Chapter 9: The Badge

On the screen, Tasha took a string of pictures.

The little flashes of her phone lit up against the glass.

She tried the door handle once. It was locked from inside at night.

Then she turned, smiled at nothing, and walked out of frame toward the double doors.

"How did she get in?" I said. "You need a badge to get through those doors."

The guard clicked to another screen.

It was a list of times and numbers.

"The doors log every swipe," he said. "At 2:58 a.m., this badge opened the unit doors."

He tapped one line.

PARENT. SORENSEN, BRAD. ROOM 9.

I looked at it for a long time.

"He gave her his badge," I said.

"Or she took it," Matt said.

"He gave it to her."

The guard printed four still frames and the swipe log and slid them across the desk to me.

"I've flagged her," he said. "She comes near this building, we call the police. That's done tonight."

"And him?"

"Badges belong to the unit," the guard said. "That's the charge nurse's call."

Matt took off his reading glasses and folded them.

"Ask him to come in," he said to me. "I'm on until seven."

I texted Brad at 9:40 that night.

"Come to the unit in the morning. It's about custody. Bring your badge."

He answered in under a minute.

That was how I knew he'd seen every message I'd sent that week.

"6:30," he wrote.

At 6:28 the double doors swung open.

Brad was in a navy suit, shaved and pressed, with coffee from the good place downstairs.

He carried a stuffed lion under his arm.

"For Clara," he said. "Is she awake?"

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