Free Tell Me by Lisa Jackson

his creaky leather chair. “And remember: midnight. Not one o’clock, not twelve-twenty, not even twelve-oh-one. Midnight.”
    That had been that. Any hoped-for relationship with Tate Wheeler had died a quick death in the judge’s den.
    She’d been home by ten-thirty, and Tate hadn’t called again.
    “You’re trying to ruin my life,” she’d charged the next time she and her father had been alone. She’d found him at the fence line, watching his small herd of horses; two mares grazing in the lush grass, a foal frolicking on spindly legs.
    “What do you mean?” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the field, where sunlight had played upon the mares’ backs, giving their bay coats a reddish sheen.
    “All that crap about the Civil War pistol and getting me home by midnight! No one does that anymore!”
    “I do.”
    “Old-school, Dad. You just like embarrassing me. You get off on it.”
    He’d chuckled, which had only infuriated her all the more.
    “What I’m doing, Nicole, is separating the wheat from the chaff. Any boy worth his salt will be back again and not be intimidated.”
    “Don’t you know how scary you are?”
    “Not if you get to know me.”
    “For the love of God, Dad, no one gets a chance! You frighten them all away.” She’d let out a world-weary sigh and watched one of the mare tails twitch at a horsefly. “None of my friends’ dads pull this kind of crap.”
    “Watch yourself, Firecracker,” he’d warned, using the pet name he’d given her. Then, less sternly, he’d added, “Have you ever thought that your friends’ dads don’t care as much as I do?”
    “They just don’t enjoy mortifying their daughters.”
    “Is that what I do?” He’d actually grinned.
    “Yes!”
    “Good.” He’d slid her a knowing glance. “And if you think what I put them through is bad, just be thankful they don’t have to deal with your mother.” His eyebrows had lifted over the tops of his glasses, “Now, there’s a woman who can be scary!”
    Nikki sighed. No, Amity O’Henry hadn’t had a father who acted like a medieval king who was dead set on protecting his daughter’s chastity. Amity had been allowed to do what she wanted, with whom she wanted, when she wanted. All that freedom that Nikki had so envied had been a curse, and she missed her father more than she could ever have imagined as a teenager. To think about the last time she’d seen him . . . She closed her eyes at the memory, a frigid wind cutting through her soul.
    “Don’t go there,” she whispered, chastising herself. To push the image aside, she found Amity’s picture again and remembered her friend’s last anguished plea:
    “Please come. I need to talk to someone and you’re my best friend.”
    And Nikki, daughter of privilege and harsh curfews, had failed her.

CHAPTER 5
    A s Nikki had expected, she wasn’t the only reporter waiting to interview Blondell O’Henry. Though she’d arrived at Fairfield Women’s Prison before eight the next morning, two television news vans were already parked in the lot near the front gates. One reporter, Lynnetta Ricci, a tiny blonde from WKAM, stood in position for an exterior shot of the guarded entrance, her cameraman already filming. Another team, DeAnthony Jones and his cameraman were finding a spot for the obligatory exterior shot of the prison.
    There were others arriving as well, reporters she didn’t recognize, but all sharing the same eager fever she’d felt upon hearing about the potential of Blondell O’Henry’s release.
    The gates opened electronically at eight, and they were ushered inside to a waiting area where they each showed their identification and turned off their electronic devices before surrendering them, along with their valuables, to a grim-faced African-American woman seated at a desk behind thick glass. Her hair was white and close-cropped, her eyes dark with suspicion. Her ID tag read Officer M. Ulander, and she didn’t so much as crack a smile as she