“Options? You’re my boss!”
“I don’t work at the prison. That should alleviate the department’s potential concerns. It’s not as if the director would ever encourage a relationship, but you and I both know it happens and it doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of employment. I think we can get Tillamont’s blessing to at least start dating. After that, we’ll take it one day at a time.”
She covered her face. “This can’t be happening.”
“Just think about it.”
“Fine.” She dropped her hands. “I’ll think about it if you’ll make me a promise.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll keep what I told you to yourself and wait until this investigation is over before we deal with anything between us. Operation Inside is all I can focus on right now. It scares me, as you know. So will you go get Virgil?”
That she kept going back to Virgil brought a fresh twinge of jealousy. She could act a little grateful that he was willing to speak to the director so they could see each other, couldn’t she?
But maybe he was expecting too much. She was as ragged as he was. So he tamped down the negative emotion. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll go and grab him.”
“You might want to drop him off here, then go to the motel for his bag. I don’t think he should show up there at all, do you?”
He’d be leaving them alone together; that registered immediately. But he was crazy to worry. Peyton wouldn’t want someone like Virgil now that he’d let her know she could hope for so much better. “You’re probably right,” he said, and strode off.
“God, if I hang on to my job, it’ll be a miracle,” Peyton muttered as she stood on the deck listening to the sound of Wallace’s car growing fainter. She was so shocked by what he’d told her she hadn’t known how to respond. She wasn’t interested in him. She’d never be interested in him. But there was no reason to make that as clear as she wanted to. Not right now. They were all in a very tenuous position. She needed to keep Rick on her side for Virgil’s sake, if for no other reason. It would be smarter to get through the coming weeks without defining anything that might upset the delicate balance of ego, desire, jealousy, pride, ambition—even survival instinct—ebbing and flowing between the three of them. If she kept Rick mollified, she’d have a greater chance of retaining control of the situation at Pelican Bay, and that meant Virgil would have a greater chance of surviving his experience there.
Telling herself that Rick would soon go back to Sacramento, which would make it easier to ignore everything he’d just said, she went inside to change and make dinner. Never would she have guessed that she’d have both Virgil and Rick Wallace over for a meal, let alone staying the night.
But without knowing what was causing the unrest in gen pop, she wanted to be as cautious about Virgil’s safety as possible.
“You told him, didn’t you.”
Peyton jerked around to find Virgil standing in the kitchen doorway. She’d been so focused on preparing the fish she’d taken from the freezer she hadn’t heard him come in. She hadn’t even heard Rick’s car, but in this part of the house, she didn’t always know when a vehicle pulled up. “Is he here?” she whispered, angling her head to look past him.
“No. He went to get my things from the motel.”
Pretending not to notice the spark she felt at his proximity, Peyton slipped past him and went into the living room so she could check a side window, just to be sure. Her driveway was empty.
Virgil didn’t leave his post in the kitchen doorway, but he turned to face her. “Well?”
“I did,” she admitted.
Muttering a curse, he took his hand from his pocket long enough to scrub his face. “What were you thinking?”
“I was putting a stop to our…affair or whatever you want to call it.”
“By trying to get me killed?”
His words scraped her nerves like sandpaper. “No. Of course not.”
“You’ve given him the perfect excuse to make my life miserable. You know that, right? Don’t you understand how much he wants you? How much it’ll bother him to think I got there first?”
She did now. Rick had just explained it to her. But she didn’t want to dwell on that uncomfortable conversation. It distressed her that she had to deal with unwanted interest from one man while trying to control her desire for another. “He’s not like that. Maybe he’s not particularly deep. Or much of a humanitarian. But…he wouldn’t purposely put you in harm’s way.”
When Virgil chuckled without mirth, she knew he had to be thinking that Pelican Bay was practically a synonym for being “in harm’s way.”
“Look, if you want to know the truth, I regret telling him, okay?” she said. “I should’ve waited, thought it out. Maybe then I would’ve realized the pitfalls of going in that direction. But it was late last night when I got back from your motel room and…and I wasn’t feeling too great about what we did. I would’ve called the warden instead, but I knew he wouldn’t be up. I went to Rick because he was available, and I wanted to be honest.”
He lowered his voice. “You could’ve called me if you needed to talk.”
“You caused the problem in the first place, remember?”
She saw a pained expression on his face. He thought she was blaming him for more than she really was. “I didn’t mean to be rough with you. I feel…bad about that.”
“I got over it,” she said, but that was an understatement. If she was being completely honest, she would’ve said she enjoyed it.
“Apparently not as well as I’d hoped.”
“I would’ve confessed anyway,” she told him. “It’s the way I live my life.”
He shoved away from the wall but didn’t approach her. He circled the coffee table going toward the living room instead and checked the drive himself. “What, exactly, did you say to him?”
“I was vague but truthful. I said we’d had an inappropriate relationship.”
“How did he react?”
“He wasn’t pleased.”
He chuckled again but didn’t comment.
“When I said I was going to tell the warden, too, he told me not to.”
This seemed to surprise him. “Why?”
“He was afraid it would interfere with our little…operation.”
“Taking down the Hells Fury means a lot to him.”
“He wants the glory of doing what no one else has been able to do. If this works out, he’ll be a hero, and being a hero can really boost a man’s career.” Remembering the fish, she headed back to the kitchen. “What did he say to you about…us?”
“Nothing.”
She paused at the entrance. “Then how did you know?”
“I could tell by the way he was treating me.”
“Which was…?”
“Like a rival.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to create a jealous monster. I was feeling guilty for not being more responsible and…removing temptation seemed like the right thing to do.”
She went into the kitchen, but he followed her. “There’s a law that says you can’t sleep with an informant?” he asked.
“Maybe not a law, but definitely a rule. If my behavior threatens everything the CDCR has put together in order to bring down the Hells Fury, I’m wrong for doing it. That could be considered malfeasance of office and might get me fired.” And yet the possibility hadn’t stopped her. That was why she’d resorted to such desperate measures. But telling on herself, however well-intentioned, had only made matters more tenuous and frightening—and done nothing to diminish the desire she’d hoped to eliminate.
“You knew you could be fired, but you told him, anyway?”
What astonished her was that she’d risked her job in the first place. Didn’t he get that? Probably not. Why would he? He didn’t understand how important her career was to her, how much she wanted to change the system because of her father. “I won’t pretend to be one thing while being another. I hate hypocrites. I felt if I confessed it would put an end to the conflict I was feeling.”