Flowertown (16 page)

“What’s QEH?”

“The new tag, the new test. Aren’t you listening?” The woman clearly had no idea Ellie didn’t work there. Her tirade carried her along. “And then this week, boom, all these files appear and they expect us,
me
, to drop everything and wave my magic wand over them and file them with the QEH. Well, let me tell you something.” She jabbed her pen at Ellie, who leaned back from its point. “They can just kiss my A-S-S. How about that?”

“Sounds good.” Ellie could see why her coworkers avoided this little human tsunami. Her puffing breaths and stomping little feet created a hot wave of frustration whenever she passed. Ellie was afraid to step in front of her, and instead slipped out of her way between two file cabinets in
the much-lamented new delivery. The little woman continued to mutter and slam things around, and Ellie was hoping she could make a break for the hallway soon. She leaned against one of the shorter cabinets and looked down at a rough spot under her fingers.

Scorch marks. The pale gray paint had been scorched in a row of dots. Cigarette burns. Ellie recognized the burns she had made when this cabinet had been in the records office.

Ellie stared at the cigarette burns trying to convince herself that she was wrong, that those marks could have come from anywhere, that she wasn’t the only person on earth who burned marks into a pale gray three-drawer file cabinet, but she wouldn’t believe herself. She remembered making those marks, precisely lining up the cigarette ember to scorch in equal-sized dots the length of the cabinet. It couldn’t be a coincidence, but how was it possible that this cabinet had moved itself from the records office to the care center without anyone noticing?

When had she last seen the cabinet? Ellie chewed on her lip, trying to sort through the whirlwind that had become her life. Monday. Monday she and Bing had sat on the cabinets in the morning. Bing had gotten mad at her again and stormed out and she had headed to the med center. That was when Mr. Carpenter and his goons had threatened to arrest her. The next morning, Tuesday, was when Cooper appeared, and she knew very well what had happened after that. So when had the file cabinet been moved?

Ellie stared at the drawers, waiting for them to answer her. It had to have been Monday night. There was no other way. Big Martha would have said something if somebody had removed a cabinet as big as this. She had mentioned a messenger bringing in files, but nothing about anything going out. It had to have been after hours on Monday. As logical as the facts sounded, Ellie still had a hard time wrapping her head around it. Had Mr. Carpenter moved all the files out to protect them from her? And if so, why hide it? Why not rub it in?

Ellie hadn’t stepped any farther onto the red-painted section of her office than to switch out the file boxes. When she’d seen the file cabinets all lined up against the wall she had assumed they were the same cabinets as always, but clearly that wasn’t true. Ellie stepped further into the cluster of newly transferred files. There was a tall, six-drawer cabinet in the grouping, and Ellie craned her neck to see the back of it. In the metal seams sealing the back, she saw the cigarette butts she had been systematically shoving there for months. There could be no doubt. These were the file cabinets from the records office. Ellie leaned on the cabinet, holding her head, trying to think. If they would go through the trouble to switch cabinets, did they also switch out the boxes? Those files she had stolen from the red-taped box—had they been put there after the switch? They’d seemed so unimportant, such a letdown. Was that why Feno had left them unguarded?

But that wasn’t right. Feno had guarded them. Unsuccessfully. They had sent Cooper in there to guard those files. Someone had blown that building sky-high, and it seemed the bomb had been in the records area. Had someone
been trying to destroy sensitive Feno documents and been thwarted by the switch? Or—and the thought made Ellie sway on her feet, trying to process the ramifications—had the bomb come into the building in the files themselves? She had to find Big Martha.

Ellie hurried down the hall to the nurses’ station and heard the angry clerk behind her still complaining about all the filing she had to do. She stopped herself halfway down and cursed. Why hadn’t she taken some of those files while she’d had the chance? It wasn’t as if she had any moral compunction about stealing at this point. If those files had been spirited away, she wanted to know why. She knew she couldn’t just whistle her way out of the building with an armload of files, especially the care center, which was heavily guarded. Acting like she was working a kink out of her neck, Ellie scanned the ceilings for cameras. Every inch of the hallway was covered in surveillance. No doubt the records area was too. Well, Ellie said to herself, where there’s a will there’s a way. It’s probably a bad way, but what the hell.

Turning slowly on her heel, Ellie tried to look like a bored visitor pacing the halls to kill time. She strolled back into the file room where the angry hornet woman was still talking and slamming drawers. Ellie watched her carry armloads of folders that she dumped in a heap on a large table in the back of the room.

“Can I help?”

“Do you know the system?” the little woman snapped at her, both verbally and with her fingers as she passed. “Because I doubt you do and you’ll just wind up screwing this up for me and that’s exactly the last thing I need right now.”

