MISCHA FOLLOWED THE three cars ahead of her at a normal speed toward the mammoth outside gate and the guard tower, which was elevated ten feet above the ground. Following the routine she'd observed over the last several months, when she would gaze out the window of the infirmary, the guard in the first car swiped her key card and waved to the guard in the tower. The gate opened and then shut behind the car as it had driven through.332Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpI7SLirsW
The second car rolled up. The guard in the second car swiped and waved the gates opened. But the guard in the tower was feeling chatty and there was an exchanged of small talk.
"C'mon, dammit." The car clock clicked over to 2:03 a.m. In her rearview mirror she saw four, now five cars lining up behind her. She hoped the guard would see them, too, and show the rest of them a little courtesy, for God's sake.
At 2:04 a.m., the second car exited and the third car, the one just in front of her, pulled up. She rolled down the window. The third car's driver swiped and waved. The gate parted and the car drove out. There. That was more like it.
She rolled the car to the spot for the key card. She'd already lowered her window, so she put out the key card and swiped. She waved up at the guard tower with her left hand and looked up to the left at the guard. She momentarily caught her eyes. The lighting was good, as it should be on the prison's perimeter. She wasn't sure how clearly the guard saw her. She didn't recognize her, which was probably good; she'd probably never seen the face of Mischa Barton before.
But she presumably had seen the face of Josette the guard before.
The tower guard held her stare on her. She seemed to crane her crane her neck a bit.
An objective observer might say that the she stared at her for one or two seconds. It felt to her like one or two hours. She wasn't sure what the guard was seeing.
She did know that she was looking at someone in a prison-guard uniform Josette's car, with Josette's key card, with Josette's hair color, and with Josette's gauze bandage across half her face. And the person driving was doing so at a shift change, and the guard's records would clearly show that Josette had just gone off the clock. Every ounce of logic transmitting signals to her brain told her that Mischa Barton needed to play the most important role of her life: Josette the guard.
What she wasn't seeing were the two things that primarily distinguished her from Josette: one was their weight differential, which was largely obscured because she was seated in a car. And the second was their faces. As much as she hated to admit it, she did bear some resemblance to Josette, but their facial difference were still obvious. However, they were masked at the moment by the large gauze bandage, the distance of ten feet or so between the guard tower and her, and the guard's angle of view, which was downward and partially blocked by the car's roof.
So yes, Mischa had a lot going for her. But still she watched her.
And the guard had the right to order anyone, even prison staff, out of a vehicle at any time.
With her right hand, Mischa felt Josette's gun, tucked under her right leg.
Mischa's heartbeat did a little dance. A thought raced through her mind: what if she was friends with Josette? What if she said something to Josette, some inside comment that Mischa wouldn't understand? What if she asked her a....
Mischa jumped as her voice crackled through the speaker near the key-card pad.
"J'a entendu ce que vous est arrive aujourd'bui," she said. "Etes-vous bon?"
(I heard what happened to you today. Are you okay?)
Not surprising that her attack on Josette had been news throughout the prison.
"Oui, c'est bon," Mischa answered.
The car clock said it was 2:06 a.m.
Poor kid, the tower guard, Elisabeth, thought. But what a soldier. She was attacked very early into her first shift today by that prisoner Mischa Barton, but here Josette was, working until the end of her double shift. The word was, she'd had twenty, maybe thirty stitches on her face today.
"Bonsoir," Elisabeth said to Josette. She pulled the toggle switch to open the main gate. Josette drove through and the next car pulled up. Elisabeth knew this next driver pretty well; she was one of the deputy administrators in.....332Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9274F1FmRq
"Liz, this is Maria at G station two," said a voice in French through the tower guard's radio. "I have a code three alert."332Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYKTtXQkivh
