“I didn’t think you should be moved from Beth Israel until you were more stable, but Morrell persuaded me that the man Baladine could get access to you in a hospital if he was looking for you. I wanted to bring you to my home, but the Berman Institute is secure and fully staffed, so I finally agreed to let you be moved here as soon as you were out of surgery. But besides that, you—” Her voice cracked and she steadied it. “You were in a helpless situation, at the mercy of the law, shot with an electric weapon, beaten, and then chained to a bed. I think you were tortured, Victoria.”

“She needs to rest now, Dr. Herschel,” the nurse intervened.

Over the next several days, as I got back on my feet and began to get some exercise in the Berman Institute gardens, Morrell put together the rest of the story for me. He had called Freeman Carter when he got back to Chicago from Coolis that last Thursday, urging him to try to get me a bail hearing in Chicago on Friday; Morrell told Freeman he was worried that Baladine might not let me survive the weekend. Freeman was skeptical at first, but Morrell managed to persuade him.

Freeman spent all day Friday shaking up the judicial system trying to find me. It was three on Friday afternoon before the head of the circuit court granted Freeman permission to post my bail in a Chicago courtroom and have me released that afternoon instead of making us wait until a circuit judge rode out to Coolis on Monday.

At that point, although no one outside the prison knew it, I was already chained to a bed in the segregation wing, with a rising fever. Freeman couldn’t get anyone at Coolis to admit to my whereabouts and finally was told that they lacked the administrative personnel to process my release after 5:00 P.M. on Friday, that Freeman would have to come back on Monday.

Freeman went to the state appellate court and got an emergency writ requiring my immediate release. The prison then told him I had faked an injury at my work station and they had put me in the hospital. On Saturday, as my fever rose, they played a shell game with Freeman, passing him between the prison and the hospital, each saying the other had possession of my body.