“I could at least help you carry them. Save you a few steps.”

The little woman stopped and frowned. “Yes, you could. I would appreciate that. We’re starting in the BTM fours. Over there.” Ellie had no idea what a BTM 4 meant, but she pulled an armload of files from the half-empty drawer and carried them back. The woman moved to the other side of the table and began organizing the piles of folders, muttering to herself about the goddamn Qs, Es, and Hs and how she had better things to do. Ellie left her to it.

She emptied out the drawer she had started with and then, out of sight of the clerk but in plain sight of the camera overhead, pantomimed being directed to the short cabinet with the scorch marks. She hoped there was no sound on the cameras, because she was miming quite a show, pretending to read the card on the front of the drawers. Nodding for the cameras, she pulled open the top drawer and grabbed an armload of files.

Ellie dropped the files on the end of the table, far from where the clerk was working. She intentionally set them crooked, and the pile instantly slid to the floor in an avalanche of paper. The little clerk let loose a torrent of obscenities that even Ellie thought was excessive.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get them.”

“You sure will. And you’ll put them in the right order or you’ll get out of my file room.” Under the table, out of sight of the cameras, Ellie first flipped off the angry little woman, then opened a file. There was no way she could sneak the whole file out. It was too bulky and she didn’t even have the pathetic hiding place she’d had for the other files. Instead Ellie leafed through the pages quickly, trying to find the
identity page with the photo. If she couldn’t know what she was stealing, she could at least know who. She found the photo page, as well as a stapled med center receipt, and tore it from the file. She grabbed two or three pages behind it as well and jammed the pages down the front of her pants. Closing the folder, she stacked up the spilled files and dumped them before the clerk.

“There you go. That’s enough for me today.” The little woman gaped at her, taking in a breath for another tirade, but Ellie waved her down. “No need to thank me. Good luck!” She turned and hurried down the hall, catching the tail end of the newest rant as she cleared the nurses’ station.

She knew she couldn’t just run out. She had to find Big Martha, and she had promised to wait for Rachel. Ellie leaned against the high station desk, both to catch the attention of the woman behind it and to wiggle the papers farther down her pants.

“You waiting for Rachel?” The young girl in pink scrubs smiled up at her. Ellie nodded. “We just love her. I think it’s so great that she’s doing so well on the detox.”

“Me too. She really needs to get out of here.”

“Who doesn’t?” The girl leaned over her keyboard. “I’ve been here eighteen months. Ugh. Six more months and I am out of here.”

Ellie leaned on her elbows and stared at the girl. “Eighteen months? Really?” The girl realized she was speaking to a local and her faced flushed deep red. She started to fumble through an awkward save that probably would have gotten her deeper in trouble, but Ellie held up her hand to silence her. “I’m looking for somebody.” The girl nodded, relieved
to be able to recover from her fumble. She put her fingers to the keyboard.

“Name?”

“Logan. Martha Logan.”

The girl typed and studied the screen. “Yes, she was brought in yesterday afternoon. Burns, respiratory issues.” She studied the screen, scowling. “It says she’s in secure quarters.”

“What does that mean?”

The girl shrugged. “Could mean she’s under arrest. Maybe she’s been quarantined. It could just be that someone pulled some strings and got her a private room. It doesn’t say.”

“Well, can I go see her?”

“Huh-uh.” She looked up at Ellie with a worried look. “Unless you have class four Feno clearance. Do you?”

“No.” Ellie saw the relief on the girl’s face and knew she had just been classified as unimportant. “Can you at least tell me her condition?”

The girl clicked the keys with precision and tipped her head primly. “No.”

Ellie closed her eyes. There you are, old friend, she thought to herself. Deep in her spine, firing up from her fingertips, she felt that old, hot rage that she knew so well. It didn’t burn as bright as it had in the past, and didn’t flicker as fast, but Ellie would know it anywhere. One, two, three breaths and Ellie opened her eyes and smiled.

“Thanks for your help.”

Ellie headed back to Rachel’s room. It didn’t matter how much they smiled and patted Rachel, she knew. To these women, to these “caretakers,” Rachel and Ellie and
Marvin Delmuth and his daughter-in-law and all the other good people who had suffered in these halls were nothing more than stained, second-class citizens. They were temporary lists of tasks to be completed while Feno poured money into their bank accounts. Their two-year stints in Flowertown were nothing more than a paragraph in the adventure of their lives, a lucrative anecdote that they could tell again and again after they returned to their real lives, their clean, unstained lives far away from the stinking pit that was Flowertown.

