Blood of the Lamb Read Online Free Page B

rushed, and I was much later getting to the chapel than I would’ve liked.
    I slipped into the sanctuary past Officer Roger Coel, who gave me a strained nod, and walked to the center aisle to get a better idea of the attendance. The chapel was packed, inmates filling the pews and spilling over into chairs beyond the drawn divider into the overflow room.
    “Good turnout,” I whispered when I had eased back over to Coel.
    He was a tall, lean, ex-military man with thin blond hair that had a tendency to stand up.
    “Someone circulated a picture of Bunny Caldwell around the compound this afternoon,” he said.
    “You sayin’ their reasons for being here are more carnal than spiritual?” I asked with mock surprise.
    “It’s why I’m here. I volunteered for this assignment.”
    The nondescript chapel, meant to accommodate all religions, bore the symbols of none. It was large, with pews on either side of a wide center aisle and had a platform with a wooden pulpit centered at the front. The pews and the pulpit had been built by inmates who lacked the precision their construction required. The tops of the pews were different heights and the pulpit leaned to the left a little.
    “Are you the only officer here?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise and anger out of my voice.
    He nodded. “Whitfield was here—he loves this shit, but he got pulled to escort the GED class back down to the dorms. Almost made him lose his religion,” he added with an appreciative smile. “He should be back soon.”
    Bunny and Nicole finished their song and received a standing ovation. Bunny took several bows, but looked over at Bobby Earl uneasily. Nicole just smiled. Then, as the men were being seated and Bobby Earl was taking the pulpit, Bunny and Nicole slipped into my office through the door near the platform.
    “Do you need any help?” I asked Coel.
    “You can check the bathrooms,” he said. “I can’t be here and there at the same time, and it’s probably full of these randy bastards beatin’ off to Bunny.”
    I nodded, and started to walk out when Coel grabbed my arm.
    “Why didn’t you put out a memo for security about this service?” he whispered, his voice harsh, his face pinched. “Control didn’t have anything on it. Were they cleared through the proper channels?”
    “I didn’t have anything to do with this program,” I said. “Stone set it up. He said he took care of everything.”
    “Yeah, with a phone call at the time they arrived. No advance warning. No chance for us to prepare. Nothing.”
    “I’ll look into it,” I said.
    My pulse started pounding when I found several inmates, one of whom was a child molester, lurking around the hallway near the water fountain and my office, and I realized again just how vulnerable Nicole really was.
    “You need to get back in the sanctuary now,” I said.
    Paul Register seemed to shrink in on himself, his short, boyish form becoming even smaller. His eyes blinked sheepishly at me like a small puppy expecting another whack with a newspaper.
    “Yes, sir,” he said softly. “My knee’s hurting. I was trying to stretch it out some.”
    “You can stand in the back if you need to,” I said. “But you need to be in the sanctuary.”
    “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m going.” He glanced through the glass pane in my office door, then limped back into the sanctuary under the hard glare of Officer Coel.
    Once Register was out of the front hallway, I walked over and made sure the door to my office was locked. It was. Then I headed to the inmate bathroom next to the kitchen and multi-purpose room in the back.
    Obviously designed by someone who had never worked in a prison, the chapel’s inmate and visitor bathrooms were down a short L-shaped hallway that led to the kitchen and meeting room in the back. It was a blind spot, difficult to supervise, and, if not watched closely, the place where the more criminal of our criminal element congregated. For an event like this,