The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape by Shirley Rousseau Murphy and Pat J.J. Murphy

time there was no substance, her idea of escape was wishful thinking. He settled into life behind bars as best he could except for the group counseling session. He didn’t need counseling, he needed justice.
    The courts had locked him up for the rest of his life, but why force him to listen to a bunch of bickering inmates air their petty complaints? Or to the sanctimonious platitudes of the fresh-faced counselor who led the others in their pointless rankling? He didn’t want to share his pain.
    The problem was, the day the counselor started working on him he ended up bellyaching just like the rest of the group. Afterward he felt cheap and ashamed. He’d let it all out, the unfairness of the jury, the uncaring judge and U.S. attorney, the incompetence of his own lawyer. He’d gone on about being used, manipulated like a rat in a lab experiment. The counseling he got, in front of the whole group, only made it worse. At least the counselor had gotten hima job in the automotive shop, but only because they needed skilled men. Now, thankful for that good luck, he crossed the prison yard on his way to another “shrink” session, for another hour of misery.
    I T WAS JUST one o’clock when Lee found the group counseling room and stepped inside. A gray metal desk stood across the room, arranged so the group leader sat with his back to the wall facing three rows of folding chairs, all empty. The young counselor looked up from his paperwork, then glanced at a list. “Lee Fontana?”
    Lee nodded. The first one there, he took a seat in the middle so he wouldn’t have men pushing by stepping on his feet. The young man was all of twenty-some, a college type with an almost pretty face, a deep tan, a blond crew cut. He wore a V-necked red sweater with turned-up sleeves over a starched white shirt. He gave Lee a charming smile, introduced himself as Tom Randall, and returned to his loose-leaf notebook. He didn’t look up again until a broad-shouldered black man entered. He looked Lee over and slid into the chair next to him. Lee hoped he wasn’t going to be talkative, he wasn’t here to be social.
    But the man’s smile drew Lee, his eyes alive with intelligence and humor. He was middle-aged, square faced and clean-cut, with flecks of gray through his short hair. He extended his broad, lined hand. “Andy Trotter,” he said in a polished British accent.
    â€œLee Fontana.” Lee shook the man’s hand. “You’re a Brit? What are you doing in here?”
    Trotter grinned and pulled a bag of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket. “Born right here in Georgia. But I spent most of my childhood in Jamaica with my granny, she made sure I could speak the King’s English. Smoke?” He extended the makings.
    Lee shook his head. As Andy rolled a cigarette quickly and neatly, three more men wandered in. Two of them were the dregs of prison population, scruffy, edgy types. Lee could smell the body odor of the frazzled, dirty one before he sat down at the end of the row. The man’s hair was greasy, his eyes darted restlessly, and he couldn’t keep his hands still, his twitching fingers rubbing and fidgeting. This fellow didn’t need counseling, he needed to dry out. The man who took the chair next to Lee held himself rigidly, staring straight ahead to avoid eye contact. His thin red hair was combed straight back over a premature baldness, his mouth and chin dwarfed by a large beaked nose.
    The third man, who came in behind them, was younger, clean-cut, probably in his late twenties, an honest-John citizen type. Lee watched him with interest, wondering what he was in for. Open, friendly face like that, he’d make a great con artist. Only when their eyes met did Lee see his deep, embedded anger.
    The young man grinned at Andy, received a smile in return, and took the seat on the other side of him. When Andy made introductions, when Morgan Blake reached across to