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  Danny took one look at the others occupying his perch and felt his last shred of hope drain away.

  When he didn’t move fast enough, Escobar gripped his right shoulder and guided him over. “I said sit.” He examined Danny’s face. “You gonna be sick?”

  “No.”

  “You better not get my floor dirty, you hear?”

  Danny swallowed hard. “I’m good.”

  Escobar nodded, clearly satisfied his words had the desired effect, and turned away.

  There were fourteen others lined up along the bench. They were cuffed and linked together by waist chains. Their ankles were bound by a flexible link just long enough for them to take little half-steps. They all wore orange prison-transfer jumpsuits with the dreaded MCJ lettering across the back.

  Men’s Central Jail was a bunker-like structure between Chinatown and the Los Angeles River. It looked like a windowless, high-security warehouse with an electrified fence and guard towers. MCJ held five thousand inmates in a space built to house half that. The place was overcrowded and highly dangerous.

  Three weeks, Danny silently repeated. I can survive three weeks.

  Three men down from Danny, a kid with pale golden skin started crying softly.

  Forty-five minutes later, Danny was still waiting. Wasting time was just one of the daily punishments embedded into prison life.

  Two guards Danny had never seen before appeared through the steel sally port. One of them carried the shotgun required for all prisoner transfers. “Stand up and face the right-hand door.”

  When Danny rose with the others, the guard behind the booking counter said, “Not you, Byrd. Plant yourself back on the bench.”

  The other prisoners looked his way. For the first time.

  The chains clinked and rattled as the fourteen were led through the door, out to the transfer bus rumbling in the secure garage. When the last inmate had shuffled away, the sally port clanged shut and the remaining guards went back to pretending Danny Byrd was invisible.

  Not that he minded. Not a bit.

  An hour and a half later, Escobar returned, accompanied by an older inmate with the blue trustee stripe. “On your feet, Byrd.” He gestured to the trustee. “Give him your gear. Let’s go.”

  Danny followed the guard through two more doors, past the central visitation chamber, down the windowless corridor, to the room where he met with his rotten lawyer.

  Escobar unlocked the door, pushed it open, and asked whoever was inside, “You need me to stay?”

  A woman’s voice replied, “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Knock when you’re done.” Escobar waited for Danny to enter, then shut and locked the door.

  Danny faced a woman seemingly his own age. Anywhere but Hollywood, she would have been considered a beauty. She compressed her attractiveness into a tightly severe package. Her raven hair was pulled back and clenched inside a golden clasp, her makeup designed to make strong features even more stern. Her white silk blouse was sealed at the neck by a high collar, her curves masked by a boxy, dark suit.

  “Sit down, Danny. That’s what you prefer to be called, correct?”

  Danny stayed where he was. “Who are you?”

  “Megan Pierce. I’m second chair on your legal team.”

  “In case you hadn’t heard, I’ve been forced to declare bankruptcy. My company is in chapter eleven. I don’t have a cent to pay you.”

  “Our costs have been covered. Sit down, please. We don’t have much time.” She gestured to the chair on the table’s opposite side. “Unless you’d prefer to stay with your public defender.”

  “Not a chance.”

  When Danny was seated, Megan opened a file, slid a document across the table, and offered him a pen. “This appoints us as your legal representatives. Sign on the bottom of the second page and initial all the places that are highlighted.”

  Danny signed. “Who’s paying for this?”

  “I have no idea.” She indicated a suit draped over a chair by the side wall. “We found these clothes in your former office. Am I correct in assuming they belong to you?”

  “My court date isn’t for another three weeks.”

  “Answer the question, please. I have to leave in . . .” She glanced at her watch. Her wrists were strong, her fingers long and tanned. “I’m already late.”

  “Yes, they’re mine.”

  “Your lead counsel has requested a meeting with the judge assigned to your case. He needs this document to proceed.” She rose from the table, crossed the room, and knocked on the door. “Be dressed and ready tomorrow morning.”

  “Ready for what?” Danny asked.

  But the woman was already gone.

  Escobar led Danny back down the hopeless corridor into the main block. Only this time . . .

  Escobar waved to the camera, then started forward. When he realized Danny had become frozen to the cement floor, he demanded, “You keeping me waiting again, Byrd?”

  “No sir.” Danny forced his legs to move. “Not me.”

  Escobar climbed the stairs and led Danny down another corridor, waved to another camera, and was buzzed through the door.

  They entered the Pay to Stay wing. The place of fables and disbelief.

  When the city built their jail for prisoners awaiting trial in the Beverly Hills courts, they did what only a city with extra cash on hand could even consider. They built a second structure they didn’t actually need.

