Prologue

1988

The hard slamming of jail doors echoed through cell block B at the Utah Women's Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City.  Jane - at the end of a three year sentence for embezzlement - watched with hidden contempt as her cell-mate Liz settled in for the night.  Liz was a typical inmate - average height, weight, and intelligence - and Jane felt put-upon that she was forced to live in close quarters with someone so, well, average.  But Jane had learned from past incarcerations to hide her disdain.  "Bitches get stitches," she was told on the first day of lock up, right before the inmate sucker punched her in the face. 

It was a learning moment.

Now, sitting on the top bunk in the ten by eight foot cell, Jane grumbled to herself about how she always seemed to get the short end of the stick.  Climbing in and out of bed was the just one more hit to her overly entitled ego.

In fact, Jane didn't think she should even be in prison and considered the embezzlement charge a miscarriage of justice.  I only got arrested because I was forced to work,  she thought to herself.  I shouldn't have had to work in the first place. I'm too pretty to work.

Her mind overflowed with thoughts of self-pity as she tried to fall asleep.  Drifting off she could almost hear her father's voice saying, “It’s okay Doll Baby.  Daddy’ll take care of it for you.  You’re too pretty to work.”

Note: This is an excerpt from Dirty Jane, a soon-to-be published domestic thriller by M.W. Faulk.