She’d waited, and when the Other had gone out to the nurse’s station, she’d pulled on a pair of disposable latex gloves and given the lock a tug. It hadn’t taken any time at all to open the locker, reach into the Other’s bag, and remove her wallet. She’d slipped the Other’s driver’s license from its windowed compartment and put the wallet back, reversing herself as neatly as a strip of film. She peeled off the gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her uniform. The license she placed under the Dr. Scholl’s pad in the sole of her right shoe. Not that anyone would suspect. When the Other noticed her license was gone, she’d assume she’d left it somewhere. It was always this way. People blamed themselves for being careless and absentminded. It seldom occurred to them to accuse anyone else. In this case, no one would think to point a finger at her, because she made such a point of being scrupulous in the company of others.

To execute the remaining aspect of the plan, she’d waited until the Other’s shift was over and the administrative staff were gone for the day. All the front offices were empty. As was usual on Tuesday nights, the office doors were left unlocked so a cleaning crew could come in. While they were hard at work, it was easy to enter and find the keys to the locked file cabinets. The keys were kept in the secretary’s desk and needed only to be plucked up and put to use. No one questioned her presence, and she doubted anyone would remember later that she’d come and gone. The cleaning crew was supplied by an outside agency. Their job was to vacuum, dust, and empty the trash. What did they know about the inner workings of the convalescent wing in a senior citizens’ home? As far as they were concerned-given her uniform-she was a bona fide RN, a person of status and respect, entitled to do as she pleased.

She removed the application the Other had filled out when she applied for the job. This two-page form contained all the data she would need to assume her new life: date of birth, place of birth, which was Santa Teresa, Social Security number, education, the number of her nursing license, and her prior employment.