Read Online Without Malice (The Without Series Book 1) by Jo Robertson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jo Robertson
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Some kind of blade, maybe a hunting knife. Anything over three or four inches violated parole, too, but was easier to hide or ditch.
A steak or paring knife would provide some protection, although not much. He decided tomorrow he’d go to the Walmart store across town and see if he could shoplift a suitable weapon.
Returning to his room, he settled down for the night, having found a hefty, good-sized rock in the alley behind the hotel. The rock would have to do until he boosted a blade.
Chapter 18
Anson Stark wasn’t anything like Frankie had expected. How could the whole damned prison be terrified of the ordinary-looking man they called the Professor? Stark was only a few inches taller than Frankie, who was five feet seven, and he had a slight, but wiry frame.
He didn’t look much of a threat, probably weighed about thirty pounds more than her. But she’d learned a lot about killers in the last year, and the look in Stark’s eyes and the expression on his face chilled her to the bone. He wasn’t someone you’d turn your back on.
He was heavily shackled. By law, inmates had to receive requested medical attention, but security was taking no chances with Stark. Wrists cuffed behind his back, with a chain extending to his feet and linking them together, he was forced to hunch over when he walked. The whole affair gave him an awkward, stilted gait.
When he saw Frankie, however, he pulled himself erect – at the cost of some pain, she imagined. The strain on his posture would be tremendous. Pride or control, she wondered?
Both guards remained inside the examination room, although protocol demanded that the inmate receive a degree of confidentiality. Frankie doubted Stark would harm her in front of the hefty correctional officers.
Still, Charlie Cox’s words rang in her ears. She was in danger, and who else but Anson Stark could possibly be a threat to her? She’d never had even the slightest fear around her inmate patients. In fact, they were remarkably respectful to her.
She thought of Cole Hansen’s note, lying on her coffee table at home, paper clipped to the inside of the pilfered medical file. When she returned to work, she’d discovered Cole’s real medical file exactly where it was supposed to be – between Haddock and Hobson in the H section, but when she opened it, the record was largely redacted, many of her marginal notations blackened out.
Why? What valuable information lay in an inmate’s medical record? She felt like she’d unwittingly stepped inside a CIA covert operations movie.
One guard waited by the door and the other stood behind Stark as he sat on the exam table. No one spoke for long moments.
Frankie took a step forward, Stark’s thin medical file in her left hand. He had been incarcerated for eight years, all but two of them in the SHU. Frankie had done her homework on the man and learned that he’d risen from obscurity in a level four ward – having been convicted of second-degree murder – to the SHU when admin realized he’d been running his white gang ruthlessly and efficiently.
Prison administration, not the courts, assigned inmates to the SHU. Strong gang activity had landed Stark there, where he’d subsequently murdered two cellmates. The medical record described Stark as a psychopath with no apparent affect toward others. Looking at his impassive face, Frankie believed the assessment.
She cleared her throat. “So, Mr. Stark, what’s troubling you?”
The eerie eyes, so pale blue they were nearly translucent, narrowed while he ran them contemplatively over her body from head to feet and back again, lingering on her breasts beneath the medical jacket. She struggled not to flinch.
She saw the door guard nod slightly and a second later the other guard smacked his baton down hard on Stark’s cuffed hands. The inmate blinked twice rapidly, but Frankie had the feeling that he’d braced himself for the blow because he smiled at her as if he’d
Some kind of blade, maybe a hunting knife. Anything over three or four inches violated parole, too, but was easier to hide or ditch.
A steak or paring knife would provide some protection, although not much. He decided tomorrow he’d go to the Walmart store across town and see if he could shoplift a suitable weapon.
Returning to his room, he settled down for the night, having found a hefty, good-sized rock in the alley behind the hotel. The rock would have to do until he boosted a blade.
Chapter 18
Anson Stark wasn’t anything like Frankie had expected. How could the whole damned prison be terrified of the ordinary-looking man they called the Professor? Stark was only a few inches taller than Frankie, who was five feet seven, and he had a slight, but wiry frame.
He didn’t look much of a threat, probably weighed about thirty pounds more than her. But she’d learned a lot about killers in the last year, and the look in Stark’s eyes and the expression on his face chilled her to the bone. He wasn’t someone you’d turn your back on.
He was heavily shackled. By law, inmates had to receive requested medical attention, but security was taking no chances with Stark. Wrists cuffed behind his back, with a chain extending to his feet and linking them together, he was forced to hunch over when he walked. The whole affair gave him an awkward, stilted gait.
When he saw Frankie, however, he pulled himself erect – at the cost of some pain, she imagined. The strain on his posture would be tremendous. Pride or control, she wondered?
Both guards remained inside the examination room, although protocol demanded that the inmate receive a degree of confidentiality. Frankie doubted Stark would harm her in front of the hefty correctional officers.
Still, Charlie Cox’s words rang in her ears. She was in danger, and who else but Anson Stark could possibly be a threat to her? She’d never had even the slightest fear around her inmate patients. In fact, they were remarkably respectful to her.
She thought of Cole Hansen’s note, lying on her coffee table at home, paper clipped to the inside of the pilfered medical file. When she returned to work, she’d discovered Cole’s real medical file exactly where it was supposed to be – between Haddock and Hobson in the H section, but when she opened it, the record was largely redacted, many of her marginal notations blackened out.
Why? What valuable information lay in an inmate’s medical record? She felt like she’d unwittingly stepped inside a CIA covert operations movie.
One guard waited by the door and the other stood behind Stark as he sat on the exam table. No one spoke for long moments.
Frankie took a step forward, Stark’s thin medical file in her left hand. He had been incarcerated for eight years, all but two of them in the SHU. Frankie had done her homework on the man and learned that he’d risen from obscurity in a level four ward – having been convicted of second-degree murder – to the SHU when admin realized he’d been running his white gang ruthlessly and efficiently.
Prison administration, not the courts, assigned inmates to the SHU. Strong gang activity had landed Stark there, where he’d subsequently murdered two cellmates. The medical record described Stark as a psychopath with no apparent affect toward others. Looking at his impassive face, Frankie believed the assessment.
She cleared her throat. “So, Mr. Stark, what’s troubling you?”
The eerie eyes, so pale blue they were nearly translucent, narrowed while he ran them contemplatively over her body from head to feet and back again, lingering on her breasts beneath the medical jacket. She struggled not to flinch.
She saw the door guard nod slightly and a second later the other guard smacked his baton down hard on Stark’s cuffed hands. The inmate blinked twice rapidly, but Frankie had the feeling that he’d braced himself for the blow because he smiled at her as if he’d
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