Gavin went to his bunk and pulled the letter from beneath the mattress. “I was hoping you might mail it for me. There’s nothin’ that’ll get you in trouble. Go ahead, read it.”

Gavin gave the letter to Gideon and waited as the man slowly read the content, a process that took far longer than it should have.

“See? It’s harmless. I just don’t want the guards to flag it as coming from me. If my prosecutor gets ahold of that guy’s name I could be in a ton of shit. All you have to do is mail it.”

“I mail this and you give me a calling card?”

“That’s the deal.”

“Hell, I’ll do it right now.”

Gavin put the letter inside an envelope and gave it to Gideon, slapping him on the back as he left the cell.

With that letter on its way, Gavin moved his mattress to the floor again and began writing the second letter—also addressed to Jack. The second letter was far more difficult to construct, and it ran two pages long. No matter how hard he tried, Gavin could not get the words and sentences to make sense, so he embraced the incoherency of it all, filling the pages with symbolized cursing and disjointed babble. When he finished, Gavin delivered the second letter to Gideon Doss, who once again acted as courier.

The day’s tasks completed, Gavin retreated to his cell to lie on his bunk and contemplate his next step. Should he write a third letter, one to set Jack on the trail of Lila Nash? No. That would be a bridge too far. He would have to handle Lila himself once they freed him.

For all of his life, Gavin had cherished his time alone, his mental journeys soothing him as though he were walking through a garden. But Lila Nash brought strife to his paradise. She had seen his face and heard his voice. She had his file, so she knew about his use of GHB. What else did she know? What had she remembered? What could she re-create from that night eight years ago?

It had been Jack who had slipped the GHB into Lila’s drink and driven her out to that bean field. Gavin had taken the picture, but it had been Jack who sent the email. Gavin had been little more than a shadow that night. If Lila were ever able to trace a path back to Gavin, it would have to go through Jack.

How could Gavin have been so stupid as to leave both a victim and an accomplice alive? He calmed himself by working through his plan to rectify those mistakes.

In a couple days, Jack would receive the letters and read them in confusion, Gavin’s words coming off as the ramblings of a lunatic. But soon, all would be made clear and Jack would know what to do.

Chapter 31

Chapter 31