"Dr Kennedy handles the patient's psychiatric oversight. And Dr Hudson is our facility director."
"Great." I smile at her. It's the smile I use when someone's being helpful without actually helping. "I'll need meetings with both. Is there a reason neither of them is in this briefing?"
"They're both aware of your placement. I'm sure they'll make themselves available."
I'm sure they will. Eventually. After I've filed enough requests that ignoring me becomes more work than seeing me. This is the fourth time a facility has tried that approach. It hasn't worked yet.
A man catches me in the stairwell on the way to the second floor. He's a tall, lean, tan-skinned orderly. He checks behind him before he speaks, which tells me more than whatever he's about to say.
"You the new monitor?"
"Yes, I'm Hope Turner. Hi."
"Lane Jackson." He doesn't shake my hand. He leans against the railing and drops his voice low. "I've been here six years. Seen four monitors come through. Two transferred out. One quit the field completely and one had a breakdown in the parking lot on day nine and never came back."
"Okay."
"The patient you're here for tore a man's arm out of the socket and then finished his lunch." He holds my gaze, searching for fear, doubt, the first crack in my composure. "I was in the corridor. I heard the sound and then I heard him ask another patient to pass a bread roll."
I wait for the rest. The part where he tells me to request a transfer, to save myself the trouble, to get out while I still can.
"Thank you," I say instead. "That's useful."
He stares at me for a long moment. Whatever he expected, it wasn't that.
"Be careful in there."
"I will."
He nods once and takes the stairs down without looking back.
The head of security meets me on the second-floor landing with a handshake and a nod. He's six-two, broad, solid across the shoulders and chest. Brown beard and brown eyes that scan the hallway behind me before they settle on my face. Every other staff member I've passed today has worn scrubs or a polo with the Greenridge logo. This man wears jeans, boots, a polo and a facility lanyard like somebody forgot to tell him there's a dress code.
"Gage Lewis."
"Hope Turner. Nice to meet you."
He grunts what might be agreement. His hand is warm and calloused when it wraps around mine, and he lets go after a second.
"I'll be your primary escort in Ward C," he says. "Ground rules. Stay behind me during transport. Don't enter a cell without visual confirmation from control. Never position yourself between the patient and an exit."
"Got it." I smile at him. "How long have you worked here?"
His brow creases, like the question has surprised him. "A while."
"Do you like it?"
The crease in his forehead deepens.
"It's a job."
"Fair enough." I wait a beat. "Can I see his file before we go in?"
He leads me to a small glassed-in office beside the Ward C security desk and sets the folder in front of me. It's thick, stuffed with years of incident reports and transfer paperwork. I open it and start reading.
Jude Chadwick. Age thirty-six. Committed under forensic psychiatric hold. He's been through a few prisons and another psychiatric facility before this one, each transfer following a violent incident. The incident reports are short and clinical.Extreme violenceon the first page.No unsupervised contacton the second. Whole sections blacked out with redaction bars.
Eighteen confirmed kills before the arrest. The clinical profile lists antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, diminished affective empathy—terms I covered in my master's program. I flip to the sedation log.
