Done Dirt Cheap Read online

  Dedicated to Sabrina, for sharing a dream.

  And to J, for bringing coffee without me having to ask.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lemon, Sarah Nicole, author.

  Title: Done dirt cheap / Sarah Nicole Lemon.

  Description: New York : Amulet Books, 2017. | Summary: Tourmaline Harris and Virginia Campbell, two teenagers from opposite sides of the track, join forces to overthrow the people in their southern Virginia town who exploit them.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016042024 | ISBN 9781419723681 (hardback)

  eISBN: 978-1-68335-059-0

  Subjects: | CYAC: Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. | Family problems—Fiction. | Criminals—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Thrillers. | FICTION / Crime. | FICTION / Contemporary Women.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.L4446 Do 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042024

  Text copyright © 2017 Sarah Nicole Lemon

  Cover and book design by Alyssa Nassner

  Cover illustration © 2017 by Amanda Lanzone

  Published in 2017 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place . . . Nothing outside you can give you any place . . . In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got”.

  —Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood

  Federal Bureau of Prisons Institution Supplement, U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton: Visitors are not allowed to bring property, packages, food, cash money, checks, money orders, lottery tickets, negotiable items, or any other items through visitation. Visitors who attempt to give such items to offenders will have their visit terminated and lose their visiting privileges.

  Underneath the hem of Tourmaline Harris’s pink gingham button-up, a pair of wool socks were hidden—one in each back pocket. Coils of silver barbed wire glinted in the sun, and the flags heralding the gates of U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton clanged against their poles.

  This was a test.

  A dry run. An effort to push back against the guilt shackled to her for pushing a fallen queen into hell—when she’d called the police instead of her father, and they’d taken her mother away. Here the guilt always felt like a thing. A living thing. Like a slick, leaden thing stretched flabby and amphibious across her shoulders, with bitter-tasting fingers hooked into her cheek, leaching sour down her throat.

  And on the first day of summer break—while Anna May and all her other friends were sleeping in after graduation, escaping sentimental mothers, and meeting for brunch—Tourmaline walked into a federal prison with socks hidden in her pockets and the taste of guilt on her tongue.

  The windowless prison door slapped shut, sealing her inside a small holding room. A corrections officer—CO—sat behind a Plexiglas wall. “ID,” he said without turning, voice hollowed and distorted by the speaker.

  Tourmaline dropped her driver’s license into the silver tray, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the elaborately locked wire gate in front of her.

  This had seemed like such a solid plan at home—put the socks in her pockets, walk through security, and hand them to her mother when the guards weren’t looking. Now that she could no longer go back, her stomach twisted. This could go so wrong. What had she been thinking? If it were only socks, this would be easy. She’d turn right around.

  But it wasn’t socks. It was supposed to be, eventually, the methadone prescription they wouldn’t let Mom have in prison. It was Granny’s corn mint and palmarosa salve for that rattling cough Mom always seemed to have. And Mom wasn’t in a maximum-security federal prison because she was an addict. She was there because of Tourmaline’s mistake.

  A buzzer shrilled. The gate unlocked. The wire door opened, silencing the buzzer, and a bored-looking CO waved her forward.

  Too late. Tourmaline shook her head and shoved her license into her pocket. Her fingers trembled, but she tucked her long blond hair behind her ears and followed the CO into the abyss, keeping her gaze on the middle distance as she passed the wall.

  The wall—a trophy wall, covered in cheap printer ink, copier paper, and clear tape. Grainy mug shots were plastered on the concrete, right inside the gates, greeting each visitor with a pyramid of sullen faces belonging to those banned for smuggling something inside.

  Somehow what she was doing seemed different. She was different.

  The wall did not differentiate between honor roll teenage girls who hid socks in their jeans with nothing but good intentions and people who stuffed little beige balls of heroin in saran wrap up their asses. Having her picture taped up right alongside the bad and the actual worst would be almost as terrible a consequence as not being allowed back to see her mother. Tourmaline did not want to bring any record or reminders of where she came from along to the University of Virginia in the fall. She did not want to see her student ID and think of that picture on this wall, as if she existed here first.

  The guard turned down the hall.

  Tourmaline followed.

  Everything was quiet, save for the wild heartbeat slamming in her ears. The floors were freshly mopped, and the odor of bleach was in every breath. The hall led away in both directions, alternately dark and light with the kind of fluorescence that was supposed to resemble daylight.

  The CO waited behind the metal detector. Lauren Hayes was her name, not that Tourmaline would ever call her that. It was hard to get used to the guards, the gossip, and the feeling of a small, suffocating town crammed inside the concrete.

  Tourmaline fought the urge to nervously swallow, stepping through the gates as Hayes waved her forward.

  The alarm stayed silent. Only a few more steps to go. Tourmaline held out her hands.

