Rivers to Blood Read Online Free Page A

at me. “I mean one active now. And he’s not just raping other inmates.”
    Though most people on the outside seem to think that brutal rape is just a part of the prison experience, in actuality it doesn’t happen nearly as much as they think. There’s sex inside, and some of it is coercive, but very little of it is rape in the most violent sense of the word. Inmates are watched very closely. For two of them to have sex, it has to happen so quickly and so carefully, they both have to work together to find just the right place and time. The exception to this, of course, is when there is a lapse in security, when routine and complacency make an officer sloppy or careless, but for the most part sex in prison is in some sense consensual.
    That’s not to say that rape doesn’t still happen or that when it does it isn’t violent and brutal and horrible, just that it isn’t as much a part of prison as popular culture would have you believe.
    “You?” I asked, alarm in my voice.
    She shook her head. “Just men,” she said. “Inmates, officers, support staff, but just men.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I keep hearing the same story over and over,” she said.
    Nearly all day every day, Lisa sat and listened to and counseled with the inmates of PCI. Many would try to manipulate her for various reasons, but if she was hearing the same story over and over from different men, there may be something to it.
    DeLisa Lopez, the dark, nearly beautiful Hispanic woman from South Florida, was a relatively new psych specialist at PCI. As usual, she made me think of heat, her sensualness more suited for a sweltering South Beach club than a North Florida prison.
    A bad relationship had caused her to migrate to the Panhandle. I wasn’t sure what was making her stay.
    “They’re not reporting it because of how humiliating it is for them,” she said, “but many of them have confided in me.”
    “What’re they saying?” I asked.
    She hesitated. “If it gets out that it came from me …”
    “It won’t.”
    She nodded. “Somehow,” she said, “he’s making them rape themselves.”
    I thought about it, my mind reeling. No wonder they weren’t reporting it. This went beyond the usual violation and humiliation of rape into a whole new form of degradation.
    “Can you elaborate?” I asked.
    “Not really,” she said. “As you can imagine, they’re not very specific, but the thing they have in common is that he’s forcing them to sodomize themselves.”
    “You think any of them would be willing to talk to me?”
    “NO,” she said, raising her voice. “Absolutely not. If they ever found out I told anyone about it, my efficacy is over.”
    “It’s not a lot to go on,” I said.
    “It’s all I have,” she said. “All I can say.”
    “Why tell me at all then?” I asked.
    “The way you solved Justin Menge’s murder,” she said. “Not just your investigative skills. Your discretion.”
    While investigating the murder of Justin Menge last year, I discovered that Lisa had been having an affair with one of the suspects. An inmate. She assured me it was over and that it would never happen again, so I didn’t report her like I was supposed to. It was a judgment call. One I based on intuition and experience. One I had questioned several times since.
    “I’m not just talking about the way you handled my stupidity,” she said. “This is going to require a great deal of sensitivity.”
    I nodded and we fell silent a moment.
    The morning light spilling into my office caused Lisa’s bronze skin to shimmer, magnified her copper-colored highlights, and dappled the dark carpet with the distinctive design of razor wire.
    “Will you find out who’s doing it and stop him?”
    “With no suspects, no witnesses I can talk to, and nothing to go on?” I said. “Don’t see why I can’t have it cleared up by lunchtime.”
    “I better get back to my office,” she said. “The new warden’s out to get me.”
    “Everybody