Read DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3) for Free Online

romanticized notion she had of Healy. But he had to know she was right, and not just because she’d studied penology as an undergrad. You couldn’t just steamroll a guy who’d been in jail for this long with half a dozen cops and expect to get good results. Healy would’ve learned to be careful in there. He would be on the defensive. It didn’t matter who a person was on the outside, it happened. It was survival. And the nicest fell the hardest, once the doors slammed home. They changed the most.
    “A human-to-human talk,” Doherty muttered, off to the side. “There’s a national threat we’re concerned with, here, Agent Aiken.”
    “I know that,” she said. “Which is why this is critical. Healy doesn’t owe us anything.”
    Doherty broke out in a gravely mirthless laugh. “Jesus,” he said, translation: Get a load of this chick. She looked into his eyes which were a dull, fingerprint-gray color.
    “He owes his country,” Doherty said.
    She could sense the others; Kendall, smoking and watching them from a few yards away with the other NYPD detective, more uniformed police, looking decidedly out of their depth, gawked around at the buildings, the sky, their feet. The day was mild and breezy, but it felt like a lie. In the air was the scent of men in cages. The bricks and mortar baking under the sun, the odor of metal, of pent-up bodies and aggression.
    * * *
    After they passed through the security checkpoint with the metal detectors and went through several sets of large, steel-piston doors, Doherty fell in astride Jennifer as they were led down the hall by a CO and the Deputy Warden, a man named Grimm. Jennifer noticed the way Doherty walked, his pelvis thrust forward, his shoulders back, swaying side to side. “You get off on this stuff, huh?” he said.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Last year. You went to Bedford Women’s Facility to speak with the woman who murdered Rebecca Heilshorn. That psycho shrink.”
    “That’s right.” She wondered where Doherty was going with this, but he said nothing further. It made her think about the encounter with Olivia Jane. At the end of the Heilshorn murder investigation, once behind bars, Jane had told Brendan Healy that Titan was entwined with the government. It seemed like the feds wanted to throw Brendan into the same padded room as Jane; a criminal crackpot, making desperate claims. So why were they so averse to her seeing him alone?
    Ahead of them, Grimm, heavyset, turned to look back at the group following him. Grimm had dark circles beneath his eyes that burnt into his cheeks. He was flanked by two corrections officers. He seemed to be studying the team of law enforcement, as if taking mental pictures. He looked uncomfortable, Jennifer decided. This was his facility, his house, and he was wary of outsiders.
    They turned down a corridor and came to a room reserved for special meetings. Jennifer was familiar with these types of rooms. Defense lawyers usually met with their clients in more visible places, either in the visitation center, or sometimes in the cells. The majority of Rikers was pretrial, so there was a lot of legal traffic as inmates awaited their fate. This was a room where defense lawyers caved and prosecutors struck deals, cops interrogated prisoners who sweated under the pressure, seeking ways to end their nightmare. It was equipped with a one-way mirror so that others could look on as the offender was worked over.
    The group, composed of Jennifer, Doherty, Rascher, and the two NYPD detectives, filed into the room. Grimm nodded at the CO standing with Jennifer and then he slipped into the viewing room as the CO jangled his keys and opened the main room next door. Everything seemed to echo: the footfalls, the keys, the metal door swinging open. Like it was all happening at the bottom of a well.
    There was a long desk, with at least a dozen chairs crowded around. Some of the chairs were different from the rest, the folding-kind brought in to augment