Caged

Prologue

Welcome to Statesville Prison.

As he walked in an ambling line, one among ten new inmates at Statesville all decked out in blue cotton sweat pants, plain white tee-shirts, and shower sandals, Todd Manning recounted a few basic rules about prison that he knew cold. Some he learned the hard way his first time in for raping Marty Saybrooke, others he got from long-timers.

Look tough even if you're not feeling it.

Knocking his head back, keeping his eyes forward and shoulders straight, he knew his black prison tats, countless scars, the unforgiving expression on his face, and his general unfriendliness, gave two important messages: one, he was someone you might not want to bother, and two, he'd been to Statesville before. His previous ride went a long way towards safety.

If someone decides to test your tough look, teach them a lesson they'll not forget.

This didn't worry him too much – he meant what he said to Jedediah back in Fayetteville. He did have a mean right hook. He was also pretty damn good with the primo prison weapon: the shiv. No question, he'd do damage to anyone who messed with him. And if he couldn't do enough to save his life, he'd die trying. Fighting was key, period. Men who thought they could avoid the fight and "nice" their way through prison learned that being nice only gets a person assaulted and made into someone's punk, i.e. a rape victim. Which leads to rule number three:

Do not voluntarily become a punk.

Some men believe they can offer sexual favors for protection, and actually get it. This is patently false. Once an inmate gets a reputation as a punk, he will continue to be raped, passed around, beaten, and will ultimately lose every reason to live. If someone attempts to make you their punk, fight like hell no matter how pointless the effort might be. Again, fighting is key. Especially if the inmate has been marked as a rapist or person with other sexual convictions – they become walking targets for extreme violence, vengeance rape, and other abuses, death being a common end result. Unfortunately, this was a reality of prison culture that Todd learned the hard way. He fought bloody hard for the meager amount of respect he ended up with – he also learned that inmates marked as sexual predators tended to be left alone once they proved themselves unable to be bested. He knew that this second time around, he'd have a new reputation to build, a new standard to meet. Anything less would make him a constant challenge to the other inmates.

A few other basics:

Do not take any favors. Do not acquire goods on credit. Keep physically and spiritually fit. Be polite and respectful to guards and other admin.

In a quiet room, alone with two male guards wielding small flashlights, Todd stripped naked for a visual strip search that all newcomers were given. He did as he was told, an unforgotten humiliating routine, opening his mouth, lifting his tongue. He rifled through his hair, let them peek up his nose. He showed off the backs and inside of his ears, and the soles of his feet. Without flinching or blinking, he lifted his penis and scrotum. He spread his fingers apart, lifted his arms in the air, turned and bent over to spread his ass cheeks. If the CO's believed an inmate was hiding something in his rectum, the inmate would have to squat and cough in the hopes the contraband would reveal itself.

Todd then stood tall and straight so they could check out the rest of his body for suspicious markings that might indicate still-hidden contraband. Strange how it had been a few years since he endured a strip search, and yet he did it with familiarity and disassociation. He wasn't there in that room – he was someplace he wanted to be.

After his clothes were carefully inspected, he dressed, and while the officers quickly wrote up an intake report, he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He bent his head, his hair falling about his face, and bit his lip hard to stop himself from weeping like a child. It would be the only expression of his true self for a long while.

The older guard looked at Todd before letting him out the door, flashing a sad face, "Welcome back, Manning. Stay safe."

"Yeah."

Once the individual searches were done, the line of men marched to the commissary, and each got handed a bag of necessaries, a sack lunch, two changes of clothes, bed linens, and slip-on canvas sneakers for the yard. They were permitted a one-time deal where they could purchase $25 worth of goods on the People's dime. Todd chose a writing pad, envelopes, prison pens, and a couple of packs of Camels. He also got trail mix, thinking of the mountains and the long walk into West Virginia's wilderness with Téa and Jed.

Mind your own business, and don't share yours.

The inmates didn't talk to one another. Todd avoided their gazes and didn't check them out. Peripherally, he noted the varying races, ages, and levels of fear in the men. He calculated when he'd be able to use the phone to call his lawyer, George Strauss. Figured out what he needed him to do, wrote in his head the first lines in a first letter to Téa Delgado, and wondered what time it was. He briefly closed his eyes and breathed. He could not think of the outside world and blanketed his mind with vaguely detailed plans of the next few hours. He wished he could sleep. The rules kept him awake.

