Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire (18 page)

So when Nathan informed her that she would be allowed access to Daniel on the third day after he had appeared in court, her heart began to burn with longing for him. As she dressed that morning—increasingly taking care to present herself in the most conservative way she could imagine, so as not to feed the stories being inculcated about the English whore by a salivating, online Taliban—she gazed down at her body.

Inside her now was a new life, and if she thought about it too much it would have caused her to despair that Daniel was not with her now. Instead, she concentrated her attention on how strong she would have to be for him. He
was
going to be with them, and she would do anything to make that possible.

Stroking the flesh of her hips, feeling the sleekness of them, she realised that her pregnancy had resolved the final qualms she had towards Daniel. In the photographs she had seen of him, some slender, impossible model hanging from his arm, more and more she recognised the haunted expression in his eyes. Unbidden, a line came to her from Fitzgerald’s
The Beautiful and the Damned
: Your life on earth will be, as always, the interval between two significant glances in a mundane mirror.

Retrieving a bra, she scooped it around her shoulders and cupped her breasts. The sensation of pressure in the soft flesh of her body made her draw in her breath and gasp in mundane pain. Damn it! she thought. She might consider herself morally superior to those bimbos who had sucked Daniel’s blood before, but at this moment she would have given the world for something as everyday as a decent fitting bra.

All such concerns, and more, were cast to one side as she was driven to the south of the city. As they reached the city limits, the white housing trailing away and the paved hills opening up to green, wooded areas, she saw the county jail on Moreland Drive.

The day had begun with sea mists, but as they drove along it became foggier, more so even than when they had arrived. As such, when the great, grey building of the prison loomed up before her it seemed like some monstrous entity, almost gothic and foreboding, an oppressive shape heavy in the landscape.

Kurt was accompanying her today. “Don’t you worry, ma’am,” he told her. “It looks worse than it is, but this is the most state of the art facility in the whole of California. Mister Stone will be treated decently, I’m sure of it.”

She nodded, not really listening as the driver took them through to their designated parking spot. When they arrived, Kurt got out of the car first and came round to open the door on her side. As she stepped out, she was astonished at how cold the air felt: she had become used to the warmth of the state, but this mist bled through to her bones.

Accompanying her to the gate of the prison, Kurt nodded to one of the guards who responded casually, indicating that he knew the security officer. Standing to one side, Kurt let her pass through the gate first: as he did so, he pressed his hand to his ear and frowned slightly.

“What is it?” Kris asked, nervous that for some reason she would be prevented from seeing Daniel.

He shook his head. “Nothing, ma’am. I just need to attend to something while you’re inside with your husband.”

After this brief exchange, the cold fog shrouding the bleak walls of the prison with tiny windows etched into the grey face, he led her to the office where her bag and clothing was searched and a few questions asked. After this, Kurt told her that he would wait for her outside by the car, and that for this first visit she would have an hour with Daniel.

As she was led through the brightly lit, austere corridors by one of the guards, Kris felt her heart sinking and her anxieties rising. How long would Daniel remain here? What could she do to get him out?

Eventually, she was brought to a large room divided into a series of booths or cubicles. A number of visitors were already present, a greater proportion of them women, talking to inmates who sat on the other side of a thick, Perspex screen. The guard motioned towards one of the empty seats and told her briskly: “Fifty minutes.”

Kris wanted to remonstrate, but realised gloomily that the ten minute walk to this visitor’s area had been deducted from her time: any further arguments would simply result in less time to talk with Daniel.

As she sat down, on the other side of the screen a cell door opened and she caught a flash of an orange jumpsuit. As she lifted her head, her heart swelled at the recognition of Daniel, filling the suit with his large frame, towering over the guard who had brought him in. His eyes were shining as he walked towards her, a smile on his lips, but as he sat down and lifted up the phone next to the window her own gaze went to the bruise and cut on his cheek.

“How are you?” he began to ask. “It’s been frustrating having to communicate through Nathan, but they restricted access to outside communication while I was being processed.”

“What happened to your face?” she blurted out, ignoring his own comments. “Who did that to you? Did one of the guards hit you?”

His smile widened at this and he glanced across to the guard across from him. “No, they seem decent enough. I think if I don’t cause them too much trouble, they won’t bother me. As for this,” he gestured towards the cut. “I had a run-in with one of the inmates. I think he thought my old scars and size meant I needed to be taught some lessons, and I guess he’d come across my name on the news—thought I’d be an easy target.” Daniel’s smile suddenly became a wolfish grin. “My own counter-arguments were forceful enough to be effective.”

“Oh my god,” Kris gasped, lifting her hand to her mouth. “We have to get you out of here.”

“Don’t worry, please.” Daniel placed one hand on the Plexiglas as he spoke. “I’m more concerned about you. How are you coping? Are Willard and Nathan taking care of you?”

She nodded, her own hand pressed to the glass now. “I couldn’t stand it, being away from you. I’ve just been desperate to get here as quickly as possible.”

He smiled at this. “Well, it’s not the best position to find myself,” he murmured, looking around, “but actually it’s not as bad as I feared—no worse than some of the schools I was sent to as a nipper. I keep my spirits up wondering how Felix would cope in the showers. He’s kicking up a stink, apparently, but only to be expected.” Daniel’s face darkened as he said this, and his eyes flickered away to some private vendetta, but almost immediately they returned to hers and his expression became kinder, though still serious.

“And how is he?” He nodded down to her abdomen. Still holding onto the phone next to her ear, she removed her other hand from the glass and placed it comfortingly across her belly.

