Guilty by Karen Robards Page A

and what she could see, the hallways were all but impregnable.
    This particular one was narrow, brightly lit by fluorescent lights glowing out of recessed panels in the ceiling, and painted a depressing shade of gray. The floor was smooth concrete. Two doors, both gray metal, both with small glass-enclosed grills that allowed deputies in the hallway to check on the prisoners inside, opened through its right wall into holding cells. The left wall was a smooth, unbroken expanse of gray paint. A black telephone hung on the narrow wall at the end of the hall. Beneath it, a folding metal chair for deputies to use while waiting to escort a prisoner into court waited beside another solid metal door. That door was the twin of the one that led to the courtroom, and it led into another corridor, world without end. It, too, was closed and, she presumed from his lack of interest in it, locked from this side. The bottom line was, the secure corridors constituted an interior prison hidden inside the soaring, designed-to-impress public areas of the Justice Center. For her to be rescued from this one by force would, she feared, require a Herculean effort on the part of the police— and would give her captor plenty of time to kill her as they tried.
    All of a sudden, the possibility that the cell doors were almost certainly bulletproof, too, occurred to her, bringing with it a ray of hope.
    If she could somehow break away from Orange Jumpsuit, maybe she could dart inside a holding cell and lock herself in....
    "You better be praying for that helicopter," he said, nudging her in the spine with his gun.
    Oh, yeah. She took a deep, steadying breath. Say I whirl around, manage to shove him off balance, then run inside the nearest cell and slam the door ...
    "Maybe a helicopter's not the only option. Maybe we could work something else out—like a plea deal." She was proud of how steady her voice sounded. Her mind continued to race, turning over the pros and cons of her not-quite-ready-for-prime-time escape plan. It was so quiet in the hallway that the click of her heels on the concrete was clearly audible. Her voice seemed to echo. "For example, if you let me walk out of here now, I can one hundred percent guarantee you that I can fix it so you won't face the death penalty."
    "Don't give me that. You can't guarantee shit." His fingers tightened on the neck of her jacket, and his gun jabbed into her spine. Her back curved in a reflexive attempt to escape the pain—without success—as she winced. "And if you don't shut your fucking mouth so I can think, I'm going to kill you right now."
    O-kay. Deep breath.
    So much for trying to talk her way free. She kept walking forward, her heart thundering as the reality of her situation hit home. If this thug didn't get the helicopter he wanted—and he wouldn't, she knew how the whole barter-a-helicopter-for-the-hostage thing worked— or if something else didn't happen that would allow her to escape, she was dead meat.
    After the carnage in the courtroom, he clearly knew that he had nothing to lose. He was already looking at the death penalty probably six times over. One more corpse—hers—wouldn't make a particle of difference to what happened to him.
    And he clearly wasn't a fan of prosecutors.
    Please, God, don't let me die.
    Unbidden, Ben's face rose in her mind's eye again. At the thought of how destroyed her son would be if something happened to her, she once more felt the hot sting of welling tears.
    Man it up, she told herself fiercely. It was more Ben-speak, and realizing that just twisted the vise that was squeezing her heart a little tighter. Blinking rapidly to dispel the tears before they could overflow, she forced all thoughts of Ben from her mind. To have any hope of surviving, she was going to have to keep her mind clear and focused and in the present.
    Make like Winnie-the-Pooh and think, think, think.
    They had just reached the first cell when its doorknob rattled. Jumping a little,