Chapter 5
Hope
Jude's attorney has read my report three times.
I've been watching him do it. He turns the pages with one hand, the other flat on the conference table, and he doesn't look up.
Kent Ashton. Blond hair pulled back in a man bun.
Six-one and broad enough that his suit—which probably costs more than my car—pulls tight across the shoulders.
A viking in pinstripes. Ridiculously attractive. I'm a professional, not a nun.
Blue eyes that haven't met mine since he sat down.
Every other lawyer I've briefed skims the summary and asks a few questions. This one is reading every line. His thumb runs along the edge of the page, back and forth, and his face gives me nothing.
I have three items highlighted in yellow. The escort deviation. Dane's prior use-of-force flag. The punitive dose stack with no clinical note and no attending physician's signature.
The facility's incident report sits in his folder too.
I've read it. One paragraph. Unprovoked attack on staff during routine transfer.
No mention of the escort route change. No mention of Dane's disciplinary history.
No mention that the patient's monitoring sessions—the only independent oversight in the building—were suspended the same day.
My version is four pages. I don't excuse what happened in that corridor.
He tore a man's shoulder from the socket.
Shattered his hand. But I also noted what the sedation logs show: preemptive doses logged with no incidents to justify them, administered long enough that his tolerance has outrun the protocol.
And after the corridor—a punitive stack with no rationale, no reassessment, and seven days of solitary confinement for a patient whose behavioral baseline I'd been documenting as stable.
Kent flips back to the highlighted sections. Reads them again.
"The facility's report and mine describe two different events," I say. "Same corridor. Same patient. One version has context. The other doesn't."
He folds the pages closed. Taps the corner against the table and sets them down flat.
"You documented Dane's use-of-force flag."
"It's in his personnel file. He has two prior incidents, both during patient transfers. Neither resulted in formal action."
Kent nods. He picks up the facility's version, holds it beside mine, and keeps both. Then he looks at me for the first time. Sharp blue eyes that decide what I'm worth in about two seconds.
"Ms. Turner." He says it the way Nolan said it. The word that isn't a compliment. "Your reports are thorough."
"Thank you."
"The court values thorough. So does opposing counsel." He pulls a pen from his jacket. "Are you aware that your documentation is cited in Mr. Chadwick's ongoing legal proceedings?"
"I assumed it would be. That's the point of an independent monitor. The court gets the data, both sides use it."
"Both sides." His mouth stays flat. The corners of his eyes crease. "You understand what that makes you."
"A witness."
"Useful or exposed. Depending on whose interests your reports serve."
I click my pen. "My reports serve the court. That's the only interest I work for."
He holds my gaze. I hold his right back. I've been underestimated by men in better suits than this. Not many, but a few.
"Dr. Kennedy's most recent note states that Mr. Chadwick's aggression is escalating," Kent says. "Your report states the opposite. That's a problem for one of you."
"Dr. Kennedy's note doesn't match what I've observed. I can only report what I see."
"And what you see is a stable patient?"
"What I see is a man whose behavioral baseline doesn't match the dose he's on.
What I see is an incident response that escalated faster than the incident.
And a facility that suspended my access for seven days after the one event that made my access necessary.
Honestly, I'm worried that with the amount of drugs they're using on him, they'll end up killing him. "
Kent stops writing. His eyes narrow.
"You're aware that Dr. Hudson has requested your access be reviewed."
"Nolan mentioned it."
"And Kennedy has submitted a formal note stating your presence is disrupting the patient's treatment."
I put my pen down. "Dr. Kennedy has run six sessions with him in the past month. The patient gave him monosyllables until my sessions began. Now he's talking. Kennedy's disruption complaint looks a lot more like professional embarrassment."
Kent's mouth twitches. The tiniest movement. He catches it and straightens his cuffs.
"Careful, Ms. Turner. Observations about staff go on the record too."
"I know. That's why they're in my report."
He slides the pages into his briefcase and stands. The chair scrapes against the floor, and he doesn't offer his hand.
"I'll be in touch, Ms. Turner."
"I'll be here."
He leaves the door open behind him. I sit with my pen in my hand and my notebook on the table and I think about what just happened.
He didn't push back on a single finding. I don't know what to do with that yet.
Friday, my sessions resume. Gage walks me down the Ward C hallway and badges me through. He doesn't say anything. He hasn't said much since the incident—just nods when he sees me, positions himself at whatever door I need opened, and keeps his eyes moving. Checking exits. Checking corners.
The cell is the same. The man inside is not.
Jude sits on the edge of his bed. Hands on his knees. He looks up when the door opens and his spine straightens. He's present—more present than I've seen him since my placement began. His eyes track me across the room and he nods.
"Good morning," he says.
"Morning." I pull the chair out and sit. "How are you feeling?"
"Better. Thank you."
I blink. Well, that's new.
The session runs forty minutes. He answers every question.
Not the monosyllables from the first week—full answers.
Complete sentences. When I ask about his sleep he tells me the medication knocks him out before ten and he wakes at five.
When I ask about his meals he says the eggs are worse than the toast.
I smile before I can stop it. Keep writing.
Dr. Kennedy is at the far end of the ward when I finish. He's carrying a session file, and his face is tight.
"Your notes from this morning," I say. "How'd he present?"
Kennedy stops. "Cooperative. Verbal. Engaged." Each word comes out flat. He tucks the file under his arm and keeps walking.
I add a line to my notes. Dr. Kennedy's impressions align with mine for the first time since my placement began.
