Be A Good Girl (FBI #3)
Tess Diamond
Dedication
For my grandmother,
who always watched old noir movies with me.
Prologue
Fifteen years ago
She felt numb. Like her entire body had been shot up with Novocain. Her arms lolled to the side as he carried her like a doll through the orchard. She could see the thick green leaves of the olive trees above her, her eyes drifting shut every few seconds.
She was so tired.
His face swam in and out of her fuzzy vision as she felt the ground against her back. He was setting her down.
Run, her mind said. But her body couldn’t obey. She couldn’t even lift her pinky. Every muscle felt locked in place, paralyzed, her limbs useless. She kept trying to move, tears tracking down her face as she struggled in vain.
He began to hum, his palm cradling the back of her head gently as he pulled her double braids up and over her shoulders.
The gentleness made fear spike in her, adrenaline filling her body, her legs unable to respond.
He smiled.
“It’s all right, sweet thing,” he cooed at her, like she was a puppy. “It’s better this way. You’re serving a purpose.” His smile grew wide. “You’re my lesson.”
He drew away from her, and all she could see were the branches of the trees and the pieces of sky and stars between them.
The trees were beautiful, she thought. So beautiful. At least she was here, in the trees.
As his hands closed around her throat, her eyes slipped shut.
And never opened again.
Chapter 1
The second she came into view of the cell block, the hooting and hollering started.
Abby’s stomach twisted, a reactive response that almost any woman had when getting catcalled, but being in the prison intensified the stress. She refused to show it, squared her shoulders, and stared straight ahead. Keeping her face a smooth mask, she followed the guard down the narrow hall of the block. Cells lined both sides of the hall, prisoners pressing against the bars as they craned to catch a glimpse of her. For some of them, she was their first look at a woman on the block in years, maybe even decades. It wasn’t often that Pinewood Correctional Facility let journalists inside general population, let alone solitary confinement.
But that was exactly where she was headed. She’d been a tight ball of nerves—a mix of fear and anticipation—since she’d gotten the call.
He had finally consented to see her. It had taken over a year and at least fifty letters, but she’d made it happen.
Her daddy always did say she was a determined girl. She’d grown up to be an even more determined woman.
And she was going to get what she wanted. What she needed.
“Stay close,” Stan, the guard said, casting a glance at a prisoner pounding on the bars as they passed. Abby adjusted her stride so she was just within a step of him. She was a tall woman, with curvy hips and muscle tone on her arms that came from hauling hay bales instead of the gym. Coming home five years ago had meant going back to her roots—quite literally. When she’d arrived, her father’s almond orchard was in dire need of some TLC, and she’d put the work in, on top of caring for him. When he’d passed away two years ago, he’d passed knowing the orchard was back to flourishing. She hoped it eased his mind. He had always been a hard man to please.
When she and Stan reached the end of the cell block, he opened the barred door, ushering her into another hallway. The silence of this part of the prison was abrupt and strange after the noise of the cell block, and it took Abby a moment to adjust as she walked alongside him.
“You okay?” Stan asked, looking at her, his gray eyebrows drawn together with concern. “I know they say some filthy stuff.”
She smiled reassuringly at him. “I can handle it,” she said.
“So is this visit for a new piece?” he asked, opening another door with his ring of keys. “I read that story you did, the one about that heroin addict. I liked it. Thought you did a good job, showing how the addiction was a disease and how we need to approach the drug problem like an epidemic.”
“Thank you,” Abby said. Normally, she’d be delighted her work had affected him, but her mind was on other things. On the man somewhere in this prison, who held answers to questions that had haunted her for years. “That’s so nice of you to say. And I’m afraid I can’t give any details about my works-in-progress. Contracts, you know.” She shot him another smile, hoping he’d drop it.
Luckily, at that moment, they came to a stop in front of a thick steel door that had SOLITARY CONFINEMENT stamped on it.
Abby took a deep breath, her eyes settling on the words. This was it. In just minutes, she’d be face-to-face with him. Her heart was hammering in her chest at the thought.
She turned back to Stan, and was surprised at how troubled the older man looked.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked her.
“I’m a big girl, Stan,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Look . . .” He licked his lips, looking nervous. “He’s tricky. Really tricky.”
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Abby said.
She didn’t need the rumors. She knew from real life exactly how sick the man she was about to meet was. She had spent the last two years learning everything there was to know about him. She’d talked to every teacher he’d ever had, every relative who was willing to speak to her and not slam the door in her face. She’d talked to every single person who’d even had a modicum of contact with Howard Wells, better known as Dr. X.
She knew him. And she was about to use that knowledge to get what she wanted from him.
“I just want you to be careful,” Stan said. “He knows exactly what to say to get to you.”
“I know he talked an inmate into killing himself,” Abby said.
“Not just one,” Stan said quietly, looking over his shoulder nervously before lowering his voice and adding, “And not just inmates.”
Abby’s eyes widened at the implication. She knew she should press Stan for more information, but she also knew she could ferret out the truth herself with a little research. She didn’t want to make him even more nervous, especially because he was authorized to cut her meeting short if he deemed the situation unsafe.
“I appreciate your concern,” she told Stan. “But I’ll only be asking him questions.”
“Okay,” Stan said. “Just don’t get too close.” He took her through the same rundown she’d gotten when she’d first entered the prison: no contact, no passing the prisoner anything, and no getting within even ten feet of the prisoner. Abby had a feeling that the last one was a specific rule for the man she was about to see.
The solitary wing was quiet as they walked through it to the very end, where a door led to another, even more isolated section.
“Inmate 3847, your visitor is here,” Stan called out. Abby’s skin prickled at the change in his voice. When talking with her, he had been kind, almost grandfatherly. But now, his voice was stern and authoritative, full of “don’t fuck with me” attitude.
“You sit here,” Stan said, pointing his baton at the bench set a good ten feet away from the thick, clear plastic wall that made up the front of Howard’s cell. “Inmate 3847, come forward.”
There was a pause, and Abby had to bite the inside of her cheek as he shuffled into view.
Howard Wells was fifteen years older than the last time she’d seen a picture of him, but he was no less terrifying. Goose bumps—the dreadful, horror-filled kind—spread across her skin as his eyes met hers.
His hair was gray now, slicked back, the comb tracks visible, like he’d carefully groomed it for this meeting. His orange jumpsuit was clean and tidy, his bright blue eyes shining in his craggy face.