Daddy's Girl

"My God," Nat said aloud. She couldn't believe her eyes. 1860. She knew what it had to be, because she taught it every year. She must be seeing a stop on the Underground Railroad. A series of holes, hidden trap doors, and secret hiding places for slaves escaping from Maryland and points farther south. Some of the stops were homes with hiding places, but many more were in outbuildings, to make escape easier if the slavecatchers came. Chester County was dotted with historic houses that hid runaway slaves, houses that still existed today. Nat knew the houses by heart, taking a historian's delight in the old-fashioned names: Moses and Mary Pe

Nat stood, marveling. This hole must have been one that no one had found yet. One that hadn't been discovered until now, perfectly concealed for almost a hundred years. The secret hiding place for so many poor, desperate souls. Nat had taught the History of Justice, and now she was inside it. She felt tears come to her eyes and blinked them away, ru

This was sacred ground, and so were its boards, blanketed with initials and dates, which Nat read by penlight. l.b., Aug 1859, m., 1862, lu, 1861. Some of the slaves had written their names: January grandy. ha

Nat blinked. A secret hole hidden under the floor. People used it to escape to freedom. She flashed for the umpteenth time on Saunders's last words.

Tell my wife. It's under the floor.

She thought about it, as she had thought about it so many times before. But this time she looked at it in a different light. Saunders had said, "It's under the floor." When he'd said that, he'd been lying in the security room, the one without the videocamera. Maybe he hadn't meant that whatever "it" was was under the floor at his house. Nat had thought that only because the "tell my wife" part came first. But for a second, she set aside the "tell my wife" part. What if Saunders had meant that "it" was under the floor right where he lay-in the prison itself? And what would be under the floor at a prison?

A tu

"Whoa," Nat said aloud, in the dark hole. It could be true. It wasn't crazy. Tu

Richard Williams.

Williams was the drug kingpin being held at the prison for almost a year. He'd want to escape before his trial, because with his charges, he'd go to prison for life. And he'd have the dough to get a tu

Nat had an epiphany. The scam wasn't drugs. It was something far more lucrative, and far worse. It was letting a dangerous killer escape through a tu

Nat gasped as she realized the implications. Saunders was killed because he had discovered not a drug conspiracy, but an escape conspiracy. Upchurch was still the sacrificial lamb. Then Nat realized something else. If the murders of Saunders and Upchurch had been to conceal the escape, maybe the prison riot wasn't random at all-had been staged at one end of the prison as a way to distract everyone from the killings at the other end. A riot in the RHU would have been the perfect way to keep everybody occupied while Saunders and Upchurch were being murdered in the security office.

Her thoughts clicked away. It all made sense. She'd had to fight upstream to get help that morning. All the SWAT team guys and C.O.s were ru

She felt astonished at the ambition of the conspiracy, then flashed on the newspaper that she'd seen today. Williams's federal trial was scheduled to start this week. She remembered that the article had said that his trial would be on Tuesday. It jibed with why Graf would be meeting with Parrat today at Houlihan's. They would have been discussing last-minute plans. Williams would be moved to Philly tomorrow.

That meant that Williams would have to escape from prison tonight.

And Nat was the only one who knew.

Chapter 40

Nat stared stu

First, she had to get out of the hole. She shone the penlight on the wall leading out to the first hole. The stones that had looked random before had been wedged into the wall in an ascending pattern, makeshift stepping-stones from so long ago. She marveled at the ingenuity and heart of these benighted people. She put a foot on the first stepping-stone, and it held strong and stable, then used the others to make her way slowly to the first hole, where she figured out a way to get out. She'd dig out footholes for herself on the side of the wall. She could do it, now that she saw how it was done. She even had a penknife to scoop them out. She whispered a prayerful thanks and started digging.

Almost two hours later, she came out of the hole with a plan an no time to waste. She brushed dirt from her pants and coat, ripped the blue tarp off the Neon, and yanked open the barn door. A lone car traveled down the road, headlights coming and taillights going. Sunday night traffic would be light. She'd be more exposed, vulnerable to the cops, but she didn't have any choice. At least it was dark out, a frigid night so piercingly clear that the stars scattered across the night sky looked like diamonds on a jeweler's black velvet.

She jumped in the car, started the engine, and reversed out of the barn and down the driveway to the road, where she ran over the broken electric fence and drove forward. She hit the gas and tore up the road. She'd need a phone. She slowed past one house and considered asking to use theirs, but rejected the idea. She couldn't take the risk. She kept driving and up ahead spotted the single light of a country store, but it was closed. She traveled down the road, passing houses until she finally found a gas station with a pay phone.