The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(74)

Cameron stepped forward and took the jacket. Miller shrugged on his coat and nodded to the camera whose single eye was trained on them. A click told Cameron the lock had been released. Miller put his hand on the handle, and—just like that—they were outside.

The space between the wall and the chain-link fence was narrow, six feet at the most, and they followed it to the entrance into the main yard. Miller unlocked it with a key from a bunch at his belt and with an old-fashioned arm gesture invited Cameron to go ahead.

Cameron stayed where he was.

“One hour or less should you get frostbite,” Miller said, and he pointed at each of the four towers, one at every corner of the yard. “They have their rifles scopes trained on you and will follow your every skip and every step. Aside from that, knock yourself out—it’s all yours.”

Cameron stepped into the yard, and the chain-link door was locked behind him. He turned to the guard. “Why?” he asked.

“It’s easier to do this than screw up the schedule for hundreds of people. Apparently you don’t have many friends here, and most inmates want to either kill you or help you sustain a very serious injury. Enjoy the fresh air.”

Miller stepped away and reentered the building; no doubt the guards in the towers would keep in radio contact.

Cameron walked to the middle of the yard—it was large enough for a couple of football fields—and bathed in the glow of the four-hundred-watt HPS lights mounted on thirty-foot steel poles. Since December 26, when he had transferred into KCJC, he had never had that much space, that much emptiness around him, and the silence, with no other human being intruding on his perceptions, was blissful.

The cold air was sharp on his cheeks, and he filled his lungs with it in ragged breaths. The damp chill found him quickly enough and crept under the layers of clothing. He could see the white puffs as he exhaled and felt his chest shudder. None of it mattered as John Cameron looked up. A person who has never spent time inside a prison cannot possibly understand what the sudden and unexpected exposure to the wide night sky can do to a man who has.


“TD-4 to TD-3: you there, TD-3? What’s he doing, Billy?” The voice came strong and clear though his headset, and in the darkened tower William G. White blinked as he adjusted the rifle’s butt against his shoulder and peered through the scope.

“I’m seeing what you’re seeing, TD-4. He’s just standing there looking up.”

“It’s been a while, TD-3.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“He’s going to have to move soon, or he’ll freeze on that spot.”

“How about a little wager, TD-4?”

The scope was powerful, and the crosshairs traveled up Cameron’s back to his raised collar and his bare head.

“How about—”

“TD-1 here. Would you gentlemen care to keep your eyes open, your mouths shut, and your scopes where they should be?”

“Copy, TD-1,” both men replied, and alone in their tower each man thought that this shift they had volunteered for out of curiosity was turning out to be a mighty big yawn.

“He’s on the move,” a voice, maybe TD-3, said in the gloom, and the others shifted their feet and adjusted their positions.


John Cameron started a gentle jog along the chain-link fence. He waited until his body had responded to the rhythm of the run and warmth was slowly coming back to his limbs before he allowed himself to start thinking about this odd and unforeseen opportunity.

If he had been in the general population, just one inmate among the many hundreds who used the yard every day, he wouldn’t have had the chance to look around properly and take measure of the place. His attention would have been focused on potential threats rather than the fine points of correctional architecture.

The glow of the powerful sodium lights kept him easily in the sights of those charged with babysitting him, but it also illuminated the structure around the yard: the twenty-foot-high perimeter wall beyond the chain-link fence, the roofs of the various wings rippling off the round central section.

John Cameron saw everything, and as he picked up a little speed, he adjusted the blueprint in his mind. The one thing that the Department of Corrections had proven beyond reasonable doubt was that they could not protect him, and Cameron was not about to let them fall asleep on their watch again. He had pretty much volunteered for this ridiculous confinement because it suited his needs; however, things were changing fast, and once Nathan was well enough to go home, Cameron would be ready to leave.

They hadn’t spoken since that night in the forest, but he knew what Nathan would say: he’d talk about plea bargaining and reversing the bail decision.