  Hayes grasped her fingers—blue gloves powdery on Tourmaline’s skin as she swiped the cloth across her palm and down her trigger finger. The chemical checking for gunpowder didn’t trigger, and the CO tossed the gloves in an empty trash can.

  This was it. All Tourmaline needed to do was stay calm and sign in, and she would have the safety of standing with her back to the concrete wall. The first major hurdle would be over. She waited, fighting to look as if she weren’t fighting at all.

  Hayes tugged on new gloves. “What’s in your pockets?”

  At first the question didn’t register. But the creature on her shoulders whispered and Tourmaline heard. She knows.

  Tourmaline tried to breathe, but there was no air. Her cheeks grew hot and she opened her mouth, shaking her head because no words came out. Why hadn’t she thought of this? Why hadn’t she thought about what to say
if she was caught?

  Hayes’s boots thumped a heavy step closer; leaning in so close Tourmaline could see sparkles in her purple eyeliner and taste the hint of onion from the bagel Mom said Hayes always ate for breakfast. “This is a serious offense,” she said, so low it might have been a whisper.

  “I—” Tourmaline took a step back, drawing in a deep breath. “I couldn’t get hold of anyone. I called fifteen times last month, and no one would even talk to me. I tried to ask.”

  Hayes’s features remained hard.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to.” Tourmaline pulled the socks out of her pockets and shoved them away.

  Hayes pinched them between her gloved fingers and tossed them into the garbage.

  Thirty-dollar no-itch merino wool socks with reinforced toes and heels dropped into the plastic liner.

  “Per the guidelines, your visit today is now terminated.” Hayes peeled off the gloves and tossed them into the can on top of the socks. “You will be receiving an incident report detailing this event, at which point you can appeal to restore your visiting privileges.”

  What? Just like that? Tourmaline looked wildly to the doors beyond the gates. Mom was expecting her. Expecting the graduation pictures and the change to buy snacks and a Diet Coke while sharing prison gossip she’d stored. “I’m banned?”

  “You must leave the premises, immediately.” Hayes pointed down the hall.

  “No. No, this can’t. I just graduated. She’s—” Tourmaline’s breath caught.

  “Generally, minor violations will result in a banned period of three to six months.” Hayes clamped fingers around Tourmaline’s upper arm, guiding her toward the exit.

  Tourmaline wrenched away automatically, not thinking she was resisting, though she realized too late that was exactly the word they would use for it.

  “Please.”

  Hayes stopped, her voice lowered. “Honey, if you do not allow me to escort you out of the building right now, I’m going to have to arrest you for trespassing on government property.”

  The creature cinched its webbed fingers around Tourmaline’s throat, choking her. How could she have done something so stupid? So stupid. And now she wouldn’t see her mom before college.

  Her body followed her thoughts, and Tourmaline didn’t realize she was moving backward, toward the gates, until Hayes reached behind her back.

  The world slowed to a stop.

  “Interlace your fingers behind your head.”

  A sob hitched in Tourmaline’s throat and her hair fell over her shoulders, sticking to the sweat on her forehead as she obeyed. The handcuffs clinked cold, but loose, on her wrists.

  “I’m not arresting you, but if you don’t walk out like a lady, I’ll have no choice,” Hayes said. Knuckles dug into the middle of Tourmaline’s back and they began a slow, awkward walk down the same quiet and bleach-tinged hall.

  “I can’t be banned,” Tourmaline whispered. “I’m leaving for school.”

  “Your visiting privileges are terminated for attempting to smuggle contraband into the facility.”

  “It was just—” Tourmaline started.

  Hayes’s mouth twisted into something almost sad, and she talked over Tourmaline crisply, avoiding her eyes. “The Facility Unit Head will provide a written explanation to you and a copy to your mom, including notice of the length of the ban. If you desire, you may submit a written request for reconsideration to the Facility Unit Head within thirty days, providing additional information of extenuating circumstances. They’ll schedule a hearing.”

  That would take weeks. Everything to do with prison went slowly. She wasn’t going to get to see Mom until Thanksgiving break, unless she made a special trip and missed school. And how was she going to help now? If she got caught again, she’d be banned for life. Tourmaline tightened her jaw and tossed her hair out of her face, trying to keep from crying.

  “You can’t claim you didn’t know and expect to get by,” Hayes said. “If I were you, I’d start paying attention to what’s around you.”

  Tourmaline froze.

  Hayes leaned close to Tourmaline’s ear, whispering onion into each word. “I hear Wayne Thompson is looking for you.”

  Wayne had gotten here? Heart racing, Tourmaline twisted in the cuffs.

  They stood at the end of the empty hall. Alone. Facing a closed door cut out of the concrete block.

  What did Hayes know? Was it something Mom needed to tell her and couldn’t, now that Tourmaline wouldn’t be there? The guards seemed to know everything that went on—except when it had anything to do with administration. “He’s locked up,” Tourmaline choked out, trying to catch her breath as Hayes unlocked the cuffs. “In Virginia.”

