Chapter 3a: Research
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
— Proverbs.
A police car passed Ophelia as she walked the two-mile journey from the hospital back home.
It was cold out, tonight.
Her silver, dolphin earrings bit against her skin and sent a chill thundering down her spine.
She clung to her nurse’s uniform under her jacket to keep her arms warm.
The journey meant she had to cross the “county line”—the freeway that cut Chrome Valley in half, from East to West.
Or, rich to poor, as the locals would tell you.
Ophelia found the lack of urgency baffling. Tonight, after all, was the first evening of the government imposed lock down. But nobody really knew what it meant.
Some might have thought it meant exactly what it suggested: a complete and utter shutdown of all non-essenti
