Page 32 of The Locked Ward

Everything about my visit to the hospital feels like a replica of the last time I was here: the metal detector, the escort by a nurse’s aide to the top floor, the phone call, the two locked doors that funnel into the high-security unit.

The aide even walks me to the same room where I first met Georgia.

But there’s one massive difference.

I almost don’t recognize Georgia when she appears in the doorway.

In the space of a few days, my sister has sunk deeper into her transformation. The deathly pallor of her complexion ages her a decade. She’s painfully thin; the skin is stretched across her cheekbones, and her collarbone is prominent. Her hair is coarse and dry.

She looks like she belongs here now.

“What happened to you?” I whisper.

She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t appear to be injured; there are no bruises or scratches on her face and arms. Yet I’m certain the scream I heard on the phone involved my sister.

Panic roared through my veins; my heart was pounding as I drove here.

My body reacted as if I were the one feeling threatened.

I’ve read about this eerie phenomenon: When something traumatic happens to a twin—from a broken bone to a broken heart—the other twin sometimes feels it.

Now she shuffles toward me, her head lowered, not making eye contact, and takes the chair across from me. We’re alone in the room now, though the nurses’ station is across the hallway just past the open door.

An icy tingle slips down my spine as Georgia slowly lifts her head.

I see it instantly: the sharpness in her eyes that she seems to turn off and on like a light. Georgia is fully present now.

“I brought some of your clothes,” I tell her. “I gave them to the aide who brought me up here.”

She holds my gaze, and I watch the nuance of what I’ve said register. She knows I’ve been inside her apartment.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Her voice sounds scratchy and uneven.

I can’t pull my eyes away from her. Once again, the connection between us feels akin to static electricity. I know you , I think. Maybe not the story of your first heartbreak, or your earliest memory, but I know you even more deeply than that. I recognize you on a cellular level.

She drinks me in as I do her. I see her blink as she takes in my shirt with the ruffles at the ends of the sleeves.

“I hope you don’t mind I borrowed it,” I tell her. “I ended up staying over at your place.”

She nods ever so slightly. “Good,” she whispers.

I was right. Georgia wanted me to get into her apartment. But why?

A nurse pokes her head into the room. “How are we doing, ladies?” she asks brightly.

“Fine, thanks,” I reply. Georgia doesn’t answer; she’s instantly back in character. Flat, disaffected. Wispy as a ghost.

The nurse moves on.

Georgia looks down at her feet. She reaches up to cover her mouth, but I can hear the faint words that seep through: “Don’t trust anyone.”

Does she think someone is eavesdropping on us in here? Or watching her as she talks?

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

“You borrowed my shirt, now borrow my socks,” she whispers.

It’s like she’s speaking in code. Or maybe her mind is jumbled and fragmented. Perhaps it really did tell her to kill Annabelle.

She lifts her hand to her mouth again.

“And find Colby Dawson,” she says. “But don’t tell him you’re my sister. Don’t tell anyone.”

The senator’s son—the one I was hoping to see at the fundraiser tomorrow night. It’s like Georgia’s mind entwined with my own even before I came here, urging me to sneak into the gala.

“How long have you known about me?” I ask.

She thinks for a moment. “A month,” she replies.

That stings. She had plenty of time to reach out to me. Why didn’t she? On top of that thought comes another one: Would she have ever reached out if she didn’t need my help?

A nurse’s aide—this time a huge guy with tattoos—looks into the room and gives me a thumbs-up while he raises his eyebrows. I return the gesture: We’re fine.

Georgia may not be on a twenty-four-hour watch any longer, but they’re sure keeping close tabs on her. Or maybe they’re doing that because she’s with a visitor, another young woman around the same age as the sister Georgia stands accused of killing.

“Colby’s lonely. Sensitive. Nothing like his father.” In a few clipped sentences, Georgia has told me so much. Her words are like haiku. She must have thought this all out, preparing exactly what to say to me.

“I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a shrink,” I tell her. “Why do you think I can help you?”

“You’re my sister,” she says. “And never forget it could be you in here.”

I look around at the bare walls, the drab floor and ceiling. I hear a woman angrily yelling in the distance. The air feels heavy and thick. My chest tightens. I couldn’t survive in here.

“What do you mean, it could be me?” I ask.

She waits a moment as yet another nurse passes by the door. Are they trying to eavesdrop on us? Now I feel unhinged. It must be this place; it does strange things to your mind.

“Who divided us up?” Georgia asks me. “Who decided which twin went where?”

I stare at her. I guess I’d assumed the authorities who handled the adoption had placed us with our respective families.

I watch as Georgia’s eyes drift up to a tiny clear plastic dome in the ceiling. I’d assumed it was a light when I first saw it. Now I scrutinize it. There isn’t a light fixture inside. But there’s something else. I think it’s a video camera.

Someone is probably watching us right now.

Is Georgia crazy, or is she the sanest person in this place?

“Be very careful,” she whispers. “You have no idea how big this is.”