Sunday Snippets with Ginger Simpson #sundaysnips

This week, I'm sharing a little of my best-seller, First Degree Innocence.  This story was inspired by working as a Correctional Officer for a year, and I really took personal issue when a reviewer remarked that the story didn't seem real.  I lived among inmates for 12 hour days, so I know what I wrote is real and believable.

  The following scene is Carrie's experience when she's shown to her own personal cell for the first time.  Oh, and by the way...everyone in jail will tell you that they are innocent.  *lol*  In this case, Carrie really is, the problem:  no one believes her.

Cover by Michelle Lee at BWL

“Welcome to Hell.” A voice came from behind her.

Carrie’s heart jumped into her throat. She jerked around to see a prone form on the bottom bunk and struggled to find her voice. “I… I thought I was alone.”

“No such luck. They prefer to keep the cells full. Sharing space makes serving meals and head counts a lot easier for the coven of witches who work here. My name’s Susanna Crane.” A tall blonde with bright brown eyes and full lips stood and offered her hand, then chuckled. “Oh, sorry, I see you have your arms full. The good news is, it’s nice to have company, and the bad news is you get the top bunk. The bottom one is the only perk around here, and it’s first-come-first-served.” Her pleasant giggle was a welcome sound.

Carrie stood on tiptoes and dumped her issued items on the bare mattress. Marks of age crinkled the cold plastic. In a few ripped places, the cotton filling poked through—like her, it sought escape from a hellish confinement. A quiet chuckle bubbled to her lips until she tried picturing what type of people had slept on the bedding before her. She cringed.

At home, her downy mattress was practically new, still bearing the tags that threatened penalties if they were removed. How ironic. You couldn’t be more law-abiding than that.

She turned back to her cellmate. “Don’t we even get pillows?”

Susanna shook her head. “Not anymore. I hear they used to issue them, but some idiot tried flushing one and backed up the whole sewer system, so now…”

“I don’t think I can sleep without one.”

“You’ll learn.”

“So… we all get punished for what one person did?” Carrie hoped she misunderstood.

“That’s the way it works. It’s an incentive program.”

“Incentive for what?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. I think they expect us to police one another, yet fighting isn’t tolerated. That seems pretty stupid, considering the best way to stop someone from doing something that’s gonna screw us all, is to beat the livin’ shit out of ’em. Go figure.” Susanna’s lips practically disappeared into a thin line.

Carrie was taken aback by Susanna’s language. At first sight, with her shoulder-length hair and big eyes, she looked like the all-American girl. The one you’d find in church or at the Red Cross. Carrie figured her for twenty-five at the most. She glanced around the cell, pondering Susanna’s last statement.

“I’m not sure I understand. How can they expect us to prevent things from happening if we’re all separately caged… like animals?”

“Oh, we get recreation time… a whopping two hours a day. You’ll love it. You get to socialize with the cream of the crop.” Susanna’s voice held a teasing tone, as she sat back on her bunk, pulled out a netted laundry bag and held it in the air.

“Here’s the answer to your pillow.” She plumped the contents. “Just add your clean clothes and, voila!” She ducked her head, plopping onto her back, and rested against her makeshift cushion. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get some sleep. I work in the kitchen and have to get up at three a.m.” She pulled her scratchy woolen blanket up and rolled to face the wall, leaving Carrie with questions still begging for answers.

Susanna glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

Carrie massaged the headache looming above one eye. “Carrie…Carrie Lang. Good night.”

An eerie silence filled the cell. She glanced at the top bunk, knowing sleep would be elusive. The sleeping accommodations offered no appeal, and her mind raced far too fast to rest. She glanced around, taking in the harsh reality of her new home. Tears clouded her vision and frustration gnawed at her gut. This had to be a nightmare, the worst in all her twenty-four years. She prayed someone would wake her soon.

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Now...hope on over to my friends' sites and see what they are offering this week.

http://connievines.blogspot.com (Connie Vines)

http://yesterrdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/ (Juliet Waldron)

http://triciamg.blogspot.com (Tricia McGill)

Secrets and Lies ~ an excerpt ~ by Jamie Hill

"How dare you speak to me in that manner?" Natalie Jameson clenched her fists. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so furious, while at the same time full of anguish and regret.

"No, Natalie. How dare you?" Her husband's normally handsome face reddened, the veins in his forehead growing bigger the angrier he became. "You started this. It's your fault."

Natalie stomped past her living room sofa, pausing long enough to pick up a decorative pillow. She squeezed the small, blue square and slammed it down on the couch again. "So you've said. Repeatedly. I've got it, Alex. All our problems are my fault. Read you loud and clear."

"I never said everything was your fault. Just this one thing. This one very huge issue." He ran a hand through his closely cropped, brown hair.

