Read Daddy's Girl for Free Online Page B

on the test?” Tanisa asked, and Angus smiled.
    “How’s your son, by the way?”
    “Better, thanks.” Tanisa turned away, lowering her arm as the stream of inmates ceased and the bars were locked behind them. The red lights blinked off. “Okay, time to make the doughnuts.”
    “This way, Natalie,” Angus said, and they walked a few steps and entered an empty room off the hallway, its bottom half cinderblock painted white and its top the bulletproof glass. Bucket chairs in white plastic sat scattered around a white Formica table, and on the wall hung a greaseboard. On the board, ACTIONS was scribbled in black Sharpie, with an arrow leading to CONSEQUENCES. It seemed so clichéd that if Nat hadn’t seen it, she never would have believed it.
    “I’ll go get ’em.” Tanisa turned, leaving the door open. “Be right back.”
    “The heat’s good, at least,” Nat said after the C.O. was gone, just for something to say. The air in the room was hotter than the hallway, bringing up the smell of institutional disinfectant and body odor. She understood now why the inmates wore only undershirts and she instantly regretted her wool suit. Tweed was so supermax.
    “It’s because of the construction. Excuse me a sec.” Angus took off his fisherman’s sweater, yanking it over his head until his ponytail popped free. He tossed the sweater, inside out, onto the table. “Parts of the building are open, and the cold air gets in, so the thermostat overcompensates. It’s been like this all winter.”
    “Tanisa will guard us during class, right?” Nat asked, but just then inmates began to file in through the open door—about fifteen men in T-shirts and blue scrub pants, worn with a variety of nondescript cotton sneakers. All shapes, colors, and sizes of men were represented; inmates had mustaches, plastic glasses, neck tattoos, and a gold chain or two, but they were all about the same age range, in their thirties.
    “Good morning, gentlemen,” Angus said with a smile, stepping to the head of the table. “How you all been?”
    “Fine,” answered a thin inmate, taking the first chair. The other inmates answered “good” and “good to see ya” with obvious warmth as they walked around the table and settled into their seats.
    “See y’all,” Tanisa said, then left, and no other C.O. came to replace her, which was when Nat got her answer.
    Yikes! She and Angus were going to be unguarded, and the inmates weren’t wearing handcuffs. Again, if she weren’t living it, she wouldn’t believe it was done this way. Angus rolled up the sleeves of his workshirt, and Nat held her papers to her chest, sweating through two layers of clothes and one security blanket. She avoided eye contact with the inmates, who seemed to look away from her, too, their heads down and manner subdued, like a class that hasn’t done the reading. Ever, in their whole life.
    Angus rubbed his hands together. “Gentlemen, I thought we’d do something different today, because by now you most definitely need a break from the Personal Choices lecture.”
    They all chuckled, and Nat braced herself to get started.
    “This is Professor Natalie Greco, and she teaches a class called the History of Justice, in which she talks about law and justice. Is that something you gentlemen have any views on?”
    “ Hell, yes!” a heavy inmate called out, and they all laughed.
    “Good. Now, before we get started, I see two new folks in the group.” Angus gestured toward the end of the table, where two inmates sat, one burly and tattooed, and the other slimmer and wearing glasses held together with Scotch tape. “I’m sorry, do I know you two?”
    “Kyle Buford,” answered the burly inmate. Crude blue tattoos blanketed his overdeveloped biceps.
    “Pat Donnell,” said the one with the broken glasses.
    Angus frowned slightly. “Who admitted you gentlemen to the class? I don’t remember getting your files.”
    “I dunno,” Buford answered, and Donnell nodded.