  Hayes swiped her badge and pushed open the door. The breeze gusted inside, thick and smelling of hot asphalt, ruffling her short ponytail. She gave Tourmaline a pitying smile. “Careful.”

  Something told Virginia Campbell that Tourmaline Harris was the type of girl to arrive even to prison exactly on time, which meant Virginia was late.

  Keeping a hawk eye turned to the thin streams of people flowing into the prison, Virginia sat on the truck bumper, thighs perched off the broiling chrome. If she had to wait until visiting time was over, she might as well get breakfast. Frowning, she glanced at her phone, looking up just in time to catch Tourmaline huffing against the flow of people in the parking lot.

  The moment was so perfect it was as if Virginia hadn’t planned it. “Tourmaline?”

  Tourmaline—pretty, blond, blue-eyed Wonder Bread–with–margarine girl, despite her father’s reputation—turned and gulped like a goldfish wearing Lilly Pulitzer. “Virginia?”

  Virginia smiled and pushed off the truck.

  In all her years working for Hazard, Virginia hadn’t once crossed paths with the Wardens of Iron Gate, but she knew plenty.

  When motorcycles roared past her on the road, she’d seen the empty-eyed stare of the horned and crowned skull sewn on the backs of the riders’ leather vests. She’d heard their stories told like ghost stories—cloaked in fog, late into the drinking hour. She’d heard of their appetites. How their tires ate up the road and spools of darkness tangled in their spokes, sucking up damned souls and women alike, like air for the engines.

  Thanks to Hazard, the secretive motorcycle gang was now her secret to gather. Make friends was the order. For what, Virginia didn’t know. She’d been too focused on the how. Hazard hadn’t said outright, but he’d sucked his lip and looked her over in a way that was plenty clear enough. It was a testament to Hazard that he’d waited this long to use her to her best advantage.

  Maybe he’d waited too long. A year ago, she wouldn’t have balked, and she wouldn’t have ended up six hours from home, trying to lie her way into Tourmaline Harris’s life.

  Virginia tossed her waist-length dark hair behind one shoulder and drew herself up to her full five feet ten inches. “Well, you’re the last person I expected to see. What’re you doing? Some church thing?” As if she and the rest of their small high school hadn’t followed along on that whole fiasco Tourmaline went through with her mom.

  “No. I—What are you doing here?”

  “What else? Visiting unsavory relations.” Virginia pulled a cigarette out of a pack and squinted in the bright sun. She lit the smoke, giving the moment space to breathe as she looked Tourmaline up and down. “You’re Tourmaline Harris, right? As in, the Wardens?”

  If asked outright, everyone in Alleghany High could say who Tourmaline was, but Tourmaline seemed to do her best to make everyone forget it in the day-to-day—where all Virginia had ever seen was a studious, preppy blonde passing by in a clump of church kids in the hall. Whatever might have been dangerous in Tourmaline’s prettiness was always fast asleep underneath prim day dresses, or jeans and blouses. Her hair was the only thing that seemed to fit—long and languidly unstyled, where the Lilly crowd would have a shiny blowout. “I always forget. You’re not what I would expe
ct,” Virginia said over a long exhale.

  “The leather bikini top and assless fringed chaps aren’t really dress code approved,” Tourmaline said. “What are you doing here, again?”

  Virginia turned to the prison complex as her hair whipped across her face. Hooking a finger, she dragged the hair back behind her ear. Everyone in her class would be shitting around at boring jobs all summer, hoping to get laid and wasted before they went off to school. Except her. She would be doing the Wardens. Suddenly, she wanted to run. Instead, Virginia exhaled a long breath of smoke and glanced at Tourmaline. “Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

  “About as far as I can trust you.”

  Virginia bit down on the smile. “My brother is here,” she lied.

  “You have a brother?”

  “Half.”

  “You have a half brother no one knows about?” Tourmaline put her hands on her hips. “Did you just discover him?”

  “He lived in Tennessee. Made it easier.”

  “I need your skills,” Tourmaline said, stuffing her hands into her pockets and scuffing her pristine white slip-ons against the asphalt. “I mean, do you really not know why I’m here?”

  Virginia pulled the cigarette from her mouth, a sudden and real smile stretching across her face. “I know.”

  “Exactly.” Tourmaline sighed.

  “What are you doing out here already? I was just on my way in,” Virginia said.

  Tourmaline lifted her chin. “I got caught attempting to smuggle in socks. I was escorted out in cuffs, so you can take a wild guess how that went for me.”

  That was the most basic, dumbest shit Virginia had ever heard. She put the smoke to her mouth to hide the lurking laughter. This could work. “Why socks?”

  “I figured if I got caught with socks, I could explain my way out of it easier than say . . . methadone. It probably would have been fine if I’d made it past the CO. But . . .” Tourmaline shrugged, cheeks sucked in like she was biting them.

  Pure kitten. “Why didn’t you just give it off to someone?” Virginia asked.