Don't talk to people of other races before you talk to the leaders of your own.

Statesville was like any other American prison, mainly divided along racial lines. Each racial demographic was then divided into various gangs who fought each other and competed for jobs, trades, and other violence-tinged activities. Now, one could avoid getting into a gang, but it took a bit of finesse and politicking which wasn't easy. Todd had rudimentary information that would help him stay out of the fray for a while - he had a starting point. However, he had yet to work out how to convey this information and when to do it. The problem with using information against bad guys is that sometimes the bad guys kill their blackmailers. Definitely a sticking point. The plan would come to him.

The last rule he also learned the hard way:

Don't reveal your weaknesses.

Weaknesses are anything someone might try to take advantage of, such as things you covet, things that might get you in trouble, or whatever makes you happy or sad, or angry. If you show how you feel, someone will use it against you. With that in mind, Todd learned to cover up his emotions, all of them. The past two years had been truly indulgent - he had given in to every bit of inner struggle, insanity, and raw emotion. He had cried openly thanks to the drugs, and expressed every ounce of rage that burned through to his core. He laughed and loved and...at the last minute got back his family. And for the sanctity of the family...he ended here, a plea, three to five for the murders of his cousin Phillip Manning and federal agent Jack Neederman, and a slew of other crimes.

Redemption, bitches, redemption.

As he stood in line, waiting to meet his cell mate, everything inside of him began to shut down like a series of slamming doors, a rhythmic run of fingertips along piano keys, down, down, down. Down into dead silence.

In an effort to further shield his weaknesses, he would cut off addresses and phone numbers from letters or other papers, and cover up the phone pad on the pay phone as he dialed numbers. Inmates had a way of getting to people you loved, and those people were your greatest weaknesses. He would converse without revealing anything about himself, no names, no loves, no enemies. Not his favorite TV shows or movies or foods, not his predisposition to always smell a rose when confronted with one, not the thrill he felt when he drove off the lot with a new car. Nothing.

Indeed, if he thought about it, men had so many weaknesses. Covering them up was a full time job in prison. His biggest weaknesses would always be his children and wife.

He'd left Téa at the doors of the Llantano's county jail where he'd be booked and then transported to Statesville first thing in the morning. With the commissioner, Bo Buchanan, looking on, he kissed her on the lips and looked her in the eyes with furrowed brows. They studied one another. She smiled and fought tears. He touched the side of her face, memorizing her.

"I'll write to you," he said. "Every day, every chance I get. Jed, too. And Starr."

"I'll come visit you tomorrow-"

"No, no you won't."

"Sure, you need some time...I'll be here on the weekend-"

"No, not the weekend, not the following weekend… not in a month, not in two, not in a year..."

"Todd...what are you doing? What are you talking about?"

"Don't ever come, don't ever bring that baby...stay home until I come to you."

"You're crazy...Todd, come on, be serious..."

He swallowed hard, and smiled wistfully, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, avoiding her on-the-verge-of-hysteria gaze. His voice was barely above a whisper. "If I see you, I won't make it. I won't survive this."

Téa put her hand to her mouth, "Please...this is bad enough...that you didn't listen to me, that you chose this...THIS."

"I'll want to come home if I see you or Jedediah or Starr - I won't be able to hide my wanting to get out, my...wanting to be with you. I will not make it, Delgado, if I see you. You have to understand, I need you to understand."

Bo reluctantly interrupted, "I'm sorry, Manning, we gotta go."

"No, no, no...," Téa whimpered, "Todd...god damn you..."

He kissed her again, and tore himself away from her. Walked away from his beautiful, fuming, disbelieving woman, "TODD MANNING! GOD DAMN YOU!"

He did not look back and bit down on his teeth, feeling like he could break his teeth. Every fucking one. His wrists were cuffed, but he held his head high, threw shoulders back, and bore his broken heart stoically. He knew how hurt she was, she and that baby in her belly. Instincts screamed in his head. They'd been through so much together, and apart, and he wanted to comfort her, protect her. He thought he was doing just that. It had been a destined decision. But now...as he heard her helplessly saying his name...when she finally stopped...he wasn't so sure about his decision.

