AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He looked at her, tried to make eye contact.
“Do you believe me?” he asked her. “That he’s not going to hurt you anymore?”
“You can’t tell Mr. McGuire.”
“We’re not going to tell Mr. McGuire,” he said. “We’re not going to tell anyone.”
Three days later, Camp Montague was back to normal—post Trek Week normal. It took all of Thursday for the campers to pull the canoes from the river and store them in the giant hangar that stored all things Montague. Life vests, helmets, paddles, and tents were cleaned, dried, and stowed for next year’s trek. The clean-up took two days, but by midafternoon on Friday the camp looked back to its usual self, and there was some rare downtime at Camp Montague where no activities were planned and the kids had an open afternoon and evening.
They went about the afternoon without drawing attention to themselves. They had spent the second and third night of Trek Week plotting and brainstorming until they’d come up with the perfect plan. At 3:00 p.m. they met behind the crafts shed—a long log cabin where wood-crafting projects took place.
“Everything we need should be in the back supply closet,” he said.
“What do we need?” she asked.
“Probably just a pair of pliers, but I’ll grab a few other tools just in case.”
The supply closet was an organized maze of tools. Hammers and screwdrivers hung in organized rows from pegboard. Several red Craftsman tool cabinets lined the back wall, their drawers filled with screws and nails. They went to the wall and grabbed a pair of slip joint pliers, a hammer, and a flathead screwdriver.
“This oughta do it.” He looked at her. “Okay. Stay away from your cabin. I’ll meet you in the clearing at ten.”
She nodded.
CHAPTER 54
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, May 30, 2023 10:45 a.m.
JACQUELINE JORDAN PLACED HER SHOULDER BAG ON THE CONVEYOR belt and watched as it made its way through the X-ray machine. A security guard stared at a monitor on the other side of the metal detector and inspected the bag’s contents, looking for weapons and contraband. Jacqueline had been through the process before. It was the same at nearly every prison she visited, and she’d visited the Central Detention Facility in DC many times during her years at Lancaster & Jordan.
She passed through the metal detector without incident, and stretched her arms out to her sides for the guard to run a wand up and down her body.
“Thank you, ma’am,” the young prison guard said with a smile.
Jacqueline collected her bag, hung it over her shoulder, and followed another guard through a set of locked doors until she was shown into the visitor section of the prison. She had requested, and was granted, a private room for that morning’s meeting. After all, she had claimed that it was the first meeting with her new client. They would need as much privacy as possible.
The guard opened the door to the meeting room and showed her inside. She took a seat in one of the two chairs and unpacked her folder from her bag, placing it on the table in front of her. Ten minutes later, an inmate wearing an orange jumpsuit was shown into the room. Jacqueline recognized the confusion on his face as he stared at her—she was a complete stranger to him. The guard clipped the man’s handcuffed wrists to an eyebolt at the edge of the table.
“You’ve got thirty minutes,” the guard said. “If you need something sooner, press the buzzer.”
“Thank you,” Jacqueline said and smiled as the guard left them alone.
“Who are you?” Reece Rankin asked.
“I’m your attorney,” Jacqueline lied.
“You ain’t the lady I met with before.”
“She was a public defender, assigned to you by the court.”
“That’s ’cause I ain’t got no money for a real lawyer. You a real lawyer?”
“I am.”
Rankin smiled, displaying badly decayed and yellow teeth. “How you think I’m gonna pay you if I don’t got no money?”
“My firm takes a limited number of pro bono cases. That means we work on your behalf but don’t ask for compensation in return. So don’t worry about money, just concentrate on answering a few questions for me. Afterward, I’ll let you know if I can help you.”
“Pro bono?”
