“Same as always,” she’s saying. “The baby kept me up all night. I’m telling you, if 2426 gives me more problems today, I’ll put his ass on lockdown.”
“Amen,” says the woman behind the desk. Then she turns her eyes to me. “ID?”
We repeat the procedure all over again: I slide the paper through the gap in the window, explain that the original was ruined.
“How can I help you?” she asks.
I’ve been crafting my story carefully for the past twenty-four hours, but still I find the words come haltingly. “I—I’m here to visit my aunt.”
“You know what ward she’s in?”
I shake my head. “No, see…I didn’t even know she was here. I mean, I just found out. For most of my life, I thought she was dead.” The woman shows no reaction to this statement. “Name?”
“Cassandra. Cassandra O’Donnell.” I squeeze my fists and focus on the pain running through my palms as she keys the name into her computer. I’m not sure whether I’m hoping her name will come up or not.
The woman shakes her head. She has watery blue eyes and a mass of frizzy blond hair, which in this light appears to be the same dull gray as the walls. “Nothing here. You got an intake month?”
How many years ago did Cassie disappear? I remember overhearing at Fred’s inauguration that he has been without a pair for three years.
I hazard a guess. “January or February. Three years ago.”
She sighs and hauls herself out of her chair. “Only went computerized last year.” She passes out of view, then returns with a large, leather-bound book, which she sets down on her side of the counter with a bang. She flips forward a few pages, then opens a window in the glass and slides the book out to me.
“January and February,” she says shortly. “It’s all organized by date—if she came through here, she’ll be there.”
The book is oversized, its pages crisscrossed with spidery writing, intake dates, prisoner names, and corresponding prisoner numbers. The period from January through February runs several pages, and I’m uncomfortably aware of the woman watching me impatiently as I move my finger slowly down the column of names.
There’s a tight feeling in my stomach. She’s not here. Of course, I might have the dates wrong—or I might have been wrong altogether. Maybe she never came to the Crypts at all.
I think of Fred laughing, saying, She doesn’t get much of an audience these days.
“Any luck?” the woman asks, without real interest.
“Just a second.” A bead of sweat rolls down my spine. I flip to April and continue my search.
Then I see a name that stops me: Melanea O.
Melanea. That was Cassandra’s middle name; I remember overhearing that at Fred’s inauguration, and seeing it on the letter I stole from Fred’s study.
“Here,” I say. It makes sense that Fred would not have entered her under her real name. The point, after all, was to make her disappear.
I push the book back through the plate-glass window. The woman’s eyes slide from Melanea O to the inmate number assigned to her: 2225. She keys this into the computer, repeating the number under her breath.
“Ward B,” she says. “New wing.” She types a few more commands into her keyboard, and a printer behind her shudders to life, regurgitating a small white sticker with VISITOR—WARD B printed neatly across it. She slides it through the window to me, along with another, thinner, leather-bound book. “Sign your name and date in the visitors’ log, and mark the name of the person you’re visiting. Place the sticker on your chest; it must be visible at all times. And you’ll have to wait for an escort. Go on through security and I’ll page someone down here to get you.”
She runs through this last speech quickly, tonelessly. I fish a pen from my bag and write Eleanor Latterly in the allotted position, praying she doesn’t ask to see my ID card. The visitor’s log is very slender. Only three visitors have come here in the past week.
My hands have begun to shake. I have trouble wrestling off my jacket after the security guards instruct me that it must go on the conveyor belt. My bag and shoes are also placed in trays for inspection, and I have to stand with my arms and legs spread, as the nurse did, as one of the men pats me down roughly, waving a wand between my legs and over my breasts.
“Clear,” he says, stepping aside to let me pass. Just past security is a small waiting area, outfitted with several cheap plastic chairs and a plastic table. Beyond that, I see various hallways branching, and signs pointing the way to different wards and portions of the complex. A TV is playing in the corner, muted: a political broadcast. I avert my eyes quickly, just in case Fred comes on the screen.
A nurse with tufts of black hair and a shiny, greasy face comes slapping down the hallway toward me, wearing blue hospital clogs and floral scrubs. Her name card reads JAN.