"I love you, Delgado," he said right before he went inside, hearing her say similar words right back. She said them coolly, simply. Jedediah, his son, would not have to testify against him and THAT was everything. That was why this was all happening.

In the morning heat, the next day after a night in county jail, as he drove in a sparsely-populated bus across the miles to Pennsylvania's central state prison, he felt comforted by his decision. The droning sound of the engine, the hot breeze coming through the dropped windows, the sound of a just-turned-18 kid in the back row sniffling, all reminded him of the hope he handed his son. The cops would be off Jed's back for everything he'd done in the past. The boy's future now lay in his own hands. He could either stay on the straight and narrow, or pay the consequences for bad choices. Jed was on his own, free of Todd, with a little help from Téa Delgado Manning. The boy at one time had tried everything to save his bio-father from himself. This was the least Todd could do. Save the kid…from himself.

He had no idea that he'd end up serving the full five years of his prison sentence.

He had no idea that redemption would end up costing so much more than he dreamed.

He had no idea that he'd be caged… for the rest of his life.

Chapter 1

Commissioner Bo Buchanan, head of Llanview Police Department, got down on his haunches with a grunt and then a heavy sigh, and lifted the yellow tarp off the face of an Angel Square gang's latest victim, Serena Franco. Her brown eyes were still open, her mouth posed in a permanent circle of shock. A necklace caught the sun's light, a butterfly in mid-flight. No more flying for this one. He replaced the cover and squinted in the afternoon light, "She in Los Serranos?"

"No, sir. Caught in the crossfire." The young cop watched the lurkers in the crowd of Angel Square, floating faces, crying mothers. "This is the third killing related to the Serrano gang in two weeks, but the first crossfire. She's an innocent."

Getting up, feeling his aging knees, Bo rubbed his hair back, what little there was of it. This had been some rough winter weeks. Los Serranos wasn't the only gang to have lost people; the Irish gang known as the Dirty Riders also lost people and now Bo was thinking they had a full scale gang war. Retribution was a hard cycle to interrupt. Took lots of political manpower, church involvement, school programs, and cops. Lots of cops.

"God damn...," he growled. The coroner wrapped up the little butterfly and shoved her into the bus, the mother screaming in the background. God damn.

Across the street, Téa Delgado Manning, stopped her walk to Carlotta's place to eye the wreckage. She gave a somber wave to Bo and continued her quick pace. Shaking her head. Putting her hand on her chest. Certainly trying to ignore the grief of the butterfly's mother. Bo watched her graceful exit, her brown hair neatly trussed in a fine twist, her white wool coat cinched at her waist, and the expensive black pant suit flowing out from beneath the coat's skirt. That Delgado, she knew how to show off her lawyer-self. Her purse swung as she walked, the expensive briefcase banging against that leather.

How the hell she ever married, and stayed married, to Todd Manning remained a mystery to Bo. Cat with nine lives, he always said about that guy. Cat with ten lives. Should be dead now but isn't. The two had kids...two of 'em. Reese and Lucia. Bright eyes, Bo called them. Both had Todd's hazel eyes, both had his intense gaze. But thankfully, those two angels had Téa's spirit and lightness. Thanks to an easy life, they were spared Todd's heavy heart and his dark views of the world. That miracle was all Téa. Starr on the other hand, Todd's daughter from his first wife, did not escape his dark heart and neither did his eldest, Jedediah Chant, son from Manning's first teenage love. Long stories, really.

"Commissioner?"

"Yeah..."

"Been doing some digging on this."

"Spill it."

The young cop, Henry Jones, had his sights set on detective. He hoped this case would help get him there. "Traced these Serrano killings back a couple of years. Things were quiet, relatively uneventful for the Serranos until a murder of one of their own in Statesville."

"Two years ago?"

"More like three."

The two started walking toward the city center. Bo didn't drive to these nearby locations. He walked. He liked the citizens to see him out there with his gun holstered and his entourage watchful. Made the people feel like they were important enough to talk to, to see. Bo eyed the folks he passed, smiled, nodded his head, asked about moms and dads and kids.

"Tell me about this guy," he said.

"Jessie Horenda, small time con. Was doing a nickel for felony arson and robbery."

