Chapter 6 - A Signature That Didn't Belong
I never saw Morgane at dinner. The official explanation was a routine disciplinary review.
That afternoon my public defender, Rae Moreno, came for a legal visit. We sat across scratched plexiglass. I told her everything without mentioning which guards had helped.
"I can't promise the court will believe a story about a secret warehouse," she said. "I can promise to investigate specific documents. Do you have any?"
I slid Gloria's laundry tag against the glass. Rae read the names twice, then opened a notebook.
"This doesn't prove where the women went. But it gives us people and dates. That's a start."
"24701 is on the clinic's paperwork," I said. "Leah said it was on an invoice."
Rae frowned. "A number like that could be a purchase order. I'll check the public contract database."
"You think Leah is alive?"
She paused. "I think you've found enough to make sure somebody outside these walls asks that question."
Rae left with a written summary I'd made during the visit. I returned to my tier and found my cell empty. Josie's blanket had been rolled, her shoes were gone, and the name card outside the door had been peeled off.
An officer called it a bed reassignment.
"Where?" I asked.
"Not your business."
The sink was running. I shut it off and noticed a damp corner of paper stuffed beneath its base. Josie had written her message on the back of a commissary receipt.
THEY PUT MY NAME ON A TRANSPORT LIST. I DIDN'T ASK TO GO.
Below it, in a hurried second line, she had added the hour and the truck's plate number.
May you like
I folded the receipt and looked at the empty bunk. They weren't only covering up yesterday. They were still taking women.
Then the cell-door lock clicked from the outside, even though lockdown wasn't scheduled for another two hours.
