What had she seen? And more important, what was she going to do about it?

She could leave her post for good, she realized, get back on a bus and go somewhere, anywhere else. But that would mean leaving all those people behind, and she would carry around their pleas for help for the rest of her life—not to mention Madge would be inconsolable. The guilt would eat away at her. She had come to be a nurse. To help.

And she knew exactly who to ask for clarification.

Sometimes the best way forward was the simplest. Medicine was a straightforward, noble science. That’s what she liked about it. The goal was obvious—find the problem and then find the solution, and in doing so, help a patient return to a healthy life. The risk was great but the reward was even greater.

Warden Crawford would know what the basement was all about. He would give her the answers she needed. Explain how what she’d seen was part of a necessary risk.

But first, breakfast.

The staff cafeteria abutted the one where the more stable, low-risk patients ate. Jocelyn’s eyes followed nurses zooming away from their bacon and eggs at a moment’s notice to respond to some flare-up or scuffle in the other cafeteria, their white coats flapping like wings behind them as they went.

Across from her, Madge wolfed down an impressive stack of pancakes.

“I just have one of those bodies, you know,” she said in between bites. “I can eat anything and never gain a pound.”

“Mm.” Jocelyn didn’t mean to be rude, but she was firing on about two cylinders—which Madge had noticed, of course.

“You know what works so, so well?” she chirped, picking up her unused spoon and showing it to Jocelyn. “Stick some spoons in the icebox overnight, in the morning you put the round part on your eyes and voilà! No more puffiness.”

“Subtle.” She didn’t share Madge’s gusto for breakfast—or ordinarily she might, but this morning her mind was elsewhere. A few bites of oatmeal and a gulp of orange juice were all she could manage.

Madge scooted a cup of black coffee across the table.

“For if the spoons don’t wake you up,” she whispered with a wink.

“You ladies look chipper this morning.”

Jocelyn glanced up from the coffee, her stomach souring in anticipation of its taste. The orderly she had caught sleeping in the dispensary was there, setting down his tray next to Madge. Setting it down very close to Madge’s tray.

“Good morning, Tanner.”

She shot Madge a look, eyebrow raised, as if to say, That was fast.

Madge gave a tiny, one-shouldered shrug and blushed.

“Joss, this is Tanner. Tanner, this is, well, Joss.” She laughed, adorably, and Tanner started to turn red, too, as if they were even now laying the groundwork for some future inside joke. He certainly looked like a Tanner—tall, with sandy blond hair swept meticulously to the side, an Ivy League athlete’s body. . . . But there was a sweet sleepiness to his grayish blue eyes that convinced her he didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.

Jocelyn took a long swig of coffee and nodded. “I’ve seen you around, but it’s nice to finally meet you properly.”

“You, too. Welcome to Brookline,” he said with a sigh. “It can be tough adjusting to life around here, especially if this is your first posting. If you have any problems, any questions, I’m always happy to help out. Some of the doctors get real grumpy if you ask for too much help. They like to seem up to their ears in work.”

“Aren’t they?” Jocelyn asked. She added a smile, not a convincing one, but he didn’t notice.

“Oh sure,” he replied. “But there’s a hierarchy, you know? The warden is the warden, the doctors are the doctors. Almost like, um, almost like the army, in a way.”

She nodded. She had sensed that already, but his words only confirmed who she needed to speak with first.

“I’m wondering if I should go darker with my hair,” Madge mused aloud, looping a perfect coil of blond hair around her finger and quite effectively bringing the conversation back her way. “Jackie looks so dramatic with that black hair. So mysterious.”

“Jackie?” Tanner had finally started on his breakfast and then abandoned it again to gawk at Madge.

“Kennedy, dummy.”

“Oh, sure. Of course.”

“Anyway, what do you think, Tanner? I think maybe I’ll try to find a salon in town. Do you think Camford even has one?” She laughed, slicing the last of her pancakes into perfect triangles.

“That would be a shame. I thought blondes had more fun, but . . . ,” he said, far more interested in Madge’s profile than he was in his scrambled eggs.

“They have more work, too,” Madge said, frowning, flashing them both a delicate wristwatch. “Time for our shift. Wish us an easy one!”

“They’re never easy,” he said.

Eager to get started, Jocelyn popped up out of her seat, hoping nobody noticed that she had barely eaten her food or touched her coffee. Tanner’s arm shot across the table, his hand catching around her wrist and holding until she made eye contact.

“What are you—”

“Hey, don’t worry. Sleeping will get easier,” he said firmly.

“What?” She knew there were circles under her eyes, but was it that obvious? Had he seen her sneaking around in the lobby? She had slept fine before; it was just the sudden screaming that made her look and feel like hell warmed over.

“I had trouble sleeping through the night when I first got here, too,” Tanner added, releasing her wrist. He laughed, bitterly, shaking his head. “Damnedest thing. Kept thinking I was hearing things, but it went away after a while. If it keeps up, talk to Warden Crawford. He can give you something for it.”

“What kind of something?” she asked, listening to Madge sigh with impatience behind her.

Tanner shrugged, turning back to his breakfast. “Didn’t catch the label. Anyway it worked, and he’s the doctor, right?”