Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Remembered
Amara returned with two cups of water. She locked the medication drawer, then asked Ward to fetch an incident form. He left muttering. I had perhaps forty seconds.
“Was my father hurt?” I asked.
“He had a cut over his eye. He said a patient had been taken somewhere she hadn't agreed to go.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don't know. I reported what I saw. Two days later, my report was gone.”
“Who removed it?”
She hesitated. “Deputy Warden Colson supervises the records office.”
The door clicked. Amara stepped away before Ward could see us speaking. He took me back to the cell at midnight, angry that the clinic had refused his transfer request.
Hazel was waiting. I told her about the missing report. She listened without interrupting, then asked for the exact wording of the nurse's note. I showed it to her.
“Amara takes risks for people she believes,” Hazel said. “Don't spend that courage carelessly.”
For two days I filed grievances over the water, the midnight transfer, and the missing clinic record. The response to all three was the same printed sentence: NO ACTION WARRANTED.
Then Rhea sat beside me at morning recreation as if we'd arranged it.
“You nearly got yourself killed,” she said.
“Tell me what you know and I'll stop guessing.”
“You won't stop.”
“Probably not.”
She let a long silence pass. “The woman in the van was named Sofia Bell. She'd worked in the laundry and kept notes about transfers. Thomas came to collect them.”
“You were dragging her.”
“I was trying to keep her from getting into that van.” Rhea pulled back her sleeve. “You think this means I belong to them?”
“What does it mean?”
“The number they gave four of us when they tried to make our names disappear. Seven-three-one-zero. One file. Four women.”
“How many are still alive?”
May you like
Rhea looked across the yard toward the infirmary door.
“Before last night,” she said, “two.”