  The Pay to Stay wing was designed by city councillors who knew all too well how easily they could step over the invisible line and enter the realm of illegality. So they established a code whereby nonviolent offenders could make an official request of the Beverly Hills courts from anywhere in California’s vast and deadly penal system. Only the rich need apply.

  The criminal offense had to be white-collar. As in no drugs or violence. The offender paid the daily rate of 145 dollars. In exchange he was given a Beverly Hills version of life behind bars.

  Danny could do nothing about his dumbfounded expression as Escobar led him through the commons room and over to . . .

  A single cell.

  Danny kept waiting for somebody to come rushing up and say there had been a mistake and he didn’t belong. But Escobar stopped in the doorway and pointed Danny inside. “This is your lucky day, Byrd.”

  The cell was just as the burglar had described. He had been booked in here for his first few nights when the regular wing was overfull. The cell was a prefabricated steel pod. The bunk and table and stool and sink were all one piece. If Danny had stretched out his arms he could have touched both side walls. The ceiling was only a few inches higher than Danny’s six-three frame. The bulletproof window was eleven inches square and overlooked the jail’s interior courtyard.

  A window.

  “Look here, Byrd.” Escobar waited for Danny to turn around. “The first time you make any trouble, the guards shut the door. You get fed through the slot here. You stay locked in for weeks, maybe months. The second time, you get shipped out. You read me?”

  “Loud and clear, sir,” Danny replied. “No trouble.” He watched the guard turn and walk away. Leaving his cell door open.

  At 7:15 the next morning, Danny was showered, shaved, dressed in his suit, and seated in the central hold. Waiting.

  The court transfer bus left every morning at 7:30. Danny assumed there would be no more notice here than in the jail’s other wing. If his new legal team had actually managed to shift the court system into a faster gear, Danny wanted to be ready.

  Nine minutes later, his name was called over the loudspeaker. He rose and crossed to the guard by the exit. Danny and two other Pay to Stay prisoners were led back to the booking chamber. He was cuffed but not waist-chained. The steel access portal rose, and the prisoners were led forward. Danny entered the bus, and his cuffs were fastened to the steel panel linked to the seat in front of him. No one spoke. The normal cursing and threats and harsh commands were absent here. The reality of what awaite
d them if they got out of line was too close.

  The Beverly Hills Jail was located down an unmarked alley just off Glendale. The entire facility was rimmed by a pale stone wall that blended into the warehouses and small businesses to either side. There was no guard tower, no barbed wire, not even a sign. The only public access was a glass-fronted office on Rexford that led to the visitors’ center, its windows stamped with the city seal. The bus trundled through the outer gates and down the narrow lane and . . .

  Back into the real world.

  Danny may have been watching the blooming trees and the fancy cars and the lovely ladies and the sunlight through wire-reinforced glass. He may have been chained to his seat. He may have been facing three to five. But today, for the first time since his arrest, he watched the world sweep past and tasted the faint flavor of hope.

  The Beverly Hills courts were connected to the city’s main administrative buildings, a stucco palace rimmed by palms and emerald lawns on Santa Monica Boulevard. Danny was led down the rear corridor into the holding pen where all prisoners on remand awaited their hour before the judge.

  Fifteen minutes later a heavyset man with an intensely impatient air followed a deputy through the courtroom door. He crossed the concrete foyer and halted in front of the pen. “Daniel Byrd?”

  “Here.” Danny rose from the bench and approached the bars. He had done this twice before, then entered the courtroom and faced the judge with his rotten public defender. Each time he had felt his freedom slip one step further away.

  Not today.

  The man’s first words were enough to assure Danny that this time was different. “My name is Sol Feinnes. As of yesterday, I serve as your principal attorney.”

  “How is this happening?”

  “We don’t have time for that. My associate has used her firm’s considerable clout to shift your court date, and what I need—”

  Another deputy pushed through the swinging doors leading to the courts and said, “Feinnes, you’re up.”

  “Coming.” To Danny he said, “Follow my lead, Byrd. Your future depends on it.”

  Davis Bunn (www.davisbunn.com) is the award-winning author of numerous national bestsellers with sales totaling more than eight million copies worldwide. His work has been published in twenty languages, and his critical acclaim includes four Christy Awards for excellence in fiction. Bunn is a writer-in-residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. He and his wife, Isabella, live in England.

  davisbunn.com

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Endorsements

  Half Title Page

  Books by Davis Bunn

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Contents

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  An Excerpt of Another Thrilling Story

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  List of Pages

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