"I assume you have a plan?"
"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about..."
SISTER AGNES WATCHED GRACE BROOKSTEIN CLEARING away a jigsaw puzzle and offered up a silent prayer to the Lord:
Thank You for bringing me this lost soul, Jesus. Thank You for allowing me to be the vessel of Your redeeming grace.
Sister Agnes had only been Sister Agnes for five years. Before that, she was Tracey Grainger, a lonely, unpopular teenage girl from Frenchtown, New Jersey. Tracey Grainger had fallen in love with a local boy named Gordon Hicks. Gordon had told her he loved her and Tracey had believed him. When Gordon got her pregnant, then promptly abandoned her, Tracey went home and swallowed as many pills as she could find. The baby did not survive.
Neither did Tracey Grainger.
The girl who woke up from that overdose in a grimly sterile hospital bed, clutching her stomach and weeping with guilt, was not the same girl whom Gordon Hicks had so peremptorily dumped. She was not the same straight-C student who had disappointed her parents since the day she was born. She was not the same socially awkward, unlovable tenth grader whom no one invited to prom. This girl was an entirely new person. A person loved by God. A person of value. A person whose sins had been forgiven, who would one day become one with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. If anyone believed in the power of redemption, it was Sister Agnes. God had redeemed her. He had saved her life. Now, in His infinite love and mercy, He had redeemed Grace Brookstein, too. And He had allowed her, Sister Agnes, to play a small part in the miracle.
Only this morning, Grace told her, "I feel so fulfilled here, Sister. Working with these children. With you. It's like I've been given a second chance at life."
What a warm glow of satisfaction those words had given her! Sister Agnes hoped she was not guilty of the mortal sin of pride. She must remember that it was God who had transformed Grace, not her. And yet Sister Agnes couldn't help but feel that her friendship had contributed to some of the changes in Grace.
Grace had changed Sister Agnes, too. A nun's life could be lonely. Most of the other Sisters of Mercy were old enough to be Sister Agnes's mother, if not her grandmother. Over the last few months she had come to cherish the easy friendship she seemed to have developed with Grace Brookstein. The shared glances. The smiles. The trust.
Grace put the puzzle pieces back into their box then stacked it neatly on the shelf. Sister Agnes smiled warmly.
"Thank you, Grace. I can finish up here. I know you want to get to the library."
"That's all right," said Grace cheerfully. "I'm happy to help. Oh, by the way, that modeling clay that we ordered last week? We need to return it."
"Do we? Why?"
"I opened seven or eight of the crates this morning, and the stuff inside had completely dried out. I tried soaking it in water but it just ended up all slimy. It'll have to go back."
What a pain, thought Sister Agnes. It had taken her the better part of a day to stack those crates in the children's center storeroom with Sister Theresa. Now she'd have to lug the stupid things back out again.
"I e-mailed the delivery company," said Grace. "They're coming to pick them up on Tuesday at four o'clock."
"Tuesday?" Sister Agnes looked pained. "Oh, Grace, it was kind of you to arrange it. But I can't supervise a pickup on Tuesday, I'm afraid. A delegation from the department of corrections will be here for a tour. Sister Theresa and I have our quarterly budget meeting with them afterward. We'll be out all afternoon."
"Oh." Grace looked disappointed. Then she suddenly brightened. "Perhaps I could do it?"
Sister Agnes frowned. "I don't know about that, Grace."
Inmates in A Wing were not supposed to help with pickups or deliveries. The warden considered it a potential security risk. But Grace had come so far in her rehabilitation. Sister Agnes would hate to give her the impression that she wasn't trusted.
Grace said, "The children have already waited weeks. It seems a shame to delay things even further."
"Those crates are heavy, Grace," Sister Agnes said awkwardly. "It's a two-person job."
"Cora can help me."
"Cora Budds?" This idea was going from bad to worse.
"She has kitchen duty on Tuesdays but she's usually finished by three."
Grace looked so hopeful, so eager to please. Sister Agnes wavered. What harm can it do? Just this once.
"Well, I suppose...if you're sure you and Cora can handle it..."
Grace smiled. "Loading a delivery truck? Yes, Sister. I think we can manage that."
Her heart was pounding so loudly she was surprised Sister Agnes couldn't hear it. She was a sweet, kind woman and Grace felt bad deceiving her. But it couldn't be helped.
It was starting.
GRACE BROOKSTEIN'S PLANNED ESCAPE ATTEMPT RAPIDLY became the worst-kept secret at Bedford Hills. The idea was simple: The delivery truck would arrive at the children's center. Grace and Cora Budds would begin loading up the crates of clay. While Cora distracted the driver, Grace would go back into the storeroom, empty one of the crates and hide herself inside it. Cora would complete the loading on her own, making sure that the lid of Grace's crate was not fully sealed, to allow her some air, and that it was hidden well back among the others.
It was the next part of the plan that was the wild card. Everything rested on the security check. Trucks came in and out of Bedford Hills every day, delivering everything from toilet paper to detergent to food. The prison was equipped with state-of-the-art security systems. As well as manual searches, the guards used sniffer dogs and even infrared scanners to spot-check vehicles, in addition to the CCTV cameras that were everywhere at Bedford. Typically, the more thorough searches took place on the way in to the prison. There was less emphasis on what might be going out. But all searches were at the guards' discretion. If they didn't like the look of a driver, or a vehicle, or if they just felt like it for whatever reason, they could hold people up for hours, X-raying every square inch of their car or person. Grace hoped that on a cold January night, the guards' appetite for hauling out crate after crate of children's modeling clay would be low. But she wouldn't know until they got to the checkpoint.