Page 249 of Deep Cover

36

Annie

"Which one is it this time?" I asked Bunny as I followed her to the Room of Phones. It was kind of legendary. So was Bunny. She was everybody's favorite nurse and she'd even grown on me.

"Oh, it's that fiancé of yours. He's just so cute and concerned," she said.

Of course he is, I thought. Can't wait to go home with him and appreciate all his concern up close and in person. If Sledgehammer knew what I was thinking, I'd never get out of here.

Not that I'd ever hurt Mark.

Of course not.

I might slip while talking to him, though. Wave my arms wildly to make a point. Accidentally collide with his gut a few dozen times.

Patients could refuse a call. Of course. Staff could refuse for them if the calls seemed to wind them up too much. I'd only refused one call from Mark and it caused him to come visit the same day. Now I took them. Besides, they broke up the monotony and kept me on my toes, making sure I dropped no tidbits of information in front of either Mark or my father.

My father I understood. I was still his daughter. He was still a cop. He liked control and he hated anything that threatened his daughter in any way. Probably he didn't think I was a virgin and apt to remain that way until my wedding night. But he wouldn't want to think of me being traded among sexual predators.

That was just being human. The fact that he was a superior human? Yeah.

So this call was my wonderful fiancé, was it? It was tempting to refuse.

But then, refusing to answer Mark's questions was actually a highlight of the day, and I'd be out of here in the next day or two. With Zach, I was putting together a sort of network of ambulances that for favors from me once they got me back to southern Nevada, would ferry me one after the other to Vegas.

Stupid plan, but I wouldn't be traceable until I was only miles short of the compound.

Plus I couldn't think of anything else. Amazing how powerless I felt just because I didn't have money. Or a phone. Or a gun. Or a badge.

Or shoes.

"Mark?"

"Alternate Mark," Cole's voice said clearly.

My blood raced from my head to my feet and halfway up again, settling between my legs and in my boobs in a throbbing beat I hadn't anticipated.

I breathed out. "What do you want today?" I assumed if nothing else, my conversation was monitored in the room I was in. Whether or not the phones themselves were monitored, I didn't know.

"An old friend is looking to reconnect. I was wondering if you remember where you left your keys."

All that blood that had been throbbing hopefully went cold. I definitely wasn't breathing anymore.

"Oh, no." Show no emotion. Don't let the listening techs think I was getting upset. But I was. "Are you sure?"

"Sure as a bullet," Cole said.

Fuck. "You're sure right now?"

"Dead certain."

Oh, shit. I glanced at the big black plastic-framed clock, the kind that I looked at in school and saw Zach was due in minutes.

"What can I do? Let me think." But past getting out?

Only something happened. There was a scuffle and then I was talking to Kie.

I hadn't ever wanted to hear her voice again.

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