Chapter One

 

 

Diane Landis was shoved into the dimly lit cell. She stumbled against the edge of the bed.

"Hey! Don't be so rough!" She fought her panic with bravado, but her quivering voice betrayed her.

"You'll stay here until you can post bail," the guard said. He started to slam the steel door.

"Wait! What about my phone call!" How did they expect her to post bail if they wouldn't let her call her parents? Her dad was a lawyer; he'd know what to do.

The guard just smiled and slammed the door in her face.

"You fucker!" She screamed. She pounded on the door, shouting out her frustrations until she finally collapsed weeping on the bed. When she recovered sufficiently to try to overcome her fear, her anger set in.

She'd been picked up on some rinky-dink traffic violation in this god-forsaken hick town somewhere in backwards Mississippi and tossed in jail without so much as a whiff of habeous corpus.

They can't do that! This is fucking America!

Diane was sure she'd see a judge tomorrow and then heads would roll! When her dad found out, he'd own this fucking town.

She sat up and looked around her. Her brow furrowed. This looked like no cell she'd ever seen on TV shows. For one, it had a twin bed, not a cot with a thin mattress. It was shoved up into the far corner of the small cell. There was a white fitted sheet on it but no blanket. It did have two very large pillows, which made it look almost cheery. But it seemed large for the room. In fact, the room was only about eighteen inches longer than the bed and eighteen inches wider, giving her a narrow walkway by the door and along one side. She glanced up at the far end and spotted a small chemical toilet. In a jail cell, she would have expected real plumbing, not some cheap camping john.

And then there was the corridor leading to her cell, she remembered. She expected to see bars, not cold cement walls and steel doors with slots in them. Diane looked up; her slot was closed at the moment.

Perhaps this cell block had been converted from some other use, she mused. A way for the county to save money. Yeah, that must be it. Cheap bastards.

Her eye caught something high up on the wall and she froze, pulling her jean jacket closer around her torso. It was a small black camera lens, mounted high up behind Plexiglas. She looked around and spotted one more. Both appeared to be aimed at the bed.

Diane suddenly felt very creepy.

She raised her hand and flipped off the cameras, one at a time, then flounced on the bed. She would have to sleep in her clothes to avoid giving them a peep show. But what about when she had to use the toilet? She shivered and hugged herself tightly.

She sat up again and looked at the wall near the door. There was something odd about it. She approached it. Next to the door was a push button, like a light switch you'd find in an old-fashioned hotel. Inset in the wall above it were round dark glass panels, each about the size of a quarter. She pushed the button. Nothing happened. No one came.

Huh. She sat back on the bed and put her head in her hands. Diane guessed it must be around nine o'clock. The cops had pulled her over just after dark, which fell around eight this time of year. She couldn't believe it when one of them - a brute of a yokel with the last name Darkins on his uniform shirt -- slapped the handcuffs on her.

"Hey!" she had said. "Why don't you just write me a ticket and let me go!" Not that she'd pay it! She had expected to be long gone out of this state by morning.

But they ignored her. Darkins had tossed her in the back like some criminal and she watched as he got into her car, made a u-turn and followed the patrol unit as the second cop drove back to the station.

"Hey! What the hell's going on?" Diane asked him. He was a typical overweight "good ol' boy" with short dark hair. She didn't see his nametag, but thought he was probably Darkins' second cousin - don't they all inbreed in these backwoods towns? He said nothing.

Well, she thought as she fought her panic, at least my car will be nearby and not left by the side of the road where it could be stolen or stripped. It had all her luggage in the trunk, whatever she could pack quickly before her bastard of a husband had returned home.

She had been on her way back to live with her parents - just temporarily! - until she could get back on her feet. Damn! Her mother had told her not to marry David.

"I just got a feeling," she'd say when Diane asked her why.

But she had married him anyway and within two years it all went to hell. He went from being a nice guy who worshipped the ground she walked on to a controlling, abusive jerk. She might've stuck it out if he had agreed to counseling but he had refused. When he started accusing her of cheating on him with the mailman, the paper boy and her boss at the office, she knew it was time to go.

She had waited until he had left for work, packed up as much as she could fit into her car and hit the road. She didn't even leave him a note. He didn't deserve one.

Diane had meant to call her parents, to warn them she was coming, but she'd been so embarrassed, she had just decided to show up. Even though her mom would want to say, "I told you so," Diane knew she'd just give her a big hug and welcome her home.

Except now, she realized, no one knows where the hell she was. I'm not even sure I do, she thought.

With nothing else to do, she curled up and tried to get some sleep.