Page 116 of Stolen Ones
‘I’m thinking that yesterday we did it your way and today we’re doing it mine.’
She looked around the room and her gaze rested on the detective constable.
‘Okay, Stace, listen carefully: here’s what I want you to do.’
Seventy
Alex couldn’t help the satisfied smile that was playing around her lips as she combed her hair. She knew that she was literally days away from doing this once again in her own home.
She had already decided that she would spend her first few nights in the most expensive hotel she could find. It would have a beauty salon, a spa, a pool, a gym and a restaurant that cooked decent food.
She smiled at the irony that she’d be in one room having her meals cooked for her. But it would be a luxurious room and the food would be of her choosing. As would the option to go shopping or go see a show, read any book she wanted instead of the slim pickings in the prison library, surf hundreds of channels for educational viewing instead of being forced by the rest of the inmates to watch every soap on the box. Most of them wouldn’t know a decent documentary if it slapped them around the face.
She would arrange to have her home cleaned from top to bottom and her car taken out of storage. As her wealth was not tied to any of the crimes she was alleged to have committed, it was all there waiting for her.
After a couple of weeks cleansing her body and mind and recuperating from the ordeal of the last few years, she would start working again. She already planned to apply for reinstatement to the medical register.
The medical board was indeed fickle and inconsistent. She knew of a recent case of a psychiatrist struck off for having sexual relations with one of his female clients. Because he admitted it, he’d been allowed to wind up his business and retire. Another doctor, convicted over the death of a six-year-old boy, had been allowed reinstatement to the medical register.
She had no doubt she would be reinstated and then she intended to get paying clients back through her door. She needed to be back in that circle of people coming to her for help, being able to use her skills. She’d used them in the last few years to get what she wanted only she hadn’t been getting paid for it.
She classed today as her last full day before the process for her release began.
She had a sixo’clock meeting with Warden Siviter to talk through the parole hearing process and for the warden to share her recommendation. If everything went to plan, Alex had no doubt as to the outcome of that meeting.
She had the sudden feeling of being on holiday. She felt as though she’d been stuck in a seedy caravan with torrential rain for the whole week, and then on the last day the sun had come out, and it was time to make the most of the time left.
She was going to enjoy it and have the most fun possible.
‘I think you should probably start preparing for a new cellmate, Emma,’ she said, tying her hair into a ponytail.
She was gratified to see the woman’s face fall.
‘You might not get it, you know,’ Emma warned with concern in her voice. Oh, how touching.
‘I will,’ Alex said confidently.
‘It’s your first parole hearing. Folks don’t always get—’
‘I will, Emma – I can promise you.’
‘But how can you be sure?’
‘Careful – anyone would think you don’t want me to go back to my normal life, just so I can stay here with you.’
‘Well, we do make a good team.’
Alex sat on the bed and regarded her cellmate for a minute.
‘The word team indicates members of equal standing. Individuals working together with one common goal. Ours has been more of a master and puppet situation.’
Emma’s expression was puzzled. Oh dear, she was going to have to spell it out. Fine, she had time to kill and today was about enjoying herself.
Emma tipped her head. ‘Why has your voice changed?’
‘This is my normal voice. Like everything else, I have adapted it for my audience. I have paused my outstanding conversational skills. I have lowered my superior intelligence. I have downgraded every part of myself for the benefit of the people around me.’
Emma began to shake her head in disbelief.
