I’m careful now.I stop off at a gas station near the institute every day on my way to work and wait for somebody who doesn’t hate me too much to drive by, so that I can pull out and follow them into the parking lots so that I’m always walking in with somebody. Like a buddy system I force on them.
They’ve got me on the ass-crack-of-dawn shift, but I don’t trust that Donny won’t make a special trip to intercept me.
The only problem is the supply room. I make sure to head in when Donny’s good and busy.
They won’t let me in to see 34 anymore. I’m assigned to a different wing. I think about sneaking over, but with that third write-up hanging over my head, I can’t risk it. I ask the doc about 34’s condition when I see him in the hall, and all he says is “rough.”
My mouth goes dry. “What do you mean,rough? Did you X-ray him? Is it his ribs? His breathing seemed okay when I checked…”
Suddenly Nurse Zara is there. “Patient 34 isn’t your business anymore,” she says it like I’m way out of bounds for even asking. “Is he?”
I want to say something smart, but I know where that’ll get me. So I put my head down. I work. I take my meth supplies inventory. With luck, there’ll be some major shake-up here, and everybody will go down.
Meanwhile, I wait for 34’s fingerprint results. It took every cent I had, an advance on my paycheck, plus borrowing a lot of money from a truly scary guy in Duluth, who I found through one of my reporter colleagues. I don’t know how I’ll pay this guy back. It’s a textbook example of exactly what you should never do.
The actual process of running the fingerprints will take my FBI contact, Agent Hancock, a half hour, but in addition to taking every cent I have, she’s taking her own sweet time. I steal an uneaten dinner roll off a tray here and there. Swipe yogurts. Stocking up. It’s not pretty. It’ll be worse when rent comes due.
I could get 34’s fingerprints run more cheaply by a cop, but if there’s a coverup, this woman can actually dig. She can jump into other databases—restricted ones—if she has to. In reporting, you learn to go with the Cadillac when it comes to facts. Shitty facts ruin everything.
In addition to being utterly expensive, the fingerprints are a gamble. I could’ve done the other option and paid my guy’s guy to chase the paper deeper into the system, but the fingerprints are my best bet for a name. Why conceal his identity? The name is the key.
Secrets have power. Sometimes secrets are the only power you have. Once I know his secrets, I’ll know how to fight for him.
The call from my FBI agent is a buzz on my calf where I keep my secret cell. I steal into the fourth-floor bathroom and lock the door. I’ve been trying to stay out of the private bathrooms due to Donny—it’s a perfect place for an ambush. But I can’t wait until I’m off work.
“Where’d the prints come from?” she asks. “How’d you come by them?”
“That wasn’t part of our deal. Telling you that.” I close my eyes and say a little prayer that she doesn’t get pissed off and hang up. She could keep my money and not deliver.
“They appear twice. He first surfaces as a John Doe in a psych unit in East Webster, Minnesota. Two years back. Are you near a computer?”
“No.”
“Well, I took the liberty. This was the fucking kid who came out the woods up north. Come on, East Webster? All those camera crews? Where were you two years ago?”
“Um…Libya.” I’m wary. Agent Hancock usually doesn’t go beyond the prints.
“Yeah, well, they pulled a kid out of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It’s huge—hundreds of square miles of primitive wilderness, millions of acres—”
“I know the place,” I say, heart pounding. It’s not far from Fancher. East Webster is in the next county. “What about the kid? A lost kid?”
“Not just lost. A kid who grew up wild there. A wild boy. You know? Raised-by-wolves shit?”
“That actually happens?”
“Oh, yeah. Bottoms of his feet like shoe leather. Two years back. Savage Adonis. Google it.”
“Savage Adonis?”
“That’s the name the media gave to him. He got on our radar for a number of reasons. Border control shit with Canada. Nobody was thrilled to hear some kid was living completely wild up there, because the terrorists start looking at that and getting ideas about what they could do undetected.”
“What happened to the kid?”
“That’s the strange part. When they pulled him out, he was half-dead from a wound, an infection, something like that. He was conscious, and he could speak, but he wouldn’t give up his name or anything. Once they got him to the hospital, they figured out he’d been living utterly wild, possibly for most of his life. Doctors can tell that on a physiological and behavioral level. It seems this kid was violent. Extremely unhappy to be closed up between four walls. And apparently quite the looker. The story of this stunningly beautiful kid got leaked. A wild kid with movie-star looks, raised by wolves. The paparazzi went insane. Prices for a clear photo of him went into the six figures.”
Right then there’s a knock at the door. “Just a sec,” I call out, eyeing a shadow under the door. The shadow moves away. I close my eyes.Please don’t be Donny.
“Are you in touch with the subject?”