Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I’m not sure how long I’ve been locked in Valdemar’s embrace, but like an injection of poison, fear floods me as he’s pulled away.
“Evangeline,” he says amidst raspy breaths. It sounds odd, him using my real name, but I don’t have time to decide whether I like it or not.
“Take my hand, miss,” a new voice says.
Letting Valdemar’s T-shirt drop from my eyes, I try to get a look at the guard who spoke, but my vision is diluted.
“You can remove the shirt. We’re going to place a visor over your head.” There’s a hand on my shoulder, bony and sharp with fingers like hooks, and I almost shrug it off.
Disorientation is setting in now that I’m bereft of Valdemar’s safety net. I need my senses back if I’m to stay calm. Taking his T-shirt from my face, I blink against the smog.
It isn’t like a foggy day. Amontillado has its fair share of mist that rolls in off the lake and hangs around all day like an uninvited guest, but this hazy drape is different. Even on those misty days, you can always see what’s directly in front of you, the fog always a few metres in the distance. This cloud of vapor is right in front of my face, tangling itself in my hair and caressing my skin with its artificial movement. In the seconds my eyes have been exposed, they burn, water springing from the corners as if to douse the fire they believe is raging.
Rough hands arrive, strapping an elasticated band over the top of my head and securing it as a clear plastic visor is pulled down over my face.
I’m plunged into an unnerving enclosure that protects my face from the tear gas.
Blinking furiously, my eyes begin to adjust, the burn subsiding to a sting, my watery tears washing away the last of the toxin.
Although the scene isn’t clear, the room having been wrapped in a thick blanket of grey, I can make out the shapes of people, including the guard beside me who’s wearing a matching visor and newly acquired body armour.
“Okay, miss, I’m going to lead you to the exit, and then we’ll get one of our medics to check you over before you leave.”
There’s no sympathy in the guard’s voice—he’s used to dealing with criminals, not the public—but I take his hand.
As he pulls me up, he moves to my right, and from behind the clarity of the visor, I can just make out the shape of Valdemar being manhandled by two guards.
“Make sure she’s okay.” His words travel through the obscurity, his usual smooth, deep voice replaced by a wheezing gasp.
“We will,” the guard says briskly, “but I’m not doing anything until you get moving, Montresor. You need to see the doctor.”
“I don’t need to see anyone,” Valdemar fires back.
“You can barely see and breathe. Now do as you’re told and get moving,” the guard barks.
Their shapes begin to move to the rear of the room as I’m led to the door on the other side.
A new feeling taps at my insides, one I never thought I would feel for the likes of Valdemar Montresor, but the guard’s words have lodged in my chest, and no matter how hard I try to push them down, they won’t budge.
“ You can barely see and breathe.”
Being a reporter, I know what tear gas is designed to do. While I’d been sheltered from the gas by Valdemar’s T-shirt and his body, he’d left himself open to it, letting it attack his eyes, burn his throat, and invade his nasal passages.
“Will he be okay?” I ask.
The guard doesn’t even turn, let alone answer as he leads me through the exit and out into the corridor, the gas lifting like magic. Following the other visitors who have all had visors placed over their heads, I pull mine off, needing to return to the elements and not hide behind a piece of Perspex.
“There might be a wait for the medic. We only have two on site, so one will deal with the inmates while the other sees to you guys,” the guard says.
Trailing the line of people, we reach a door that leads into a small room containing a few plastic chairs and a rectangular coffee table.
Running my hand through my hair, I take stock of the other visitors and suddenly wish I hadn’t.
Most of them have removed their visors and are swiping at red-rimmed eyes, tears streaming down their faces. There’s a woman rocking in the chair in the corner, pressing her hands so hard against her eyes that I fear she’ll push them into her brain. A middle-aged guy is standing there, squeezing his eyes tightly closed and clawing at his throat. It’s like the aftermath of an apocalypse.
I tug on the sleeve of the nearest guard, who eyes me suspiciously. “Hey, I don’t need to see a medic. I’m fine.”
He just continues to stare at me.
“Look at me,” I demand. “I don’t look like any of these people. I’m fine, honestly. I just want to leave and get some fresh air.”
Glancing at the rest of the people, he turns and, with a nod, ushers me out of the room. Taking me back through the maze of corridors, he leads me to the entrance.
“What happened in there?” I ask, almost running to keep up with his large strides.
“Not sure yet,” he answers without slowing his pace.
“Was it a disagreement between family members?” The journalist in me hasn’t been quelled by the tear gas.
“God, no.” The guard tuts. “That, we would have been able to deal with. No, this was an organised job.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean that someone from the outside wanted a message sent and used a visitor to send it.”
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head.
“The inmate who was attacked will have a list of enemies as long as your arm. These guys usually do, or they wouldn’t be in here. And it doesn’t take much to get someone to send them a message from the outside, just like you saw today,” the guard explains.
“How do you know that?”
“Because the guy who attacked the prisoner wasn’t your average Joe Bloggs throwing a punch in a bar. This guy knew where to strike.” Pausing to open a door using a fob, the guard glances at me, eyes wide. “He broke Luchesi’s fucking neck,” he tells me, and for a second, he isn’t a prison guard anymore. He’s just a guy who came to work today to earn his living to pay his bills and put food on his table and ended up witnessing a vicious attack.
“Is Luchesi alive?” I ask, assuming he must be the prisoner who was attacked.
Rubbing day-old stubble, the guard blinks. “Not sure, but if he is, he might never fucking walk again.”
“Why did Luchesi agree to see that man if he knew he was going to attack him?”
“He didn’t know, and the guy will have been sent by someone and probably registered by a different name. There are ways of getting in. Trust me. If someone wants to send a message to someone in here, no amount of policies, rules, and procedures will stop that message from being sent.”
A sinking feeling glugs in my stomach, the note I received weeks ago coming into my mind’s eye.
Someone wants Valdemar Montresor dead.
Someone knows I’ve been visiting him.
Someone has asked me to kill him.
But who?