Page 15 of The Locked Ward
Mandy hasn’t come back.
Your encounter must have jarred her to her core. She could be regrouping, trying to figure out her next steps. Or maybe your twin is carrying on with her life, chatting with her customers in the easy way you saw on the video. She could already have written you off.
But the research you did on her showed she’s tough.
A real fighter: She once leapt over her bar and dug her fingers into the eyes of a man who was punching a woman in the face.
The guy, who’d been previously arrested for domestic battery, lost vision in one eye and sued.
The judge ruled in Mandy’s favor after viewing a video of the incident, and Mandy handed out black eye patches to customers that night for a celebratory party.
She’s intensely loyal to family; instead of selling her parents’ bar and using the money to travel or buy a Porsche, she quit her marketing job and took it over.
You’re all the family she has left now. That has to mean something to her.
You’ve got one final card to play. Your gut tells you it’s time to use it.
Your lawyer calls or visits every day, but during those encounters, you typically stay silent. The only time you’ve spoken directly to him is when you told him, in a low, halting voice, that you had a twin named Amanda Ravenel and you wanted to see her.
You shuffle to the plexiglass wall of the nurses’ station closest to the patient phone and stand there until an aide on the other side asks if you’d like to make a call. You nod slowly, concentrating on keeping your eyes dull and unfocused.
“To your lawyer?” he guesses.
By way of answer, you reach out your hand for the phone. He tells you to hang on a second while he looks up the number and dials it; then he speaks into the receiver: “Georgia Cartwright wants to speak to Mr. Daniels… Sure, we can hold.”
He stretches the receiver through a small opening, like a fast-food worker delivering a meal via a drive-through window.
The phone receiver is the only potentially dangerous thing you’ve been allowed to hold.
It’s solid and fits easily into your hand.
But the reinforced stretchy cord extends only a few inches beyond the opening, rendering the phone useless for anything other than its intended purpose.
You lift the receiver to your ear and curl your body around it, so no one can hear you or try to read your lips.
When Milt Daniels comes on the line, you whisper another instruction to him. He repeats it, a question in his voice, but you hand back the phone to the aide without saying anything else.
There’s something you need the lawyer to offer to Mandy. She won’t be able to resist taking it. And once she does, she’ll learn so much more about you.
The more she feels like she knows you, the harder it’ll be for her to walk away.
The public defender’s job is to save you, but he’s young and overworked, and there’s a good chance your parents and Senator Dawson will get to him or the judge. You have no faith in him.
You’ve put it all in Mandy.
But that faith begins to wane as the day ambles by, broken up by its usual segments of meals, art, group activity—today it’s stretching—and outdoor time.
You grow worried. Maybe your lawyer decided to ignore your instruction. If he did, you are done for.
Just as you are beginning to despair, a nurse approaches you in the common room. Your breathing grows shallow. It’s a struggle to keep your expression neutral.
“Georgia, your lawyer just told me someone is coming to pick up your things.”
You don’t have many things for Mandy to collect. You were brought in the back of your old lover’s police car wearing your silver dress and shoes and jewelry and carrying a small clutch purse. You were told that your belongings were locked in a safe.
You close your eyes, imagining Mandy opening your purse and looking inside.
Your purse contains five items, the essentials most women carry with them when they go out for an evening.
The police almost certainly took one of them, your cell phone, as potential evidence in the case against you.
But the other four items should still be in place.
One of them will tempt Mandy.