"You're making it huge, that's for sure."

Alex blinked in apparent disbelief. "You saw our daughter when she stormed out of here tonight! Gigi was damn near hysterical. She's got an hour's drive ahead of her. Frankly, I'm concerned that she makes it home safely."

Natalie glanced over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen. "Great, pin that on me, too, while you're at it. Now I'll worry until she has time to get home and we can phone her."

Alex stayed on her heels. "I doubt she's going to talk to either one of us tonight."

"She might." Natalie dredged some optimism from deep inside. Gigi had been upset. Even though Natalie had the best intentions, nothing about their conversation had gone the way she'd hoped or planned. Natalie's stomach churned with uneasiness.

"Now you're delusional. We'll be lucky if she talks to either of us again this month."

Natalie filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. "In case anyone wonders where Geege gets her flair for drama…"

"I'm not being dramatic," Alex insisted. "Realistic is more like it. And I think I've figured out your motive for stirring this pot."

"My motive?" Natalie raised her voice again. "I told you my motive. Gigi is having some medical issues. Her doctor referred her to a specialist, and before she even sees him, she has to fill out a really long family medical history. I wanted her to have accurate information."

"You honestly think it's better for her to put 'unknown' than to possibly list inaccurate information? Because that's what it is, you know, a great big stinking 'U' for unknown."

Natalie's heart sank. "I never thought about it like that."

"Exactly. You didn't think, Nat."

"Why should I?" she snapped. "You're thinking about it enough for both of us. You're overthinking it to death. You always do this, Alex. Give me a break!"

"Don't turn this around on me. I told you I figured it out. You're bored with the kids out of the house for the first time ever. You've lost your purpose. I think you stirred all this up so you'd feel needed again. So Gigi would need you."

Natalie coughed, choking back amazement at Alex's assessment. He was so totally off base, she wondered if her husband really knew her anymore. "How dare you?" She fumed.

"Here we go again. Round and round in circles. This conversation is going nowhere. I, on the other hand, am out of here." He grabbed his coat and yanked his keys from the hook on the wall.

"Where are you going?" Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears. Natalie knew she needed to reel herself in, but couldn't quite handle that just then. "Don't you walk out on me!"

Alex steeled his blue-eyed gaze at her and scowled. He tugged the door open with a jerk, and slammed it on his way out.

"Alex!" She stared after him but he didn't return. She heard the garage door go up, and the sound of his car backing out. The overhead door lowered again. Alex was gone.

Two hours later, he still hadn't returned.

Natalie sighed. The eyes seemed to follow her as she moved around the house. The ghost didn't move, it simply peered out from the dark hallway, but it had an eerie glow-in-the-dark quality that made her uneasy. Natalie chided herself for being jittery about a cardboard Halloween decoration. She pulled her sweater tighter around her waist, and hurried from the hallway.

The house is too quiet. That's my problem. In the twenty years she'd lived there, the place had never seemed as quiet as it did now.

Is Alex right? Am I bored with my 'new' life? The question nagged at her as she made her way to the kitchen, where the teapot had just begun to whistle for the third time that night. She poured steaming water into her well-used 'World's Greatest Mother' mug and added a fresh tea bag. She scooted onto the bench in the breakfast nook, then leaned back against the cushions and allowed herself to think about what was really bothering her.

It wasn't just the quiet. The stillness of the house was preferable to the yelling and crying that had taken place there just two hours ago. Alex almost never got angry. A calm and rational man, he usually thought about his words before he spoke. Natalie liked to tease that he was the stereotypical accountant—organized, predictable and virtually unshakeable. He'd proven her wrong tonight. He could indeed be shaken, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

Despite her teasing, his predictability and calm demeanor had always provided a steadying influence on her. He was her rock, her strength. An extremely good-looking man, now a mature version of the incredibly handsome boy she'd met in college. The first thing she'd noticed about him had been his eyes—piercing, bright blue irises that could see through her, as if to her very soul. Add to that his intelligence and common sense way of seeing things, and Natalie had the man of her dreams. He was, quite simply, the love of her life.

Natalie remembered seeing those eyes grow dark with anger only one other time in their lives before tonight. Serious anger, not the 'Who-launched-the-ball-through-the-window?' type of stuff. Alex handled those things with a grain of salt. He was a good father, with an extraordinary amount of patience. Not tonight. Tonight he'd been angry, his eyes, normally bright, had grown dark, full of anguish and resentment. She hated knowing she'd caused that.

The ironic thing was, when Alex had gotten so angry before, a long, long time ago, it was for the same reason that he was angry now. Natalie sighed and sipped her tea. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Secrets and Lies, a novel by Jamie Hill

Published by Books We Love

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ZF5AXC/