"Killed inside, you say?"

"Oh yeah. Ugly."

"How ugly?"

"His...umm...his penis was cut off and shoved into his mouth. A stick was up his...well. He was stabbed a dozen times in the chest and back and the word, 'bitch' was carved onto his forehead."

Bo stopped walking, aghast, really. "Jesus. That was personal. Why are you calling that a gang killing?"

"See...Horenda wasn't a nice guy, but he was a Serrano pet. Favorite godson of a Serrano founding father."

"So Serranos took action...?"

"Sure. The timing was right - exact, actually. A week later, the Irish started losing people. All Serrano style... machetes and Japanese guns. And all outside Statesville. We're talking heavy hitters getting taken out."

"Mmm..." Bo looked dubious, but took a moment to shake the hand of a passing store owner.

Henry pushed his theory, "First guy down was the son of an Irish founder. It's an obvious tit for tat. Serranos musta concluded it was the Irish so they hit back hard for Horenda. The back and forth has been pretty steady, but recently, it's blown up and as you see...we now have the innocents getting gunned down."

The walk started again, Bo hemming and hawing. He paused and turned to Henry. "So you like the Irish as having killed Horenda? But no real evidence to tie it to them. Not enough for us...but enough for Los Serranos."

"That's the idea, sir."

"Why do you think it's the Irish? Why do you think the Serranos thought it was them?"

"Prison schedules. Horenda was murdered by the laundry. On his shift. Back hallway. Plus the stick...that's been done by the Irish in and out of Statesville."

"During the Irish's shift on laundry."

"Nobody else really had access at that time. Well, other than a loner - total outsider to the whole thing.."

Rubbing his lips with his fingers, his thinking action, Bo shook his head. "I can see what you're saying... but that killing was personal. What did the Irish have on Horenda? Who the hell did he step on?"

"Story is Horenda tried to horn in on the prison drug trade. Heroin. Small potatoes really."

"Yeah, not with his dick in his mouth. Something else altogether." Bo paused... his face tight with concentration, curiosity, "So who's the loner who had access to the back hallway?"

Henry waved his hand like he was swatting away a fly, the loner so off his radar, so off the books as to mean nothing. "Oh, solid alibi...no contacts with Horenda or Irish...nothing. Umm... that newspaper guy who plead five for voluntary manslaughter, Todd Manning. Totally clean-"

Stopping dead in his tracks, Bo snorted a short, harsh laugh, shaking his head, "Did you say, Manning? Todd Manning had access to that back hallway?"

"Well, yeah..."

"Todd Manning, a heroin addict with a history of violent sexual crimes?"

"Yes... sir?"

Bo pointed his finger at Henry, so emphatic that he actually poked the cop's chest. "Know this, Mr. Jones... Todd Manning is NEVER clean! How the hell did he get out of interrogation on that one?"

The young cop's mouth parted, a little stumped. "Alibi. Solid...no reason to pull him in."

"I was in on every goddamn Manning interrogation and every goddamn Manning statement during his time in prison. How the hell did I miss THAT? Something's not right. Not right at all. Hooohoo...no, sirree. God damn!"

"Sir?"

"Walk fast, Jones. You have paperwork to write."

The police station loomed ahead and Henry opened the door for Bo as the man strode in hard and fast, in charge of Llanview's cop world and on a mission now. God how he loved this place.

Yes, Butterfly, we'll get to the bottom of this.

When Téa swung open the door to Carlotta's diner, she smiled at the sight of her husband, Todd Manning, sucking on a straw burrowed into a chocolate shake. He raised humored eyes to meet hers and reached for seven year old Lucia's hand to wave it. He was leaning down slightly, his longish hair, streaked white now against the chestnut, falling on the shoulder of his younger daughter. Brown-haired Lucia smiled, then snarled at her father and pushed him away, decrying his continued babying of her. She was seven, just turned, nowhere near a baby. Reese was a mere two, still very much a baby. Had a shock of golden hair, sticking straight up. He smartly uncapped his plastic cup and poured the milkshake on the tray of his high chair and called for Téa, one chocolate-covered finger pointing in the air. The three were a team and couldn't wait to share an early sweet dinner with the mother of their world.

