Brighter Than the Sun by Darynda Jones Page A

wife. They got married the night before he had to report to jail. It was not the best honeymoon.
    The good news is, he knows what I’m capable of now. And we come up with a plan. I need to do some more groundwork, but in the next few years, he will be set for life. I promise him that much.

19
    Amador comes to see me a lot. He wants to come more often. I tell him not to. He has a family now. He and Bianca even bring the kids to see me. Ashlee and their baby, Stephen. Ashlee is as beautiful as her mother, and I tease Amador that I’m going to steal them from him when I get out. He isn’t too worried. Probably a good thing. Bianca is absolutely in love with him. She is one of the few people attracted to men who don’t fall into a state of crippling desire when they look at me. She has eyes for Amador and only Amador. That kind of devotion is rare. He probably had a witch put a spell on her.
    When he comes, he reports on Kim with every visit, making sure not to mention her name. She is doing well. Our plan is unfolding perfectly.
    One of the advantages of being able to leave my body and go anywhere I want is something I like to call insider trading. I know things long before the public does. I know when companies are going to fold. When they are about to go public. I learn about stocks and bonds and mutual funds.
    Because Amador and Bianca have followed my instructions to the letter, both they and Kim become millionaires overnight. I do as well, but I can’t touch my money until I’m paroled. That could be another decade or two.
    “Has she touched it?” I ask him, wondering if Kim is using any of the funds she has.
    He shakes his head. “She refuses. Says she’s saving it for you.”
    I grind my teeth. The whole point of this was to get her set up so she never has to work again. Instead, she’s working odd jobs and barely scraping by when she could live anywhere in style.
    I go to see her sometimes. She’s not like Dutch. She can’t see me, but when I move a picture or knock over a vase, she knows I’m there. She talks to me for hours. I’m beginning to think I’m more hindrance than help. She lost her last job because she sat and talked to me instead of going to work.
    “She needs to move on,” I tell Amador. “Tell her—” I breathe in to strengthen my resolve. “Tell her I’m not going to go see her anymore. Tell her it’s too dangerous for me. Tell her to take the money and see the world.”
    I know she won’t. She’s waiting for me. She’ll die waiting for me if I can’t figure out how to get her to detach.
    Instead of dwelling on Kim, I focus on Dutch. On Amador, Bianca, and the kids. We invest in several companies that skyrocket the minute they go public, and soon we are all millionaires dozens of times over.
    Amador keeps pouring money into Kim’s account. An offshore account that’s not actually in her name, but one she has access to 24/7.
    It does little good. She barely takes out enough to live on, but at least she’s dipping into it now. At least there’s that.

20
    My eighth year of incarceration turns out to be one of the more exciting. There is a riot. Almost. More like the beginnings of a riot, but it could’ve ended as badly as the one from the ’80s if the inmates had commandeered a control room like they planned. New Mexico has a history of violence that few states can rival, and the energy in the old prison was volatile because of it. Toxic. Too much had happened there over the centuries. Too many deaths. Too many massacres.
    The land on which the new prison was built doesn’t have the violent history of the last one. It helps. But once a potential riot gets out of hand, it’s difficult to gain control again.
    But me? I’m Sweden. I’m nonpartisan. I’m neutral territory. I read in my bunk while my new cellmate goes out to party. He never takes me anywhere.
    I do my best to stay out of it. I really do. But when a guard—one of the good ones, not the douche bags who think