“How do you know it’s a
he
?” she asked, smiling. “It could very easily be a girl.”

“I was just prompting you,” was his reply. “I don’t know—maybe you have female intuition or something that would let you know what was going on with your body.”

This made her snort. “I was bloody pregnant for six weeks and, with one thing and another, hadn’t realised. It was Elaine Christiansen who spotted it first. I’d have been swelling up like some sodding heifer before I’d have noticed what was happening.”

He laughed at this, the lines of concern easing across his face and his eyes shining as he shook his head at her, then his expression grew sad. “This is the worst thing, you know,” he told her. “If it wasn’t for you—if it wasn’t for
both
of you, I’d find this all easier to cope with.”

Kris could not answer him immediately, but bowed her head in shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry? For what?”

Again she paused. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you. That’s why you hesitated at first—when I wanted to go to the police. You knew that this was coming.”

“Kris, look at me. Please.” His voice was firm and, as she lifted her eyes, he looked at her steadily, calm and loving. “I didn’t know that
this
would happen exactly, but... yes, I realised that Max Roth wouldn’t let things occur quietly. But I regret nothing. In fact, if anything I’m ashamed that I hesitated. Francis,” his face scowled as he said the name, “tried to
rape
you with that scumbag associate of his. They were going to rape my wife.” Suddenly his eyes glazed over slightly, looking into the distance somewhere as rage began to mottle his face.

“He’s in here, somewhere,” he said, focussing on her again. “I’m sure of it, though I haven’t seen him. Well, I’m pretty sure Harvard didn’t prepare him for this, but if I get my hands on that little bastard, I’ll rip off his cock and shove it down his throat.”

Daniel’s face was a rictus of anger and hatred now, and Kris, panicking slightly, lifted her hand to the glass once more. “No! No, Daniel. You mustn’t—you mustn’t do
anything
that will keep you in here a moment longer than you need to. I have to get you out. Don’t you dare do anything that stops you getting back to me—to us—as quickly as possible.”

He nodded, and, slowly, the colour began to drain away from his face. “Yes, you’re right. Things won’t be too tough here, but I sure as hell don’t want to get transferred to San Quentin. Some of the things I’ve heard about that place...” he shook his head. Then, brightening, he gestured to his unisuit and joked: “How do you like my outfit?”

Kris frowned ever so slightly. “Nice,” she replied, cautiously.

“It’s for the new guys. I’m a low security risk, or something like that. I’m not sure I especially want to graduate too much as a high flyer from this particular university of life. Mind you, there are some interesting, ah, businessmen inside.”

His gallows humour cheered her up a little, but at last she returned to some of the other matters that were pressing on her mind. “She came and saw me, the day before yesterday.”

“Who?”

“Maria.”

Now it was Daniel’s turn to frown. “
Maria
? What the hell is she doing here?”

“She’s going to testify, against me. Roth has employed her, I guess. She’s going to... she’s going to tell everyone what happened between us. My... mistake.”

Kris’s voice trailed away and Daniel nodded sagely. “No doubt she’ll also share some of the things that she and I did together, attempt to cast further aspersions on you.”

“That woman! Why oh why did I ever have anything to do with her—why did you?”

Daniel sighed, his shoulders moving in deep resignation. “This happened, we can’t change that. She won’t have any choice in this.”

“And I’m sure she’ll be paid well.”

His laugh was wry and humourless. “I’m sure she’ll be paid
very
well, but it will be more than that. She won’t have any choice. Roth will force her to do what he wants. He is... very persuasive.”

“He couldn’t persuade me.”

For a while, Daniel looked at her, watching her intently. “He couldn’t buy you, that’s for sure. You’re no ordinary woman, Kristina Avelar, and that, I guess, is why I fell so head over heels in love with you. But don’t underestimate him. He won’t buy you—he may not even try. Max has never been stupid. He
will
find your pressure points, however. He’ll find out what you can’t live without. That’s what’s worries me now—how he’ll pressurise you, threaten you even.”

Kris felt her spirits sink as he spoke. At last she said, quietly: “I can’t win this, can I.”

Daniel did not reply, but for a moment watched her, his jaw clenched. When he did speak, it was not to address her immediate concern.

“I need to ask you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

He took a deep breath. “When you leave here, book a flight back to the UK. To London. Go to Elaine, and tell her ‘Logan sent you’. She’ll know what to do.”

“Logan?” Kris’s heart jumped inside her at the mention of that name. Before she could say anything else, however, his eyes flashed a warning at her and he quickly glanced towards the guard behind him.

“I really can’t say anything else, but Elaine will know what to do. I’m sorry, I really can’t explain this—I wish I could, but...” His eyes moved up towards the ceiling, then returned to gaze on her steadily. Not for the first time, she felt herself sinking into those hazel eyes, one dilated and strange, both of them full of concern for her. “Please,” he said again. “I need you to do this for me, as soon as you can.”

When she left the main building of the jail, she could see the security officer waiting for her outside the car. Dressed in his familiar dark jacket and jeans, his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his physical build and something about the stiffness of his posture tended to be the only things that gave him away. Those, and the fact he was still wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the fog had not lifted, as well as the wire trailing from his ear.

He had been bent forward, talking to the driver of the car while waiting for her, and as she began to walk across the car part he turned his head in her direction. He did not smile but instead pursed his lips slightly, as though concentrating on her with greater attention than usual.

Not that she particularly wished to talk. As he held the door open for her and then slid into the front next to the driver she was glad that he asked her no questions about her visit. Instead, he left the glass partition between her and them closed so that she could mull over her thoughts.