To the parole board,
I am up for review in ten days. If I’m released, I would like to request a transfer to a drug treatment program. I have been told that requests like mine are rarely granted due to funding and space constraints. In fact, I was discouraged by other prisoners from talking about the fact that heroin is available in prison. But I never tried it before stepping into your prison. It’s not a habit I’d like to take with me when I leave. Bottom line—if you release me without drug treatment, I fear I will quickly be back here.
Sincerely,
Jude Nickel
Holy crap. I raised my eyes to Mr. Norse’s, trying not to cry. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“Turn the page,” he said.
The other sheet of paper in the file was a request form—the kind that was frequently routed through our office. The parole board requested an inpatient drug treatment bed for one Jude Nickel. The request was granted on the same day it arrived at the hospital, with a bed at the Green Hills Center for the following week.
Again I met my boss’s gaze. “It was approved awfully quickly. There’s usually a long wait.”
He nodded slowly.
“The requester got lucky?”
He shook his head slowly.
I studied the paperwork again, this time reading the codes at the bottom. Whoever had approved this request had tagged the patient as a VIP. My whole time at the hospital I’d only seen one patient request tagged VIP, and that was the son of a big donor to the hospital foundation. “Who tagged this?” I asked stupidly.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
My jaw dropped. “I certainly didn’t do it. I never saw this request.”
“You know that patient, though?”
“Of course I do. He’s my boyfriend. But when this request came through…” I squinted at the date on the page. “I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in almost three years. And I would never redirect public resources as a personal favor. I wouldn’t even touch this request, honestly. If this came into my hands I’d pass it on immediately. In fact, that’s exactly what I did just before Christmas when this same person became a hospital patient.”
He tapped his fingers on the desktop absently. “I know you did. But then who gave this file the VIP treatment?”
“I have no idea?” My voice sounded high and panicked. “Which computer login was used?” I asked. “That seems like something you could check.”
“That’s true,” he said carefully. He must have thought of it already. Obviously he wasn’t about to reveal to me what he’d learned.
“Mr. Norse, I walked in here today knowing that I might be passed over for the full-time position if you awarded it to someone with more experience. I could live with losing the job that way. But I can’t live with the idea that you think I used the hospital to grant favors to someone I love.”
My boss closed his eyes as if in pain, and then opened them again. “Thank you for making that clear, Sophie. But the matter is obviously not settled yet. I won’t be making any decisions about the full-time position today. As soon as I know more, I will contact you.”
That was it. He’d just dismissed me from the conversation. He didn’t believe me.
And holy crap, my eyes got hot and my throat got tight and I was in danger of crying in my boss’s office. “Thank you,” I stammered. Then I got up and got the hell out of there.
In the outer office I passed Denny, who was waiting for his own meeting. The moment he got a look at me, his face softened. “Hey, are you…”
I didn’t even let him finish the question. I just grabbed my coat off the hook and ran.
A cold January breeze hit me as soon as I stepped out of the hospital doors. I stomped over to my car and got inside, slamming the door. But I didn’t drive off, because I was too stunned to decide where to go. A held-back sob wrenched from my chest, and tears of frustration began tracking down my cheeks.
I’d spent a year courting this job. And now they thought I’d broken the rules.
It took a few minutes to calm down. A nagging feeling set in, because I realized how odd the situation really was. Someone had given Jude’s request the VIP seal of approval. But who?
Politically, drug treatment was a big topic in Vermont right now. The governor had made it a priority. But if Jude was some kind of test case, my boss would know about it. He would have approved it himself.
Jude had no allies in the world except for me. And the Shipleys, of course. But at the time of his appeal, he hadn’t even met them yet.
Then who?
I was still sitting there behind the wheel, fuming and confused, when Denny emerged from the building. But there was no happy bounce in his step. I saw him pace slowly toward his car, his gaze cast down, his mouth tight.
Before I could think better of it, I opened my door and got out.
The movement caught Denny’s attention. He stopped on the asphalt beside his car, looking torn.