“Brooke.” He skids to a stop in front of me. “Hey.”
“Hello.” I avoid his eyes. “What do you need, Officer Hunt?”
He tugs at the collar of his stiff blue correctional officer uniform. “You can call me Marcus.”
I don’t respond to that. “What do you need?”
He grabs a few sheets of paper that he had stuffed into his pants pocket. He hands them to me—they’re filled in with his spidery handwriting. The name on the top sheet of paper is Malcolm Carpenter.
“I know you were trying to get that mattress for Carpenter,” he says. “We got one for somebody a couple of years ago, and I remembered these were the forms that needed to be filled out. I tried to fill in as much as I could for you.”
I look down at the papers in my hands, stunned. I have been struggling to get that mattress for Mr. Carpenter with little success, and Dorothy has been actively trying to keep me from getting it. I even attempted to call Dr. Wittenberg, who is apparently my supervising physician, even though I have never met the man—and I wasn’t able to connect with him either.
“Wow,” I say. “Thanks so much.”
“No problem.” He winks at me. “Hey, we’re on the same team, right?”
“Right…” I wait for him to follow up by asking me for drinks again, but he doesn’t. “Anyway, I better stop in the infirmary. I’ll release Nelson if he looks okay.”
At the mention of Shane’s name, Hunt’s eyes darken. He swivels his head in the direction of the infirmary door, his gaze seething. He hates Shane, and it’s not clear why. According to Dorothy, Shane hasn’t done anything particularly terrible during his time at the prison.
“I’m sorry you have a problem with Shane Nelson,” I say. “But he’s been perfectly fine with me.”
Well, except for trying to kill me that one time.
“I’ll just bet he was nice with you,” Hunt grumbles.
“And if I have any concerns about my safety, you’ll be the first to know.” I meet his eyes. “I promise.”
He considers this. “Just be very careful.”
“I will.”
He shakes his head like he doesn’t think I’m actually going to be careful, and he’s right. Whatever harm Shane tried to bring to me all those years ago, I don’t think he’s going to try anything now, surrounded by guards capable of shooting him if they need to. And the truth is, when I look at him now, it’s hard to imagine he was ever capable of it. Even when we were in the courtroom, when the memory of the air in my windpipe being cut off was still fresh in my head, it was hard to look at Shane and imagine him trying to kill me. He just seemed like Shane—the boy I fell in love with on the football field.
I still can’t wrap my head around what made him do all those terrible things. Split personality? A moment of insanity? But it doesn’t matter. Either way, he’s paying the price.
The infirmary at the Raker Penitentiary is a small unit with six beds, where we can administer basic medical treatments. We can do IV antibiotics, give fluids, and monitor patients who are too sick to be in the general population but not sick enough to be in the hospital. I’ve been stopping there first thing in the morning to do my rounds, then I make another stop before I leave.
Shane is the only prisoner who is currently occupying a bed in the infirmary. He is lying flat on one of the mattresses, his eyes shut, the bruise on his forehead much darker than it was yesterday. Even though Dorothy said yesterday that he didn’t need to be in shackles, he’s got one leg chained to the bedrail.
There’s a fresh-faced young nurse’s aide named Charlene who is sitting at the infirmary desk. I walk over to her and nod toward the beds. “Nelson do okay overnight?”