As Téa walked across the floor to the corner table, she watched Todd smile slyly, knowing what was probably on his mind. He'd been pawing at her in the early morning but a court date prevented Téa from feeding his endless hunger. She'd left him in agony, his naked self beneath their sheets, rattling off what he planned for her when she was done with her day. Throughout all their hard work to get to this peaceful, blissful existence following his release from prison, through all their ups and downs, the one thing that remained steady, passionate... crazily so... was their sex life.

Téa blushed inside, the heat from him instant, and she chuckled knowingly.

His long legs stretched into the aisle, expensive Italian shoes glistening brown, beneath black jeans and luxurious knit plum shirt, with burnished metallic buttons down the front. All purposely casual. All top of the line, New York City chic. The slowly deepening scar cutting across his right cheek, though, clashed with his love of fine clothes. As did his tattoos, the slight limp from a prison knife fight gone awry, and the letters L-O-V-E that he'd carved into the knuckles of his left hand. He was forever a clash of moral direction.

After kissing the kids on their ice-creamed lips, with Todd sending Lucia across the booth to the other side, Téa slipped onto the seat next to her beloved. She asked, "Out of the office early I see?"

"We missed you, beautiful woman."

When Todd planted a kiss on her lipstick lips, the goatee he sported scraping Téa's skin, he groaned a little and pressed his hand on her stomach, pulling her to him. She laughed, throwing her head back, and glanced at the menu. The kids chattered and she answered the family's many probing questions about her day, about all the people she saw.

A normal, family picture, with people who were anything but normal.

What Téa never failed to notice when in public with Todd, especially in Angel Square, were the glances by some of the men nearby. There was always at least one in the crowd, one ex-con recognizing another. A nod of the head, a cool eye-sweep up and down. Suspicion. Fear. A dare. Todd had been out of Statesville for nearly three years and yet he still wore the sheen of a man inside, a man who made something of himself inside the walls of a high-security state prison. A man who walked out of one of toughest prisons in Pennsylvania on top of the food chain rather than at the bottom.

Not an easy trick for a serial rapist who was a hard-core heroin addict with a penchant for torture.

Reality was, Todd had yet to shed the redemption he so achingly sought and worked for. Yes, he had walked a long road out of hell, along an edge of wakefulness, smack into the paradise of family life and love. Yes, yes, he was awake, wide awake... alive and kicking...

But nothing comes for free, as they say. Téa always knew his prison life, the life he kept closed off from her... might very well come back to haunt them. She really hoped it would be later rather than sooner. She really wished he'd tell her about his time inside so she could prepare for all eventualities. All she had was anecdote from a couple of clients... undocumented fantasy. All she had was advice from Tim Graham, Todd's doctor, that sometimes, a door is better left shut than opened.

"How are you, abogada?" Todd breathed in the scent of her perfume.

"I'm great, newspaper man. How are you?"

"Never been better." He smiled so sweetly, his eyes so shined with adoration and openness, that Téa touched his cheek and took in a sharp breath of awe. She remembered other times, other places... dark, dark... blood running down his body, death enveloping him... a woman draping her used, ragged body over his...

What you want, baby?

"My god," she whispered. "Look at you."

"What," he said, his tone deep and anticipatory.

"You're the beautiful one."

"And you're nuts."

She laughed and buried her head into his neck, kissing his warm skin, kissing the inked black-lined snake that curled up there. Safe here, protected here. Paradise.

But then she heard Todd curse under his breath and stiffen. She eyed the doors of the diner and through the window saw the shields. Like precognition, Tea knew that Statesville had come a'calling.

No, no, not now...not yet...I'm not ready… we just barely got him back...

Within seconds, Bo Buchanan and a few cops smashed open the door of the diner and stalked right up to the family-loving, milkshake swilling, baby-waving, death-defying, Dark Prince himself... Todd Manning.

"You got some splainin' to do, inmate number 6203820," Bo twanged, a little too loudly, a little too showy. "We got a string of dead gang members and I think you know a hell of lot more about that than you've ever told us. Than you ever told ME."

Like a punctuation, as if on cue in a movie, Reese screamed a scream that seemed to run through the bones of Todd and Téa, that chilled the two to the core.

Yes, Statesville had most certainly come a'calling.

To be continued...