Lane is at the nurses' station when I round the corner. He looks up, and I follow his gaze to where a nurse is leaving Ward C through the security door. Behind the glass, Jude is standing near his cell. He steps aside to let an orderly pass and says something. The orderly nods and keeps moving.
"He said thank you," Lane says. "He said thank you to her and she smiled at him."
I don't know what he wants me to do with that, so I smile. "That's good, right? Progress."
Lane looks at me for a long moment. Then he goes back to his paperwork.
I badge out, cross the parking lot, and drive home with the windows down.
I let myself in, drop my bag by the door, and kick my shoes off. This morning's coffee cup is still on the counter. My phone buzzes next to it. Mishel. I swipe to answer as her face fills the screen.
Dark curly hair piled on top of her head. Red lipstick, half-applied. She's getting ready for something.
"Where are you?" she says.
"Home. Are you going out?"
"Date night. Aaron's picking me up in twenty." She holds the phone at arm's length and tilts it. "Does this dress make my tits look good?"
"Your tits always look good."
"Correct answer." She brings the phone back, propping it against something while she works on her other lip. "How's the new job?"
"It's going. The facility's a mess. The staff don't want me there and the paperwork is a disaster."
"So the usual."
"The usual."
She pulls an earring from a jewelry box. Gold hoops.
"And the patient? How dangerous is this one?"
I lean against the counter and watch her work the post through. "He broke a guard's arm and he's a serial killer."
"Geez, Hope."
"The guard had a history. He wasn't following protocol."
"And that makes the broken arm okay?"
"It doesn't." I run my thumbnail along the edge of the counter. "But the facility's response doesn't match the incident either."
Mishel is quiet for a beat. She puts the earring in. Then the other one. Her eyes find the camera and her voice drops.
"You know your meter's broken, Hope. You've known since the accident."
I don't say anything. My thumbnail finds a chip in the countertop and stays there.
She's the only person who says it to me.
My parents don't. My brother Steve doesn't. They all know about the accident—front-impact collision, my second year of undergrad, twenty-one years old.
The car hit me head-on. My brain hit the inside of my skull, bounced, hit the other side.
Coup-contrecoup, the doctors called it. They said it so many times it lost its meaning.
Partial damage to my amygdala. They drew a diagram.
Showed me where the fear response lives and where mine took a hit.
They told me I'd have trouble reading danger in people.
That the information would get in—I'd read the facts, I'd know it in my head—but the feeling wouldn't follow.
The alarm that tells a body to run, the one that tightens your chest and speeds your pulse and screams get out of here, mine has a short in it.
I understood every word they said. I nodded. Seven years ago. I stopped thinking about it because there's nothing to think about. You can't miss what you can't feel.
And here's the part Mishel doesn't want to hear. The part none of them want to hear.
I'm good at this job because of the accident, not in spite of it.
I can sit in a room with a man who killed eighteen people and my pulse stays flat.
I can read his file and walk into his cell and ask him how he slept.
Other monitors burn out. They transfer. They have breakdowns in parking lots and never come back.
I walk Ward C the way they walk Ward A. My charts don't get edited by my heartbeat. My notes don't shake.
That's why the court sends me to the facilities other monitors won't touch.
"My meter isn't broken," I say. "My meter is why they send me to the facilities nobody else wants."
"That's what scares me."
"Mish. I've done this so many times. This one is no different."
She looks at me through the screen and she doesn't believe me. But she knows me well enough to let it go. She's been doing that since we were eleven.
Mishel was in care from the time she was eight.
Moved three times before she was ten. The third house had a lock on the fridge.
An actual padlock, heavy chain, wrapped through the handles.
She was twelve. I was eleven. She told me about it at school, her voice flat.
I went home and cried in my room for an hour because I couldn't do a single thing about it.
That's where it started. I couldn't open the fridge for her. But I could grow up and make sure someone was paying attention to the next Mishel.
"Be careful," she says.
"Always am."
"You're literally never careful. That's the problem." She blows a kiss at the screen. "I have to go. Aaron's here."
"Have fun. Use protection."
"I have an IUD and a taser. I'm covered."
She hangs up. I set my phone down.
Steve calls twenty minutes later while I'm microwaving leftover pasta. His face is sunburned. He's been surfing again.
"You're peeling," I say.
"Worth it. Four-foot swell." He tips his beer at the screen. "You look tired."
"Thanks, Steve."
"I'm serious. You eating actual food or just that sad instant coffee?"
I look at the pasta rotating in the microwave. "I had a sandwich."
He shakes his head. "Mom would have a fit."
"Mom's not here."
"Which is why I'm asking." He asks if I'm coming to Aunt Kathy's on the weekend. I tell him yes.
"Dave's building a new section on the deck. Neil's supervising." He uses air quotes. "By supervising I mean he's sitting in a camping chair drinking beer and telling Dave he's doing it wrong."
Aunt Kathy's boyfriends. Both of them. They've been the three of them since before I was born.
"Sounds about right."
"Sunday lunch. Don't bring wine. Neil bought a case of something and he'll be offended if you don't drink it."
We talk for another ten minutes. He tells me about a kitchen renovation he's quoting.
I shower. Pull on an old university jumper. Make a coffee.
Jude's file sits on my kitchen table where I left it this morning. I open it. The incident reports. The dosing logs. Dr. Kennedy's notes. My documentation beside them, yellow highlights.
The facility's version of this man is a pattern of violence. Sedate, isolate, document. Each response justifies the next.
Mine is different. The man I spent forty minutes with this morning doesn't belong on the dose he's on.