danny sooner and doing more to help. Mom would think so, too. She’d never forgive her. She had to find Danny and help him fight the case. Enough worrying about the repercussions for herself. The repercussions of doing nothing were a hell of a lot worse, for all of them.

Her mother’s sobs were wearing themselves out.

“Ma, listen. If he was dead, they’d tell us. They might lie, say he got killed in a fight or something. But they wouldn’t claim not to know. This transfer thing has the ring of truth. I’m telling you. Mom? Stop crying, please. He’s alive. I’ll prove it. I’ll find him.”

“How, Madison? How you gonna find him when the guards don’t know anything, and that lawyer won’t lift a finger to help us?”

“Did you ask him?”

“The lawyer? Why would I bother calling that—crook?”

“You’re right. He is a crook. I researched him. He’s got a long history of disciplinary complaints. The detective in the case is dirty, too. Wallace. I don’t like the looks of him from what I see. Was he in court? Did you meet him?”

“No. But Danny says he’s the devil.”

She shivered thinking about him pounding on the door last night, only a piece of wood between them.

“Whatever happened to Danny, those two know about it. I’m going to call Logue and see what he says.”