Ellie had to catch herself to not kick open the door to Rachel’s room. One, two, three breaths and she knocked softly.

“Come on in. I’m dressed.” Rachel sat on the edge of the bed, pale, her hair dark with sweat. Ellie could see her arms were red where the nurse had scrubbed her skin. “Are you totally bored?”

“No. It was fine.” Ellie leaned against the wall, her arms folded as the nurse in green scrubs filled out a form.

“Okey dokey, sweet girl.” The nurse smiled at Rachel, and it was everything Ellie could do not to kick that stool directly into her abdomen. “The samples are on their way to the lab. Fingers crossed everything comes out A-okay. We will call you later this evening and tell you when you can pick up your paperwork.”

“You mean I don’t get it now?” Rachel’s eyes widened. “You said I got them today.”

“No, today was the last day of your detox. You still have to pass the final screening. Then you’ll have to get your clearance papers and get fitted for your suit and have your
anklet adjusted. Then we have to coordinate our GPS with your itinerary and work out transport.”

“But the wedding is Friday morning. You said I’d be out Thursday. Tomorrow. I’ve only got forty-eight hours once I’m out, and all the arrangements have been made.” Rachel’s voice began to rise. “They’ve made all the plans and the rooms are booked!”

The nurse patted Rachel on the arm. “I think our protocols are just a little bit more important than a cocktail party, don’t you?”

Ellie experienced that very familiar sensation of tunnel vision as she pushed herself off the wall and came at the woman. Rachel saw her expression and leapt from the table to block her. Ellie could hear her roommate talking her down, but all of her attention was on the patronizing look of the nurse as she signed off on Rachel’s form. Clearly blowups in the care center were not unusual.

“Can you at least try to get things to go on schedule?” Rachel asked.

“Of course I will, dear. We’re not in the habit of arbitrarily screwing people over.” Ellie snorted at that, and the nurse’s voice turned to ice. “On the other hand, we are not going to endanger the entire country so that you can go see Wayne Newton.”

“I understand.” Rachel had to shove to get Ellie to move, and Ellie kept eye contact with the nurse until the door closed behind them.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Rachel.” She grabbed her roommate and hurried down the hall. Several of the nurses at the station started to say good-bye until they saw the black
look on Ellie’s face. They didn’t stop until they were halfway across the street and Rachel began to cry.

“Please slow down, Ellie. I can’t run like this.” She bent from the waist and threw up in the street. An army truck blew its horn, wanting her to move, and Ellie flipped both middle fingers to the driver. He started to blow the horn again until he saw Rachel heaving. Wiping her mouth, Rachel straightened up and waved an apology to the driver. He waved back as Ellie jerked her out of the way.

“Don’t apologize to him, Rachel. He almost ran you over.”

“Well, I was blocking the street.”

“And he can wait. You’re sick. You’re more important than whatever he’s doing.”

“Am I going to get out of here, Ellie?” Rachel started to cry. “Am I?”

Ellie hugged her tight to her chest. “You’re getting out of here. Trust me. You will.”

Rachel fell into bed while Ellie got her the jug of iced tea from the refrigerator. “Need a glass? Because we don’t have any.”

“Then I think I’ll skip the glass.”

“Good choice.”

Rachel took a shallow drink from the jug and set it on the floor. “Would you mind sitting with me until I fall asleep? I know I’m a huge pain in the ass.”

Ellie made tsk-tsk sounds. “You know how that language upsets Bing. He’ll never marry you if you keep it up.” Rachel giggled as she climbed under her sheet. Ellie tucked her in and returned to her side of the room. Opening a win
dow, she lit a cigarette and stared out over the hardware storeroom. Part of her was hoping to see Mr. Delmuth on the far corner, sweeping away the dirt and waving to her. Instead she saw another army convoy rolling past the store. Ellie looked away.

The room was dark when she opened her eyes. Ellie started. She had been dreaming about pinning ads to a bulletin board when something snapped her from her dream. She lay on her side, her pillow wet from drool, and it took her several long moments to figure out where she was and about what time it was. Ellie pulled her phone from her pocket. She had gotten two texts from Bing: “Are you there yet?” and “Gonna be late.”

“Shit.” She jumped from the bed. It was seven fifteen and she was late for the secret meeting. She wasn’t even sure exactly where the church was, just that it was on the northeast end of Flowertown. It wasn’t a place she frequented. Swearing to herself, Ellie pulled her hair back into the ponytail her sleep had destroyed and ran down the steps. How could she have fallen asleep? She had had her first good night’s sleep in weeks last night and she hadn’t smoked any weed. That’s what clean living will do, she told herself, hurrying down the dark streets.