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bigger, more violent plan in the works.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    Elise Hansen was counting the days until she would be free.
    She had no doubt that she would walk out of the courtroom on Wednesday afternoon.
    The court might not consider her free. They might expect her to do community service, or live in a group home, or even check in with a probation officer every week. But that didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be locked in a cage or in this crazy-loons hospital-prison.
    Of course, she’d never do the community service or check in with a probation officer. No one in this city would ever see her again.
    She sat in Dr. Oakley’s office and stared at her hands. She itched around the edges of the cast that wrapped her right hand. She’d broken her wrist two weeks ago when that bitch fed thought she was saving her life.
    “Elise?” Oakley pushed.
    The doctor had asked her a difficult question. Not difficult for Elise—she already knew how to answer it—but difficult for the doctor, one of those pivotal questions that would decide if Elise was a victim or a criminal.
    Dr. Oakley said in her smooth, calm voice, “We were so close the other day. Don’t close me out now.”
    Elise shook her head and, without looking at the bitch, whispered, “I’m not.”
    She’d spoken to the doctor every day for almost two weeks. She’d gone through the gamut of emotions: belligerence, rage, fear, sorrow. On Friday she’d broken down completely after the bitch had confronted her about screwing one of the guards—but she didn’t explain herself, and she especially didn’t explain how she’d set up the entire tryst.
    She loved that word. Tryst. The guard certainly couldn’t talk his way out of it, and Elise had played the it’s-only-my-body card perfectly. But she let the uptight, do-gooder doc peel away the “layers” of her personality to get to the root of her feelings of self-worth, and then she lost it.
    Oakley put her on suicide watch, which was exactly what Elise needed. Forty-eight hours of round-the-clock observation. She played the part perfectly, and now here they were.
    “Elise?” Oakley said.
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. Resigned. Her fate was sealed, nothing the doctor could do or say would be able to fix it.
    “Yes, it matters. You matter.”
    “I’m going to jail forever. That FBI agent said so.”
    Quiet sigh. “Elise, do you trust me?”
    Shrug.
    “I know it’s difficult for you to trust anyone, but what you tell me is private.”
    “I don’t believe you. You have to tell the judge everything I said.”
    “It doesn’t work like that. I’m a psychiatrist. Yes, I’m appointed by the court, but my opinion matters.” Pause. “I’ve worked with a lot of girls like you.”
    Of course she had. That’s why she’d been appointed Elise’s shrink. Because Barbara Oakley worked with underage prostitutes and victims of sex crimes. Elise wondered why. Had little bitchy Barbara been a bad, bad girl? Had she taken it from her daddy? From her uncle? Had she walked the streets and whored herself? Or was she just a do-gooder who learned everything she knew from a book?
    A book, Elise decided. Because if Barbara Oakley had spent any serious time on the street, she wouldn’t have been so easily manipulated.
    Elise almost laughed. She’d never walked a street in her life, unless she had a game to play.
    Tobias had told her once that the best lies were based on truth. And Elise could twist any of her life stories as if it were written in stone, and everyone would believe her.
    Except maybe that bitch fed. Tobias had said to be extra careful with Lucy Kincaid, but Elise didn’t know why. The woman seemed high-strung. She was weak. She had a dark, sick past that Elise could easily exploit. Destroy her with just a few words. But after the hit on the woman failed, Tobias forbade her to engage. Why?
    Elise trusted Tobias, and so she would stay away from the fed if she could.
    Though she really