Unlawful Contact Read Online Free PDF Page B

door slid open.
    “Hunt! You awake?” came a whisper. “It’s Cormack.”
    Marc let himself relax. “Yeah, Cormack, what you got?”
    Cormack was one of the few guards he trusted. When Cormack had been new and green, Marc had pulled him away from a mob of lifers who’d been about to blade him up. Naturally, Cormack had been grateful—grateful enough to become one of a network of people who kept Marc informed about the world outside.
    “It’s about Megan,” Cormack whispered.
    Marc felt his pulse skip. “Go ahead.”
    “They say she bolted from the halfway house and took the baby with her. When they searched her room, they found a couple unused syringes and a half ounce of shit.”
    The breath rushed out of Marc’s lungs, and he sank slowly down the wall to the floor.
    He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it.
    Goddamn it! Goddamn it!
    Megan had worked so hard to get clean. She’d been clean since the moment she’d realized she was pregnant and had promised both him and herself that she wouldn’t use again. She’d told him in the letters Cormack had smuggled to him how she wanted to be a good mother to Emily, how she planned to give her baby a home and not abandon her to foster care as their mother had done. Her last message had seemed so full of hope and determination. How could she have broken so quickly?
    She’d been out for only a week. One goddamned week!
    He fought to find his voice. “When?”
    “Yesterday morning.”
    That meant Megan had been on the run for almost twenty-four hours. She wasn’t an experienced mother, didn’t know much of anything about babies. She had no money, no place to sleep, no way to take care of Emily—to feed her, change her diapers, keep her warm. The newspapers said it had gotten to ten below last night.
    If Megan had Emily out on the streets…
    Rage burned in his gut, tangled with the sense of helplessness he felt every time his sister did something to fuck up her life. Only this time it was worse. This time she had an innocent baby with her. He fought the urge to slam his fist into the wall, fought to clear his mind of anger and disappointment and worry. He needed to think—and fast.
    He reached for the photo of her that he’d taped to the wall beside his bunk. It had been taken in the hospital the day she’d had the baby. She sat in the hospital bed, holding a bundled Emily in her arms, her ankle shackled to the guardrail of the bed. She looked exhausted, her brown hair in a disorganized ponytail, her eyes holding both happiness and heartbreak.
    What the hell had she been thinking? Was she out of her fucking mind?
    Maybe seeing Emily again had made it too hard for her to turn the baby back over to Social Services. He knew his sister was emotionally fragile. Or maybe she’d been strung out and had bolted without thinking of the consequences. She’d have to have been high as a kite to leave behind that much smack. What kind of addict left their stash to the cops and…
    “Did you say a half ounce , Cormack?”
    “Yeah. That’s what the police report says. It was laced with fentanyl.”
    Christ!
    That shit was deadly.
    But a half ounce was a hell of a lot for anyone who wasn’t a dealer or a rock star. Either she’d come into some connections he didn’t know about—or it wasn’t her heroin.
    And in a single heartbeat her disappearance took on a more sinister meaning.
    One day I’ll just disappear, and you’ll find me dead!
    Marc felt the cold hitch of fear in his gut. “Did she have any visitors yesterday morning or the night before?”
    “I knew you were going to ask that.” Cormack sounded pleased with himself. “Just that lady journalist who’s been writing about her. What’s her name?”
    “Sophie Alton.”
    “Yeah, Sophie Alton.”
    Marc glanced at the pile of articles he’d torn out of the Denver Independent , a plan forming in his mind. “I feel like giving an interview, Cormack. Get in touch with Ms. Alton and let her