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and swung the plane around so that it rested on the runway’s numbers and faced due east. Without tossing her a quick glance he gunned the engine and the two were hurtling down the runway. Halfway, he pulled the controls back and the front wheels lifted effortlessly off the ground. Her stomach flip-flopped and she was glad now she’d had a small breakfast.
    Out the side window, she could see the square, functional buildings of the airport quickly growing smaller and smaller. As they gained altitude, the crystal-blue horizon stood in stark contrast to the brown earth savaged by drought. Glancing at the air speed, it didn’t take much calculating to figure they’d be in West Livingston within the hour.
    That gave her sixty minutes to prepare herself for seeing one of the most vicious serial killers in Texas history.



Chapter Two
     
    Saturday, April 6, 3:00 P.M.
    The gray walls of Livingston State Prison loomed as Jo stared out the backseat window of the Department of Public Safety’s trooper car. Brody had called ahead from the plane and arranged for a trooper to meet them. He now sat in the front seat next to the officer and she in the back.
    The tall fence topped with curled barbed wire surrounded the prison. Rain droplets now dripped on the window, turning a cool day into a raw one. She’d been in prisons before to interview suspects. She was no novice. Understood the ropes. And still a deep trepidation had wormed its way under her skin and left her edgy and nervous.
    Brody caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. He sat tall. Strong. And if he’d been anybody else she might have made a joke to slice the tension. A laugh would’ve gone a long way right now. But she didn’t want to laugh with Brody. She didn’t want any kind of connection or link to him. It had been fourteen years since she’d seen him, and until this morning she’d believed all the emotions attached to their relationship were long dead and buried. But like a beast stirring after a long slumber, too many unwanted emotions were awakening.
    Damn it.
    Worrying over what she felt or didn’t feel for Brody Winchester was not how she’d planned to spend her first real day off in two weeks.
    ‘You okay?’ Brody said.
    ‘Never better.’ She tossed him a
whatever
smile that she saw often from the teen girls in her support group. However, she sensed hers didn’t mask her worry. She considered a pithy comment, but then rejected it, knowing more often than not her quips sounded more bitchy than witty. ‘I’m still trying to wrap my brain around why Smith requested me. And I can’t believe it’s simply my connection to you.’
    The officer in the front seat, a tall, burly man with a crew cut and a full black mustache, didn’t comment but she noted the subtle stiffening in his shoulders when she’d said, ‘my connection to you.’ She could only imagine what he’d now speculated.
    They passed through the first checkpoint and then a second before she and Brody got out of the car. A breeze blew from the west, cutting through her jacket and chilling her skin.
    Brody offered thanks to the officer and then escorted her inside where they passed through another metal detector. A female officer searched her bag while Brody checked his gun with the guards. Fifteen minutes later they found themselves in the warden’s office.
    As they entered the austere office, a mid-sized barrel-chested man rose. He had a thinning shock of red hair brushed back off a wide, ruddy face. He came around his desk, smoothing his hand over his blue plaid tie, before he extended it to Brody. ‘Brody. Heard you were coming.’
    ‘No rest for the wicked,’ Brody said.
    ‘That would be you,’ the warden said, smiling. He shifted his gaze to Jo. ‘I’m Larry Maddox, warden here at Livingston. Dr. Granger?’
    She smiled and accepted his calloused hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Warden. And please call me Jo.’
    He nodded. ‘Jo it is. And I’m Larry.’ He hooked his thumbs