Hard Luck Money Read Online Free

hearing him!”
    So there was a plan. The whole thing really had been a setup all along. But why?
    The next instant one of the men grabbed Lupo’s jaws, forced his mouth open, and shoved a rag into it. Lupo couldn’t do anything but make some frantic, muffled noises.
    They reached the front door of the building and his captors forced him out into the night air. They went down the steps and across the narrow gravel yard to the sally port. Two guards armed with rifles waited there.
    The gates were open.
    The guard towers didn’t command a very good view of that location. Even if they had, Lupo wouldn’t have been surprised to find the guards manning those towers were part of Hagen’s scheme.
    After the past few minutes, not much of anything would have surprised Lupo.
    But one thing did. A sharp voice demanded, “Wait a minute! Where are you taking that man, Hagen?”

Chapter 4
    The group had just started through the sally port. Hagen came to an abrupt stop and turned. “Sergeant Flynn. You’re supposed to be off duty tonight.”
    A big man wearing only the trousers from a guard’s uniform and the upper half of a pair of long underwear strode toward them. His rusty hair was tangled and his sweeping handlebar mustache was rust-colored as well.
    “Does it look like I’m on duty?” he snapped. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came over from the guard barracks to work on next month’s duty rosters. Heard somebody go past in the hall and figured I’d better see what in blazes was going on.”
    Hagen handed the lantern to one of the other men and walked past the others to confront Flynn. “It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with, Sergeant. I have this under control.”
    Flynn glared darkly at him. “I see four of my guards and three prisoners giving a civilian the bum’s rush out of here, and I’m not supposed to be concerned?” Flynn peered at Lupo, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “My God, that’s no civilian! That’s Quint Lupo! What deviltry are you up to, Hagen? I’ve had my eye on you. I know you can’t be trusted—”
    “Then you should’ve thrown me out of here a long time before now, Sergeant,” Hagen said.
    Lupo saw the sudden glint of lantern light on steel, but with that rag in his mouth he couldn’t call a warning to Flynn. It probably wouldn’t have done any good even if he’d been able to. Hagen brought a knife up and around with blinding speed and plunged it into Flynn’s chest.
    Flynn took a half step back, obviously shocked by the unexpected attack. He reached for the knife with one hand, but his other hand shot out and grabbed Hagen by the neck. Flynn was big and strong and wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
    Unfortunately, the knife must have pierced his heart because his strength deserted him almost immediately. He let go of Hagen and pawed at the knife with both hands. His knees unhinged, and he fell. A brief drumming of Flynn’s feet on the gravel signaled his death.
    Hagen reached down and pulled the knife free. “Too bad,” he said coldly. “Flynn was in the wrong place at the wrong time and Lupo killed him during the escape.”
    Lupo’s eyes widened, and he made noises again as he tried to push the rag out of his mouth using his tongue. It was bad enough they were making it look like he’d escaped. If he was blamed for Flynn’s murder, every lawman in the state would be looking for him, including the Texas Rangers. He’d be caught, brought back, and hanged.
    But it would never come to that, he realized as his captors once again hurried him through the night, past the sally port, out of the walls, and toward a distant stand of trees. He was convinced they were taking him out to kill him, for some reason he couldn’t begin to understand.
    Behind them, the prison remained quiet and sleeping.
    The group plunged into the thick shadows under the trees. The growth cut off any moonlight or starlight, and when the man carrying the lantern blew it out, the darkness