“Inmate Johnson in cell block 3 returned from abdominal surgery. His next pain med is scheduled for midnight. Other than that, no problems,” the second-shift nurse, Marie, reported.

“Does he come to medical for it, or should I bring it to his cell?” Jane asked.

“He’s ambulatory. The guards can escort him. Don’t bring any narcotics into the pods if you can help it.”

“Got it,” Jane said. “Go on. Get out of here.”

“Okay. Thanks for filling in. Appreciate you,” Marie said as she collected her belongings and headed to the door. “Have a good night.”

Jane settled in at the desk. The medical suite was silent at this time of night. Nothing like during the day. She’d agreed to cover the night shift for Tommy, the full-time third-shift nurse who had a family emergency. She had to admit, she felt out of her comfort zone.

A “Hey” came from behind her. Jane startled. She turned. A tall man in an officer’s uniform stood behind her. His name tag read Santiago.

“Hello,” Jane said.

“Officer Xavier Santiago.” He extended his hand in introduction.

Jane took it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jane. You’re assigned to medical?” she asked.

“Yes. Where’s Tommy?”

“Family emergency,” she said.

“Uh oh. Is it his mother?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said. She’d heard from coworkers that his mother had cancer.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Jane filled the void.

“So, what goes on during the night shift?”

“Nothing much. Mostly quiet,” Santiago said. “You work the day shift?”

“Yeah. Not sure what to do at night.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll have a quiet night and you won’t have to do anything. I’m going to brew a pot of coffee, if you want some.”

Just then, his radio squawked. He said “Santiago” into it, then “Excuse me,” to Jane. He walked away toward the break room.

Jane pulled out her phone and started playing a card game. A few minutes later, she heard noises coming from the break room. Must be Santiago. She should definitely caffeinate. She paused her game and set the phone down on the desk.

She walked into the break room. Strange. The coffee pot was empty. Not clean, just empty. She lifted it and peered inside. Stale drops of coffee from hours ago.

She looked around the room, trying to locate the source of the noise. It had sounded like heavy furniture shifting, maybe a chair sliding under the table and hitting the edge with a thud. She’d assumed it was Santiago getting up and tucking in his chair. But he was nowhere in sight.

A shiver ran down her spine. The hair prickled on the back of her neck. Her pulse quickened. After two years working in a jail, she’d learned not to ignore that feeling.

She pulled the safety device from her pocket, finger poised above the button, and crept down the hallway of the medical suite. She opened the closet door slowly, bracing herself. She reached in and flipped the light switch. The bright LED glow illuminated the contents: crutches, bins of bandages, a mop and bucket. Nothing out of place. She closed the door.

Should she call security and report the noise? No way. They’d think she was a big chicken, alone in medical, jumping at every sound. Was that what she was doing?

Yes.

She took a deep breath and laughed. “Big chicken,” she said aloud. The sound of her own voice eased her mind.

She returned to the breakroom, washed the coffee carafe, and brewed a fresh pot. The aroma erased the fear, leaving clarity in its place. She sipped the coffee as she walked across the hall into the nurse’s station. The hot liquid rejuvenated her.

She returned to the desk, but her phone was not where she left it. Setting down the coffee cup, she patted her pockets. Not there. She went back to the breakroom. Not on the table or the counter.

She returned to the desk, searched the floor, checked the drawers.

Panic rose like an ocean swell. Was Officer Santiago playing a joke on her?

The problem was so much worse than just a lost phone. If an inmate got their hands on a phone, they could plan an escape, threaten the staff, harass their victims. Or use the components to make a bomb, sharpen the metal into a shank. A lost cell phone was a big deal in a jail.

She had to call security. They might laugh at her and she’d be the punchline of their jokes, but it was the responsible thing to do.

And, she needed her phone back. All her numbers.

She lifted the radio to her mouth and depressed the side button. “Hi. This is Jane in medical. I misplaced my phone. Over.”

“Cell phones are contraband. You can’t bring them into the jail,” the officer reprimanded.

“But it’s just medical,” Jane said, defensive.

“You’re still in the jail. I’m going to have to tell your supervisor.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jane snapped, and hung up abruptly.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to bring it, but she’d seen the doctors using them. Surely there was an exception for medical. She couldn’t imagine sitting at the nurse’s station for eight hours without some sort of digital entertainment.

A loud alarm echoed in the empty medical suite, signaling time for “count.” Her phone call had probably triggered it. Damn, I’m in big trouble.

“Count” meant all the inmates were locked in place while the guards literally counted them. The cells would be searched until the missing object was found. In this case, her cell phone.

Jane tried to calm her breathing. Without the phone as a distraction, the panic wouldn’t recede. She paced back and forth in the nurse’s station.

She remembered the noise she’d heard earlier and shivered. She’d never figured out where it came from. Getting fired was the least of her worries.

Where was Santiago?

She wandered the medical suite, her finger resting on the safety device button. She’d never used it before, but she knew that with just a single push, security would come running.

She turned the lights on in each room as she crept down the hall. When the suite was illuminated like daytime, she relaxed. No sign of Santiago or anyone else.

“Johnson’s here for his pain meds.”

Jane startled. Her heart rate spiked as adrenaline flooded her body. Her hand flew to her chest as if to keep her heart from leaping out.

“Are you okay?” Santiago asked. Next to him, an older inmate hunched over, clutching his abdomen with cuffed arms. He squinted and pressed his lips together in a grimace.

Jane recognized the expression—pain. This was the inmate who’d just had surgery. Santiago had brought him for his scheduled pain meds. It must be midnight.

