Chapter 3 - A Transfer Without a Patient
I grabbed the bars. “Ward! There's a body bag outside.”
No answer. Behind me Hazel tugged the loose thread from her mattress seam and pulled out a tiny brass key.
“I used to clean the old pharmacy,” she whispered. “The nurse left me this when she was moved.”
“What does it open?”
“The emergency call box.”
She reached through the bars and fitted the key into the little cabinet beside our cell. The alarm button was behind a cloudy plastic door. Hazel slapped it once.
A siren screamed down the wing. Lights flashed. Voices rose. The maintenance door slammed; two figures vanished.
Officer Ward arrived red-faced. “Who set that off?”
“I did,” Hazel said. “My cellmate collapsed.”
I folded over, holding my stomach. Playing sick felt shameful until I remembered the body bag. At least six people could see me now. No quiet transfer, no convenient absence at morning count.
Nurse Amara Singh pushed through the crowd with a medical cart. Her eyes moved from me to the wheelchair before anyone wheeled it away.
“Take her to the clinic,” she ordered. “In front of everyone.”
Ward followed us. “Colson wanted her in the annex.”
“The annex is closed,” Amara said.
“He signed an exception.”
“Then he can explain it to the physician on duty.”
Inside the clinic, she checked my pulse with fingers that trembled almost as much as mine. When Ward stepped out to answer his radio, she leaned close.
“Tell me why they want you.”
“My father vanished here on June sixth. I found a woman from his video.”
The nurse's face tightened. “What did he record?”
“A night transport. An inmate who didn't want to go.”
Amara looked at the security dome in the corner and placed a paper towel over the blood-pressure cuff.
She wrote on the towel, slipped it into my sleeve, and brightened her voice. “Dehydration. She needs observation.”
May you like
In the bathroom, I read her message.
YOUR FATHER WAS IN THIS ROOM AFTER THE TRANSPORT.
