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deserted her, despite Kat’s vow to never see her again. Kat knew she had to say goodbye.
    â€œHi,” Abby said when the guard opened the cell door for the redhead. “I’ve been assigned to latrine duty.”
    â€œNewbies always get latrine duty. It makes everything after that look good.”
    â€œWhere are the latrines? We have our own john in here.”
    â€œThere are toilets by the showers, near the exercise yard, and at the guard station. They’re the worst. Most of the guards are men with lousy aim.”
    â€œOh, yuck!” Abby climbed up to her bunk.
    â€œGet to know Etta. She’s one of the guards. Black hair in a long ponytail. She’s in charge of job assignments.”
    â€œI—I’m innocent. I shouldn’t be here. You don’t know what it’s like to—”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. It is what it is—and then you deal with it. You have to learn to get along here. Even if you’re innocent, it’s going to take time to arrange for a new trial.”
    Abby sniffled. “I’m scared. Really scared.”
    Something about Abby’s tone struck a chord in Kat. With a pang deep in her chest, she realized she’d been Abby once—a green newbie at the mercy of a cruel system. No one had clued her into the unspoken rules that inmates in the Graybar Hilton lived by. She’d had to learn the bitter lessons on her own.
    Once the guards had it in for you, it was a one-way ticket to hell. It didn’t take much to anger them. Kat had turned them against her when she complained about a guard fondling her breasts while supposedly searching for drugs.
    â€œWeren’t you frightened when you first arrived?” Abby asked.
    â€œI’m still frightened. Everyone here is. They’re lying if they say they’re not.”
    â€œYou get used to prison. It gets better, right? This is a federal prison, not a jail loaded with killers.”
    Kat couldn’t bring herself to lie. “No. It doesn’t get better. Don’t kid yourself. Danville has just as many hardened criminals as other prisons.”
    â€œI don’t know what I’ll do if my mother can’t get me a new trial.”
    Kat detected the threat of tears in Abby’s voice. “How long is your sentence?”
    The words hung in the air like a noxious cloud. Kat couldn’t see Abby in the bunk above her, but she suspected the girl was crying.
    Finally, Abby said, a quaver in her voice, “Fifty years.”
    â€œWhat? Fifty years for robbing the post office?” Kat jumped to her feet so she could look up at the girl.
    Abby let out a gulping sob, “Travis shot a customer who tried to stop him.”
    â€œThat explains it.” She could be wrong, but Kat thought the possibility of another trial was remote. Even if Harlan Westcott hadn’t discovered the truth, Kat would have been up for parole next year. This poor kid would be a shriveled-up old crone by the time she came up for parole, her life over. Spent in hell on earth.
    â€œI’m sure your mother will get you a new trial, but you’re here until she does. I’m leaving in the morning.”
    â€œHow?” Abby sat bolt upright and swung around so her legs were dangling over the side of the bunk.
    â€œI’m getting out on a work furlough for good behavior.”
    Tears trickled down Abby’s cheeks. “Th-that’s great.”
    â€œCome down here.” Kat sat on her bunk. “There are a few things I need to explain to you.”

CHAPTER THREE
    J USTIN STUDIED the coroner’s report on the body that had been discovered in the woods. Like many small towns, Twin Oaks did not have a full-time coroner. Autopsies were seldom necessary. When they were, a local mortician performed them. This autopsy did not reveal a cause of death.
    Justin had arrived at the scene just before the woman’s body had been removed. It was obvious the