Jane exhaled.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just didn’t hear you come up.” She escorted the inmate and Santiago into the treatment room. She poured the pills into a medicine cup and handed it to Johnson with a cup of water.

Johnson swallowed the pills and opened his mouth for inspection. Jane verified it was empty.

“He’s stuck here for count,” Santiago said. “We’ll be in the waiting room.”

“Can I lay down somewhere?” Johnson asked, bracing his stomach. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

Jane glanced at Santiago. “He can lie down on one of the exam tables if you don’t mind guarding him.”

“Alright,” he said.

Jane helped the inmate onto the exam table. She positioned the bed into a gentle incline and placed a pillow under his head.

“Thanks,” the inmate said, and closed his eyes.

Jane walked back to the desk. Santiago called to her from the doorway of the treatment room.

“You lost your phone?”

“Yeah,” she said. “How did you know?”

He lifted the radio in reply. “Did you try calling it?”

“The ringer’s off.”

“Too bad,” Santiago said, not unkindly.

“I had it right here. I heard a noise and went to investigate…”

“What was it?” Santiago’s voice was edged with alarm.

“I don’t know. I thought it was you in the break room.”

Santiago’s eyes narrowed. He spoke into his radio. “Can I get another officer to medical? The nurse heard something, wasn’t able to identify the source. Over.”

Jane could hear the reply. “Tell her to grow a pair. We’ve got bigger problems here.”

Santiago quickly ducked back into the room and shut the door. Jane couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

She found herself alone at the desk. A mix of fear and humiliation fought for her attention as she wrestled with what to do. She clung to duty and logged the medicine she’d just administered into the medical record.

She heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She turned. Two officers entered the suite through the locked door with their master key. They searched room by room, methodically, until they determined the unit was empty and safe.

One of the officers approached Jane holding her cell phone.

“Found it in exam room 3,” he said, but didn’t hand it back. “I’ll keep it in the security room until your shift is over. You can pick it up on the way out.”

“But I didn’t put it there.”

He ignored her and joined the other officer by the door to the waiting room. They conferred in whispers Jane couldn’t hear, occasionally glancing in her direction.

“Ma’am,” the officer said a few minutes later. They walked out of medical together without looking back.

Tears formed in the corners of Jane’s eyes. She fought to control them. Keep busy.

She’d count the controlled meds, a task usually reserved for the end of the shift. She had five more hours to go but couldn’t think of anything else to do.

No more calls to security. No more jumping at sounds. She would find work to do. Organize the files. Write progress notes. Busy work.

She placed the bottles on the counter and spilled the first one onto the tray. Counting two at a time, she fell into a natural rhythm until she felt the air shift behind her. She stopped. Listened. Was that breathing?

Chills ran up her spine. She lost count. Held her breath.

“Give them to me,” a raspy whisper said.

Not her imagination. She spun around. A large inmate towered over her. Unaccompanied. Shackleless. Jane shuttered with fear. She reached for her safety device, but the man anticipated her move. He grabbed her arm before she could get it. He squeezed hard.

“Don’t do it,” he said.

Jane opened her mouth in a silent scream. No sound came out. Terror flooded her body. She yanked her arm, trying to free it from the inmate’s grasp.

He approached her menacingly, getting closer. Way too close. She was trapped between the inmate and the counter behind her.

Jane stood frozen in place.

The man reached his other arm around her. His hand came back clutching a medicine bottle. With no pockets in his uniform, he stuffed it into a pouch he’d made by bunching up his shirt. He released Jane’s arm and shoved her aside. He filled the pouch with more.

Jane landed hard on the floor.

A loud crack sounded. Electricity charged the air. She turned to see the inmate convulse and collapse. Where he’d been standing, Officer Santiago stood with a taser still pressed into the inmate’s side.

Jane exhaled the terror that filled her lungs. Her body relaxed. Tension drained away.

Santiago said something into his radio. Jane couldn’t hear it. Her mind had shut down. She sat on the floor as tears ran down her cheeks. She could no longer control them.

Behind Santiago, Johnson stood propped against the door frame, his mouth agape, eyes wide. He made no attempt to flee.

A flood of security officers stormed the medical suite. Two straddled the inmate’s inert form as they shackled his arms and legs.

The commanding officer knelt before Jane. “Are you okay?”

She roused from her stupor. “Yes.”

She hurried over to the man on the floor. Kneeling beside the inmate, she checked his pulse and respirations. All fine.

The commanding officer said to her gently, “He’s got to go to the hospital after a use-of-force incident. Can you prepare his record?”

“Yes,” Jane said. She did that all the time on the day shift. She was happy to have some way to be useful—to distract herself from the traumatic event she’d just experienced.

She printed out his medical record and handed it to the officers as they escorted the inmate, now alert and swearing, out of medical.

“I’m sorry,” the commanding officer said. “We missed him when we searched.” He shook his head. Silence stretched.

“Don’t forget to write up your report,” he said, then walked out of medical.

Charged with a task, Jane went to work.

When everything was cleaned up and the report filed, Santiago told Jane the count had been off. They’d been searching for the missing inmate. He’d hidden behind a loose wall panel in the closet. That’s why they couldn’t find him. Security should’ve taken her report more seriously.

Jane just hoped the uproar over the missing inmate and the use-of-force incident would eclipse the lapse in judgement she’d shown by bringing her cell phone into the jail. Maybe she wouldn’t lose her job.

She paused. After tonight, she wasn’t sure she wanted it anymore.