Chapter 3 - The Silence of Rebecca Haines
Inside Room 412, the room was quiet except for the steady, rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the fetal monitor. The digital green line rose and fell, charting the tiny heartbeat of a child who had spent six hours locked inside a dark, unventilated metal box while his mother cried out for water.
Mara lay with her eyes closed, her face pale, the orange prison jumpsuit bunched up awkwardly around her waist. Her right ankle was secured to the metal bed frame by a heavy chain and padlock, a concession to Mercer’s demands that left her barely enough slack to shift her weight.
Standing near the door, half-hidden in the shadow of the medical supply cart, was Rebecca Haines.
The junior transport officer looked younger up close—not more than twenty-four or twenty-five, with straw-blonde hair pulled back into a messy bun and a uniform that looked two sizes too large for her slight frame. Her fingers nervously traced the edge of her leather duty belt, tapping against an empty holster where her sidearm had been checked into the facility locker room downstairs.
She had not spoken a word since arriving at the hospital.
Mara slowly opened her eyes. She didn't look angry anymore. Her gaze was hollow, exhausted, carrying the heavy, numbing weight of someone who had survived too many closed rooms.
“You were there, Rebecca,” Mara said, her voice raspy, barely carrying over the hum of the air conditioner.
Haines flinched. She looked toward the hallway, making sure Mercer was still occupied near the nurses’ station, then looked back down at the floor.
“I was doing my job,” Haines whispered.
“Is your job watching people suffocate?” Mara asked quietly.
Haines swallowed hard. Her lower lip trembled just a fraction. “You don't understand how it works at Westgate. You think it’s just guards and inmates, but it’s a system. If you cross a senior officer like Mercer... you don't survive your probation period. You get transferred to maximum security cell blocks, your evaluations get tanked, and your career is over before it starts.”
“He didn't just lock me in that van, Rebecca,” Mara said, turning her head on the pillow. A single tear tracked down through the dust and sweat on her cheek. “At eleven o’clock, I heard him talking to someone on his personal phone. He said, ‘The package is secured, but the buyers want confirmation before we move to the drop site.’”
Haines’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened in sudden, unconcealed panic.
“What did you say?” Haines hissed, taking a quick step toward the bed.
“I heard him,” Mara repeated, her voice steadying. “He wasn't talking about a prison transfer. He was talking about a delivery. And when I screamed that I was going to kick the partition down and tell the first cop we passed, he sprayed something into the ventilation vent. Mace or pepper spray. It burned my throat until I couldn't breathe.”
Haines pressed her back against the supply cart, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “You shouldn't have been listening.”
“Why were we parked behind the old rendering plant on the river road for four hours?” Mara asked, sitting up slightly, ignoring the sharp pull of her contractions. “Why did a black SUV pull up behind us at noon? Why did Mercer get out of the van and talk to two men in suits while I was locked in the back?”
Before Haines could answer, the door swung open.
Officer Mercer stepped into the room, his eyes sharp and suspicious as he looked between Haines and Mara.
“Haines,” Mercer said coldly. “Step outside. The shift supervisor is on the radio in the corridor. He wants a status update on the transport log.”
Haines looked like she had been struck. She pushed off the supply cart, kept her head down, and hurried past Mercer without making eye contact.
Mercer closed the door behind her, locking it with a sharp click, then turned his attention back to Mara.
“You like talking, don't you, inmate?” Mercer said, his voice dropping into a low, menacing murmur as he leaned over the foot of the bed. “You like weaving little stories to keep yourself out of a prison cell. But let me tell you something about girls like you: nobody listens to a junkie with six felony counts and a forged check history. When I write my report, the judge reads it. When you talk, the judge hears a liar.”
Mara stared at him, her hands curling into tight fists against the scratchy hospital sheets.
“You’re going to jail, Mercer,” Mara whispered.
May you like
Mercer smiled—a cold, humorless stretching of his lips.
“Let’s see how much fight you have left when the state takes that baby away the second it’s born.”
