Baby X by Kira Peikoff

Author:Kira Peikoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

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At nine o’clock sharp on Monday morning, Lily was first in line to speak with the records clerk at the Federal Women’s Correctional Institution of Los Angeles. The imposing prison took up an entire city block in a gritty part of East LA. Its gray cement facade and steep front steps immediately brought back strange memories of visiting with her dad as a kid. She remembered the way she used to swing from the railing and make a game of stepping around the broken bottles and burned-out cigarettes that littered the climb up to the heavy steel gates.

Inside, past the security columns, bag check, and retinal scan that confirmed her identity as a citizen in good standing, she approached a double-paned glass window and smiled at the records clerk.

“Hi, I’m a reporter with Vanguard, and I’m here to follow up on a FOIA request I submitted about a month ago.”

The clerk sipped coffee. “You got the request number?”

“Yep.” She blinked a few times to navigate to the confirmation receipt on her dashboard, then read out the number to him. “It’s regarding former inmate F1CD5,” she added, to make his job easier. “I’m looking for her case records. I never got a response through the system.”

The clerk stared at his own invisible dashboard and tapped rapidly on his desk. “What did you say the inmate’s number was?”

She repeated it and waited hopefully. With a single command, he would be able to transfer the records directly onto her dashboard. She planned to spend the flight home reviewing every word.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry, that case is sealed.”

“What? What does that mean?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Means it’s sealed. I can’t see it, and neither can you.”

“But why?”

“The offender must have requested it.”

“And there’s nothing we can do?”

“Nope.” He looked pointedly past her at the next person in line.

She muttered thanks and walked out in stunned confusion. Of all the possibilities for this trip to California, she had never considered returning home with even more questions than before.

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