“He doesn’t speak. He watches you. That is all.”
Mack frowned.
“I’ve been doing what he says, but I need help. His daughter is here in the asylum.”
Sophia’s eyes brightened.
“There are rumors that a woman is being kept in the attic of the women’s cottage.”
“In the attic?” Mack grew excited.
A door banged open at the end of the hall, and the orderlies stopped talking.
The woman orderly grabbed Sophia’s arm and pulled her roughly away.
“I’m sorry,” Mack called out. “I’m sorry you’re here.”
Sophia offered him a nod; her mouth pressed grimly as they disappeared down the stairs.
Mack sat in a rocking chair that creaked back and forth. The sound grated on him, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
He tried to remember that night in Corey’s cabin.
You must retrieve an item from the man who murdered me. You will find it near his heart, Corey had told him.
Dr. Kaiser was the murderer. He had to be, but why? The man gave him the creeps, sure, but he couldn’t exactly picture him sinking a knife into George Corey’s heart. Why had he done it?
Mack imagined Kaiser sitting across from him in his office. In the breast pocket of the doctor’s coat, Mack had noticed a small bulge. Perhaps the item Corey meant for him to take was in there. But how could he get it?
Across the room, a man swept a broom over the same spot. Every few minutes he leaned down, brushed his finger along the area, grimaced with disgust, and returned to his sweeping.
At the end of the hall, a door opened and Dr. Kaiser, accompanied by two other doctors, stepped out.
Mack watched them; their heads bowed close together. He had the sense they did not speak of ordinary treatments and patients.
They carried a secret. Their eyes were guarded and their faces pinched when they talked.
Across the room, Frank the Foamer was standing at the wall, tracing circles with his fingers.
Mack had a sudden idea. An immediate pang of guilt rose at the thought, but if it worked…
Frank the Foamer, as other men on the ward called him, was a paranoid schizophrenic. He’d undergone so much electro-shock therapy that he regularly drooled, hence his nickname. He lived in perpetual terror that giant cockroaches were sneaking through the steam pipes into the asylum.
Mack stood and hurried across the room. He paused behind Frank and gently flicked his ear.
“Frank, there’s a huge cockroach on your neck,” he murmured.
On cue, Frank screamed a blood-curdling cry and spun away from the wall, slapping at his neck, spittle flying from his mouth. As he hyperventilated, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor.
The three doctors looked irritated at the disruption, but hurried to the man’s aid.
As Frank lay on the ground sputtering and kicking his legs, one doctor leaned down and tried to still him.
“Hold his legs, man,” the doctor shouted at Kaiser, who reluctantly dropped to one knee and grabbed one of Frank’s legs as Mack held the other.
Mack waited until he felt the pressure building in Frank’s calf, and then he let go. The man’s leg flung up and kicked Kaiser in the chin.
The doctor cried out, his head jerking back as he fell over backwards.
Mack leaned over him, offering one hand while deftly slipping the other into the man’s pocket and closing his fingers on what lay inside.
The doctor was dazed as he stood, tenderly touching the space on his jaw where he’d been struck. He shot a venomous look at the convulsing patient, jerked his hand from Mack’s, and stalked down the hallway.
Several orderlies arrived and the other doctors stood, following Kaiser.
Mack shoved the item in his pocket and hurried for the bathroom.
He peeked under stalls but found the bathroom empty.
Closing himself in one of the toilets, Mack pulled out the item he’d stolen from Kaiser’s jacket.
He gazed at an antique ring with layers of gold swirls and curves. A small, dark ruby rested in the high center like an eye. Mack tilted the ring, and then pried gently at a small ridge. The top opened to reveal a tiny chamber coated with a fine white powder.
“A poison ring,” he whispered.
He knew of poison rings, because his mother used to love medieval history and showed him pictures of poison rings used by people in earlier times. The poison might have been intended for their enemies, or perhaps themselves.
Either way, Mack remembered grimacing at his mother’s explanation and shouting ‘gross,’ before running outside to shoot squirrels with his slingshot.
He didn’t understand the ring’s purpose in banishing Corey’s ghost and rescuing his daughter, but he knew it was the object Corey wanted him to find.
Now he had to find George’s daughter.
Mack ate his burger in two bites, and then slipped away from the canteen.
When the orderlies were out of sight, he broke into a run. He ran into the woods, circling back around and gazing at the women’s cottage from the trees.
When the lawn was clear, he raced across and plastered himself against the brick exterior.
The door to the cottage swung out, and a nurse hurried through it, tucking her gray hair beneath a white cap.
Mack slipped quickly to the door, sticking his foot in the crack before it closed.
The nurse paused, and Mack caught his breath, searching for the lie that would explain his sneaking into the women’s cottage. She bent down, fixed her nylon, and then continued out of sight.
Mack edged through the door and quickly ducked into a dark stairwell. He ran up the stairs, trying to stay light on his feet, a challenge since his feet were huge and his body was anything but light.
The stairs ended at a heavy white door with a grate at the top and bottom.
He peered through the metal screen, but the attic space was filled with walls and angles, making it hard to see what lay deeper in the space.
“I’m looking for George Corey’s daughter,” he whispered.
No one responded.
As he started to back away, two brown eyes slid before him.
He recoiled, his heart skipping a beat.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“Are you George Corey’s daughter?” he said.
She didn’t answer, so he went on.
“Your father sent me.”
Her eyes widened.
“He’s alive? George is alive?”
Mack grimaced, wishing he’d not spoken the words.
“No. He’s dead. I found his body.”
A sharp intake of breath sounded behind the door and her face disappeared from the grate. Mack heard the woman slide down the door and land on the wood with a dull thump.
“I’m sorry,” Mack said.
She didn’t speak, so he went on.
“George told me to come here. To give you this.”
Mack got on his hands and knees and shoved the folded parchment from the wood box beneath the door. He set the ring he’d stolen from Kaiser next to it and slid that in second. For a moment, he heard nothing.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She said nothing, and then: “Liv.”
“Liv, I’m Mack. I think you helped save my life a long time ago. I’m here to repay the favor.”
She let out a sound like a laugh merging into a sob.
“George wanted me to tell you it wasn’t your fault. He said, it’s time to make things right.”
Something thudded softly against the door, likely her head.
“It’s too late to make things right,” she muttered.
Mack shook his head.
“It’s not, Liv. Okay? Trust me.”