“I know!”Eliza scowled, defensive.“I was gettin’ to that.I do think stealing is the way to go.”
“How will you do it?”June pressed.
A thought suddenly occurred to Emily and her heart sank.“Eliza,” she said, “are you even good at stealing things?You told me youtryto get caught to get sent back here.Do you even—”
“Yeah!’Cept tryin’ to get caught means I know how to trip those wires!If I know how to trip ’em, I know what they are and how to avoid ’em, too!Jeez, I ain’t a total fool.”
Emily raised her hands in surrender as June’s lip twitched.“Sorry,” Emily muttered.“Go ahead.”
Eliza appeared even more determined after Emily’s doubtful inquiry.“It’s gotta be at a time when Stone ain’t in the office,” she said.“Not worth the risk tryna get ’er outta there.So that’s a night after she’s left, or a weekend.”She looked at Emily, then June, who both nodded in agreement.“We’d either need the keys, or I can pick the lock on ’er office.But we’d need to draw the night matron away.Some sorta distraction or disturbance or some such.”
Emily thought for a moment.“Have either of you ever spent the night in the infirmary?Do you know whether the night matron stays awake or sleeps?”
“No, I haven’t,” June said.
“Me either,” Eliza agreed.
“Well, if she sleeps,” Emily mused, “maybe we could get admitted to the infirmary overnight, then steal the documents quietly?”
“And what if she doesn’t sleep?”June posed.
“Drug ’er?”Eliza suggested.
Emily frowned.“I don’t like the idea of having to assault someone in this process.”
“I think a diversion’s the way to go,” June said.She inhaled, her large bosom rising.“I can take care of that.Something in the recreation room, or downstairs.A fight of some kind.”
“Big enough to drawallthe matrons?”Emily asked.
“There are fewer of them after supper, you know that,” June said.Emily was silent.In truth, she hadn’t noticed that, but hoped June was right.She’d been in and out of the Mercer repeatedly, after all.Few women knew the place so well.“If there’s enough of a fuss, they’ll set off the alarm, and then they all come as a matter of policy.”
“How do you know that?”
“ ’Cause there’s been riots before,” Eliza said.
“Really?When?”This was the first time Emily had heard of it.
“Last summer there was one,” June told her.“Got so goddamn hot in here we could hardly breathe.Had a big riot in the dining hall til they called the cops so we could show them how hot it was, get ’em to do something about it.”
“And did they?”
Eliza scoffed, and June glared at Emily.“What do you think, reporter lady?”
Emily’s anger burned.“The police came in here, felt the heat, saw the conditions, and did nothing?”
“You got it.”
And Emily finally understood; despite her willingness to help bring down Stone, this was why June doubted Emily’s ability to effect any real change.If the police had seen this with their own eyes, and still hadn’t done anything about it…what chance did some article in a women’s magazine have?
“You didn’t tell me that,” Emily said, trying not to sound accusatory.
“Why would I?”June snarled.“But Stone wasn’t testing drugs on us a year ago, so things have changed.If the cops don’t give a shit, we gotta make noise some other way, and right now, you’re the only noisemaker we’ve got.God help us.”
Eliza was watching them with a keen eye.“Back to the plan, then,” she said.
Emily swallowed hard, shoving away the doubt that had crept into her vision.
“She have drawers or somethin’ where this stuff’s gonna be?”
