“Oh man, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” Edgar said, a smirk forming as he walked back to the table. Sutton balled his fists and charged over but Seth stepped in and stopped him before anything came of it.
“Are you serious?” Jack asked. “Didn’t you hear anything I said?”
“No, I’m crazy, don’t you remember?” He burst out laughing and slapped Jack on the back. All the while Sutton looked over, glaring as he was led back to clean up the mess.
Chapman gazed down at the courtyard, his hands clasped behind his back, his mind lost in the past. At one time he called the shots and no one questioned him. Then Nurse Harvey came along, strutting her stuff, acting like she knew what was best. Getting rid of her was meant to provide relief and all it had done was create more headaches. Now he had Nurse Cross to deal with and she was even worse than Harvey.
“I can’t believe you two,” he said to Jenkins and Porter. “I gave you strict instructions.”
“How were we to know?”
“Timing, Jenkins. It’s all about timing. Had you dragged him out of his room at night no one would have known but dragging him down there after an attempted escape? What did you expect?”
Jenkins glanced at Porter.
Chapman was tired of dealing with imbeciles. “Anyway, they know too much. Sutton is getting sloppy. Find out what Seth knows and get him onboard or deal with it.”
“And Cross?” Porter asked.
“Leave her to me.”
17
Later that evening at the end of his shift, Seth slipped out of his work clothing and tucked it into his locker. Three months working for Holbrook and the job never got any easier. He’d come into it with all the best intentions. He’d heard the horror stories of psych techs being punched in the face, spat at, strangled, and winding up in the ER with a bloody face only to quit upon discharge. Dropout rates were high, PTSD even higher. And yet despite it all, he still believed deep down that he could make a difference.
He was slipping into a pair of jeans, his mind focused on how he was going to spend the rest of the evening, when they walked in. “Hey, Seth.” Jenkins and Porter strolled into the changing room. “At the end of your shift?”
“All done for the day, yeah. Wassup?” He continued to change, tying his shoelaces as he sat on a bench between rows of metal lockers.
“You’ve been working here a while now. What, like four months?” Jenkins asked.
“Three.”
He pulled a face and nodded. Jenkins put a foot on the bench and rested his forearms on his knee as he talked to him. “How you finding it?”
“It’s all right. It has its moments.” He glanced at him wondering why he was even having a conversation with him. In all the time he’d worked there, the two of them had practically ignored him unless they were required to restrain a patient.
“That it does. Still, the pay isn’t too great, is it?”
Porter opened his locker and took out his civilian clothing and then proceeded to remove his scrubs. “Ah, it is what it is,” Seth said. He was right, the annual pay wasn’t that great. While it varied based on experience, they could make anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-five bucks an hour. Nothing to call home about, and certainly better than minimum wage, but it still meant that there were months when he was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
“What if you could make some extra money?”
By the tone of his voice and the way Jenkins looked over his shoulder, he got a sense that whatever he had in mind wasn’t on the up and up.
“I’m already pulling forty hours a week plus overtime. I’m not sure I could fit any more into my week.” He hurried up getting dressed to end the conversation. He didn’t even want to know what they had in mind.
“What if you didn’t need to do any more hours?”
Call it curiosity, or a desire to know what Jenkins was up to, Seth took the bait. “What you got in mind?”
If the conversation didn’t make him nervous enough, Jenkins grinned and tapped Porter who walked over to the changing room door and locked it. “This is between us. It doesn’t go any further than this room. You understand?”
Seth nodded as he slipped into his outdoor jacket, the final piece clothing.
Jenkins reached into his pocket and pulled out a small baggie and dangled it in front of him.
“Contraband?” Seth asked.
“That right there is an extra hundred in your pocket. There are fifteen units in this facility, tons of patients. This place is ripe pickings. You wouldn’t just be focusing on the sixty guys in our unit but slipping into other units. What you see right here could mean an extra few thousand in your hands by the end of the month.” He looked at Porter then back at Seth. “Now I don’t know about you, but I think that could go a long way to paying your bills, taking your girl out or saving up for whatever it is you need. You feel me?”
“That’s illegal.”
Jenkins chuckled. “Seth. Contraband makes its way into this facility every day. You’re never going to stop it so you might as well profit from it, you understand?”
Seth took a few steps back and scooped up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “I know Dr. Chapman wouldn’t be too happy knowing you’re doing that.”
He laughed. “How the hell do
