Guilty Wives by James Patterson & David Ellis

Author:James Patterson & David Ellis [PATTERSON, JAMES]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780316097574
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

CHAPTER 69

THE GUARDS CAME for me after breakfast. I didn’t know why. They marched me to the showers, which were otherwise empty. They ordered me to strip, and my darkest fears quickly surfaced.

But sexual assault wasn’t on the agenda this morning. I disrobed and got two whole minutes under the weak spray with soap they tossed me. I dried off with a towel the size of a bath mat and put on a new, clean set of prison garb. I was eager to scrub the soup broth off my body—as best I could with arms that were just regaining function.

They marched me down one of the prison hallways, apart from the four cell blocks, through lots of security—hydraulic gates and doors requiring key cards. I saw a metal sign that said LE GARDIEN and I finally realized I was going to visit the warden of the prison.

Inside, the office was spacious and orderly, the walls filled with photos that displayed the warden’s ego to the hilt, awards and citations and diplomas and photos of the warden with various dignitaries—including one with the fallen president, Henri Devereux.

His name was Boulez. He looked like a man of power. Dark hair slicked back. Expensive clothes, a vest over his crisply starched shirt and yellow satin tie—a three-piece suit with the jacket off. His manicured hand clutched a gold timepiece as he looked me over. It took me five seconds to dislike him.

“Welcome,” he said to me, as if they’d thrown a Hawaiian lei over my neck when I got off the bus. I thought it best not to respond.

“Ah, it is always difficult at first.” He waved a hand. “Most learn to adjust to this life. Some do not. It is all a choice, Ms. Elliot.”

He hadn’t offered me a seat, which I suppose was his attempt to establish superiority. Under the circumstances, he didn’t have to try very hard.

Boulez weighed the timepiece in his hand. “You have the choice to be cooperative. Your time can be…difficult if you do not.”

“Like last night? Would that be an example of difficult?”

He winked at me. This asshole actually winked at me.

“Your friends? They cooperated last night. They slept comfortably in their cells.”

I reverted to silence, unsure of what I might blurt out. I’d developed a defiance, a defense mechanism during my ten-month stay in the French penal system. It was how I was wired. Call it stubbornness. Call it pride. I wasn’t going to make it easy for these people to break me. Thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another wasn’t in my vocabulary.

“Your attitude, Ms. Elliot…did not lead to good results. Not for you. Not for your friends. I am correct? I am told your friends have you to thank for their harsh sentences.”

I didn’t need to be reminded of that. It was on my mind constantly. “They have your government to thank,” I said.

Serve and volley. He wasn’t going to debate me. He didn’t need to.

“Choices,” he said again. “You have a…unique opportunity, no? Another chance to…correct?…correct your mistake.”

The appeal, he meant.

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