Free The Threshold by Marlys Millhiser Page B

spicing up the conversation with. You haven’t really spent time in a prison.”
    She put the vulnerable and luscious face on, which made it hard to concentrate, but he held on to her arm because the rest of her looked poised for escape. Her eyes grew wider, as if ready to fill with tears. “Do you know one of the worst things was the smell? Even when I got used to it, it smelled bad. Like old urine and disinfectants, steam-table food, and that vomitlike smell you get when locked in with slowly evaporating plastics.…”

9
    Aletha paced the condo with her arms folded as if she were cold. She’d been in a jail in New Orleans for three months before her trial came up and then in a federal penitentiary in Fort Worth. And all because, she claimed, she’d grown tired of attending the University in Albuquerque and had gone to work for a man there named Harry Sloane. Harry ran a dive shop and training center for scuba divers. Aletha took the training, received her certification, and helped arrange group tours to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras, where Harry had another dive shop and an understanding with a resort.
    “People could get group airline rates, a Caribbean vacation, scuba training and certification, and glorious underwater reefs all in one package from good old Harry. And for his staff it was work that was more fun than work. It was kind of like postponing adulthood.”
    Cree could see what was coming and wished he couldn’t, wished this slight, bouncy girl weren’t involved in the same nasty game that had ruined him and Dutch.
    “And then one day after about three years of all this fun I was coming back through customs in New Orleans with Bobby, another of Harry’s dupes. We were bringing back some tanks for repair from the Roatan shop. I’d done it dozens of times. But this time my whole life changed in just one minute.”
    “They found drugs in your scuba tanks.”
    “Cocaine. Several million dollars’ worth.” She turned on him with a movement that made the hair tucked behind her ears fall forward across her face, leaving one intense, accusing eye staring at him. “Are you a narc? Renata says you’re a narc.”
    “No, I’m not a narc. But I’ve read enough to know that scuba tanks are about the worst bet there is for smuggling. They’ve been used so often they practically flag suspicion on sight.”
    “Apparently Harry had been getting away with it for years. When Bobby and I got caught, he disappeared. But somehow they found Harry. And when they did he bragged that he’d used his staff as mules from the beginning and not a one knew about it until Bobby and I were caught.”
    “Lots of killing goes on in Harry’s trade. You were lucky he wasn’t murdered before he cleared you.”
    “I didn’t believe it when they let me out of Fort Worth. I thought it was a trick. And then it took more months to get the conviction reversed. My mother and Bertie did all they could to help me, but I’ll always feel guilty and dirty. Because I was in prison for something I didn’t even know I’d done.” Her eyes remained empty. “The sentence was thirty years. If I’d served the whole time I’d have been older than my mother is now when I got out. I wanted you to ask me about it. That’s why I kept dropping dumb hints. If I’d just keep my mouth shut no one would know. I’m an ex-convict.”
    As she drove up the grumpy road to Alta, Aletha imagined that he looked at her differently now. “Maybe I can change history. Maybe I can keep Callie from that one awful moment that could change her life forever.”
    “Slow down, will ya? In case we meet another roadblock.” He braced against the dashboard as he had the last time they’d traversed this road. “Were you … abused in prison? Sexually?”
    “Subtlety is just not your main talent, is it?” But it was her fault for opening herself up to this sort of thing.
    “You’re right. Sorry.”
    “Renata says you’re asking questions