Identity (Eyes Wide Open) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the storage room unlocked. What was the chance that some bum would get in there before she could retrieve her locket? Her mind spun through the possibilities as they headed down the hall.
    The nurse led her into the administrator’s office and nodded at the receptionist, who sat filing her nails behind a desk.
    “Can you pull up a file for me, Beverly?”
    The receptionist glanced at Christy’s smock. “Sure.”
    “Status of Britney Hunt?”
    The receptionist set her file down, brought her long nails to the keyboard, and clacked away.
    “That’s not me,” Christy said. “I’m just wearing the shirt.”
    “We just need to check on her status, dear,” the nurse said. “Protocol. Patients tend to misplace themselves, you understand.”
    She didn’t, not really. She was in a psychiatric ward. Images of the two patients she’d seen earlier now made more sense. They also quickened her need to put this all behind her.
    “Britney Hunt is in 405.” She picked up her phone. “I’ll have the station attendant check her room.”
    “Thanks, Bev.” To Christy: “What’s your name again?”
    “Christy,” she said. “Snow.”
    “Driver’s license?”
    Christy blinked. She’d left her purse at home.
    “Not on me.”
    “No?” Linda nodded at the receptionist. “Anything on a Christy Snow?”
    Clack, clack, clack.
    “No Christy Snow.”
    “Of course not,” Christy said. “Do you have anything else I can wear? I feel a bit stupid in this shirt now.” She felt her face flush.
    “As soon as we check. I’m sure it’ll all be fine but we simply need to run some checks. If you had your license this would be quicker. Any other identification?”
    Her cell phone. It had her name on it.
    “My cell phone?”
    “Might help.”
    Christy brought her hand to her back pocket. No phone. Her heart spiked. She’d left it in the space under the foundation.
    “I…” She hesitated, thinking she should just tell them the whole story. But she would also have to explain why and how she’d broken into the storage room.
    “No?”
    “Well… I, no. I must have lost it when I…” She couldn’t quite bring herself to betray Austin’s secret.
    “That’s okay,” the nurse said. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you just explain this to the administrator.” She addressed the receptionist. “Is Kern available?”
    The receptionist made a quick call, then hung up the phone.
    “Go on in.”
    Christy’s mind was reeling as she followed the nurse around the receptionist’s desk into an office with a golden placard that read ADMINISTRATOR. They way she saw it, she had no choice but to tell all now. And there was no reason why she had to bring Austin into it. They would probably lock the storage room up tight, but she saw no other way.
    The administrator sat behind a large, shiny wooden desk, scanning the contents of a file through narrow reading glasses. His eyes glanced over the wire frames for a moment, then back down to his file.
    “I’ll be right with you.”
    Dressed in a dark blue suit with white shirt and red tie. His finger traced what he was reading as Christy sat in one of the two stuffed chairs facing his desk. Books lined the case behind him, most of them psychology journals and textbooks. A family portrait, which showed him with his wife and a young adolescent boy, sat on the desk.
    Kern Lawson, Administrator. She looked up from the nameplate at the edge of the desk and met his light blue eyes as he set the file down and sat up.
    “So. What seems to be the problem”—his eyes darted to her smock—“Britney?”
    “Apparently she’s not Britney,” the nurse said. “We’re checking now.”
    The administrator’s phone rang and he scooped it up. He listened for a moment before thanking his receptionist and hanging up.
    “And apparently she’s right,” Lawson said with a kind smile. “Britney Hunt is in her room. So that would make you…?”
    “Christy Snow,” she said.
    “I have to get back