“My advice,” I said, drawing his attention to me. “Get some sleep this weekend. You’re not getting this overturned. She’s stuck there for the time being, as much as that sucks to hear. Get some sleep so you are on top of your game for the week of impersonating her.”
“He’s right,” Sawyer agreed. “You won’t do her any favors by driving yourself into the ground. Get rest. We will take the investigation from here. But if you have any thoughts or questions, a contract with us means access to us twenty-four-seven, so don’t hesitate to contact Brock or any of us,” Sawyer said, taking the paperwork from Marg as she came in. “Thanks. Okay. Let’s make this official.”
Then, just like that, I was given the lead on one of our biggest cases.
We didn’t know that at the time, though.
And I certainly had no fucking idea what was in store for me when I finally got to meet the elusive Miranda Coulter.
CHAPTER THREE
Miranda
I ripped the stupid, cheap, white grippy socks off my feet and tossed them on the floor with a sigh of relief that I would never have to wear them again.
But, well, when you were confined against your will, they didn’t let you have shoes. So the slipper socks were what you had to deal with.
Alice, the girl I’d been sharing a room with, a pretty normal woman who had a long history of bipolar issues, told me she had an entire dresser drawer full of the grippy socks from all her different psych ward stays.
When I’d asked why she’d kept them, she’d shrugged and said, “Hey, they were free! Who passes up on free socks?”
Me, I guess.
Not because I had anything against the socks, per se. Just what they represented. Days and days of my life that I would never get back. People looking at me and treating me like I was both fragile and dangerous. Sleepless nights because someone came in with a flashlight every so often, flashing it in my face to make sure I was still alive.
As if there was anything in this godforsaken place to use to take my own life even if I were so inclined.
All it was was white walls and linoleum floors and barred windows and that ever-present scent of industrial cleaner that just didn’t quite cover the smell of a bunch of human beings all crammed in the same airless space. Some of whom had objections to showering.
I’d been anxious when I’d been walked to the ward, wondering if I would be met with people screaming and rocking or spitting or trying to hurt me in some way.
I’d been both pleasantly surprised and incredibly sad to find that most of the people were just… normal. People who likely just needed more support—psychologically, economically—to be able to deal with life outside without wanting to kill themselves or falling into deep depression.
There were a few genuinely… unwell people around, though.
Including one older man who had, on more than one occasion, dropped his pants and either urinated or defecated on the floor. Right in front of everyone.
“That’s Pete,” Alice had told me, nodding as I went a little green at the whole ordeal. “He’s kind of a lifer. In and out like me. But, clearly, a little more bonkers. I might go manic and fuck too many guys in a twenty-four-hour period, but I’ve never taken a shit on their floor.”
I liked Alice.
She was way too young to have been in and out of psych wards so often.
“Oh, my mom had me locked up for the first time when I was eight. That was the worst,” she’d told me, her pretty blue eyes going stormy as she recalled it. “There was this five-year-old that first night. Sobbing for his mom over and over. And those pieces of shit who worked at that ward dragged him, literally dragged him by his legs to the quiet room. Can you imagine? Being locked in a padded room, alone, because you were crying for your mom when you were five-fucking-years-old? Those were heartless monsters at that hospital.”
“I can’t imagine,” I said, my heart aching for that little boy, wondering where he was now, if he ever told his mom what had happened to him, if she even gave a damn.
“They aren’t all like that, though. This one isn’t too bad. I mean, there are some real nutters here on occasion. But so long as they aren’t violent, I don’t mind.”
“Can I ask you why you, you know, have to keep coming back?”
“Oh, you know us bipolar types. Never learn our lesson. Always go off our meds. I mean, of course, there are plenty of stable, well-adjusted bipolar people who take their meds. But, well, I know a lot of others like me. Then we go into a manic episode. That’s different for each of us. I get really slutty. And occasionally dabble in some drugs I have no business touching. Especially with how much they lace that shit these days.
“But things are always pretty good in the manic side of things. It’s the comedown from that high that sends me back here. I have no energy. I live in my bed. Not showering. Barely eating. Friends and family worry, but there isn’t shit they can do. Then, well, after a few weeks of that, the little voices start creeping in, saying ugly shit, making me believe it.
“I mean, notrealvoices. I don’t have a split or, like, schizophrenia. I mean, I love me a good multiple-personality friend. Those are the best. Some days you are talking to the real them. You know, Janet, aged forty, has a couple kids and a husband who loves her. And then other times, Janet is gone and in her place is this edgy, raunchy truck driver by the name of Russel.
“Anyway, yeah, it’s not real voices. Just the depression talking. That starts to get bad. And sometimes I try something, or sometimes I just… turn myself in before I can try something.”