The Safest Lies. Debra Webb

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       Chapter Three

      The woman was trouble.

      Smith Flynn studied the screen monitoring her movements. She paced the six-by-eight cell as if the journey might end some other way the next time she turned around. She hadn’t stopped since being placed inside. This restless behavior was for the benefit of anyone observing.

      He had watched her arrival. She had walked into the compound, shoulders back, chin held high, all the while discreetly surveying everything in her field of vision. Sadie Buchanan was neither afraid nor uncertain. Her arrival at this compound was not by accident any more than was the timing of her appearance. She was on a mission.

      Whatever she was doing here, unfortunately she was his issue now.

      He did not like unexpected issues. Even fearless, attractive ones like Sadie Buchanan.

      “What’s your take on this new development?”

      The voice drew Smith from his musings. He turned to Prentiss. The older man had been running the group known as the Resurrection for a very long time. He rarely had much to say but when he spoke anyone within hearing distance listened—not because he was so articulate or interesting, but because they wanted to live. Prentiss did not take disrespect well.

      “She has an agenda,” Smith said, not telling the other man anything he didn’t already know. “It’ll take some time to determine what that agenda is.”

      Prentiss nodded, his attention fixed on the screen. “I don’t like killing women. There’s something innately wrong with a man killing a woman. It’s a sin like no other, except for killing a child. Any man who would kill a woman or a child is lower than low.” His gaze swung to Smith. “But, if you tell me she’s lying, I will kill her.”

      Smith didn’t waste time pretending to consider the situation. “I can tell you right now that she is lying. No question there.” He turned his attention back to the screen. “The question is why. We’ll need that answer before you kill her.”

      Prentiss nodded. “You’re right. Until we have the answer, she belongs to you. Do with her what you will, just get the truth for me.”

      “I always do.”

      The old man stood and headed for the door. Smith waited until the door closed before turning back to the screen. He wondered if this woman had any idea just how much trouble she was in. Whatever she thought she’d come here to do, she had made a most regrettable mistake.

      He exited his cabin, locking the door behind him, and crossed to the detention center. No one questioned his movements. They knew better. The door was unlocked and opened for him as if he was a king. Once inside he said to the guard, “I’ll be using interview room two for an hour or so. Bring me Levi Winters.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      The guard hustled away to do Smith’s bidding. Smith took the short corridor on the right and then an immediate left where six interview rooms waited. Each room was equipped with very specific instruments for persuading answers from those who had the misfortune of ending up in one of the spaces. Before going to interview room two, he stepped into the observation room and checked the monitoring system.

      Two minutes elapsed before the guard entered interview room two. He settled the prisoner Levi Winters into the chair on the side of the metal table facing the hidden camera. Once Winters was secured to the bolt in the concrete floor, the guard exited. Smith considered Winters for a longer moment. He was younger than this woman who’d gotten herself invited to this ultrasecure place.

      More important than any other aspect of this prisoner, he was scared. Scared to death.

      * * *

      THEY WERE PROBABLY going to kill him now.

      Levi’s whole body felt as cold as ice. There was no telling what they had planned for him this time. That bastard Flynn had done things to him, made him talk when he didn’t want to talk.

      Levi closed his eyes and lowered his head. He was doomed. All he’d wanted was to find the truth. To prove to his sister that he wasn’t a bad guy like their brother, Marcus. He’d let her down so badly already it hurt to think about it. Even under the circumstances. He hadn’t helped Cece the way he should have so he’d decided to prove the whole truth about their daddy and all that he and Marcus had done, like ordering the death of the FBI guy, Jack Kemp.

      Jack had been good to Levi. He’d made him feel like his life mattered—like he mattered. Levi had wanted to be like him. And then the guy had disappeared.

      What nobody knew was that Levi remembered the night their mother had died, no matter that he’d been nothing but a little kid. She and that bastard who was their father had been arguing so loudly and so desperately—arguing, screaming and crying. Then suddenly the arguing had stopped. Levi had crept out of his bedroom and to the top of the stairs. Their momma had lain at the bottom of the stairs. The crying had started again, only that time it was Levi. The only thing he remembered after that was Cece holding him and their grandmother screaming. Eventually she had calmed down and taken them home with her.

      The certainty and hatred that had sprouted that night СКАЧАТЬ