“What’s got everyone so hot and bothered?” Mack asked.
“Riley here,” Travis forked his thumb at the new guy, “was just telling me there was an escape last night, and a murder.”
“Say what?” Mack’s stomach dropped, and he thought of Liv.
Riley nodded in big, sweeping motions that sent his long silky hair flinging back and forth dramatically. He was a kid, no more than twenty, but he commanded a room. Ward Six had been abuzz since he’d arrived two days earlier.
He leaned into Mack, elated to share the inside scoop.
“The blonde fox from Ward Five split, man. She escaped!”
Mack shook his head, puzzled.
“The blonde who?“
“Sophia!” Travis told him, as if it were obvious.
Riley did another outlandish nod.
“But that ain’t the half of it,” Travis cut in. “Tell him.”
“Let me take a breath, old-timer,” Riley told him, adding an extra-long pause into his story. “They found Kent dead in her room. Murdered!”
Now both men watched Mack in anticipation.
Mack plastered on the appropriate look of dismay, and he was dismayed. He liked Kent, the orderly who generally worked the womens’ ward but always had a kind word for everyone. He also knew, without any of the facts, that Sophia didn’t kill him, though from the looks on Travis and Riley’s faces, the rumor mill was saying otherwise.
“And something else to wet your whistle,” Riley added, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “I saw Kaiser and his nurse Alice smuggle a woman into the operations corridor last night. They locked her in there.”
“What did she look like?” Mack asked, his legs and hands growing jittery.
Riley waved at the top of his head. “Blonde hair all pinned on her head. And she was in a straightjacket! So much for their no-straightjacket policy, huh?”
“Better never put me in a straightjacket,” Travis hissed, flexing his tiny fists.
“How do I find her?” Mack asked, surprising Riley and Travis both.
“Oh, she’s long gone, brother. She’s probably on a bus to Texas,” Riley told him.
“That or hidin’ in the woods, waitin’ to kill the doctors off one by one. Wouldn’t that be a trip?” Travis asked. “A crazy woman livin’ in those woods.”
“Somethin’ lives in ‘em,” Riley grumbled. “Those woods give me some serious vibes, and they ain’t the good kind.”
Mack shook his head.
“Not Sophia. How do I find the woman in the operations corridor?”
Riley cocked an eyebrow.
“Thinkin’ of doin’ a little explorin’? They’ll throw ya in solitary if they catch you.”
“I’ll take the risk,” Mack insisted.
Riley appraised him with new respect.
“Best to wait until lights out. Edmund can’t stay awake to save his life, and he’s in the chair that leads to the side stairs. Slip past him and go down two floors. It’s all offices in the first hall. Follow that to the end and turn right. Those are the operating rooms.”
“How do you know all this?” Mack asked. “You’ve been here two days.”
Riley grinned.
“I’ve been here three-hundred and forty-four days. But I don’t stay for long. Gotta keep movin’. I like to think of this place as my home away from home. I’ve been getting prodded by these doctors since I was eleven years old. I could escape blind-folded walkin’ backwards. But why bother? The food’s not so bad.”
Travis roared as if Riley had just offered the most hilarious joke he’d ever heard.
Riley winked at Mack, and Mack saw something troubling in the kid’s gaze, an emptiness in his hazel eyes.
“Thanks,” Mack told him before turning and heading for his room.
Riley had been right; Edmund could barely keep his eyes open once the sun set.
Long shadows from the lights at either end of the corridor provided plenty of cover for Mack as he slipped down the hall to the stairs. He counted the steps as he walked, sensing George Corey in the surrounding space.
He checked each door as he hurried down the operations hallway. He found the third door locked.
“Liv,” he called through the door. “Liv, are you in there?”
He felt a puff of cold breath against his ear and spun around.
No one stood behind him, but footsteps sounded from the end of the corridor. Mack ducked into the room across the hall.
A table sat in the center of the room.
As Mack crept closer, his breath caught in his throat. Something large and lumpy lay beneath the white sheet on the steel table.
His hand trembled as he reached out, fearing he’d find Liv beneath the sheet.
He peeled back the cover to find a young man, a dark red burn around his neck, his eyes half-open and staring sightlessly into the void.
Kent did not look peaceful in death. His skin was mottled and yellowing. His tongue, large and gray, poked from the corner of his mouth.
Mack stumbled back, halting when he heard the door to the room opposite him swing open.
He listened to muffled voices and watched through a slit in the door as Dr. Kaiser slipped out. In the room behind him, he glimpsed Liv.
After Kaiser disappeared down the hallway, Mack hurried to Liv’s door and dropped to his hands and knees.
“Liv,” he whispered. “Liv?”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Something happened,” Mack told her, relieved at the sound of her voice. “The patient who speaks to the dead escaped.
“It’s starting,” Liv said.
He had to strain to hear her.
“What do you mean?”
“The wheel of fate, Mack. It started turning when he murdered George. And now he has killed again. He will try for three.”
“What do you mean three? Did he kill Kent, the orderly? Who’s number three? You?” Mack considered beating the door down. He could do it. A few swift kicks and he’d be inside, but the orderlies and the nurses would come running. They’d be armed with needles and straitjackets and padded rooms. By the time Mack woke up, Liv would likely be dead.
“Yes, and then will come his undoing,” Liv told him, “but only if that bone is in the woods. I have to work tonight.”
“You’re locked in there. How can you possibly do anything? And what do you mean, bone? One of George’s bones?”
“Be ready tomorrow, Mack. Tomorrow Stephen Kaiser will try again to take a life.”
Chapter 34
Jesse
A petite woman with short curls that clung to her head walked out the door of the little yellow Cape Cod on Palmetto Avenue. She carried a watering can.
Two girls followed, one larger than the other, nearly as tall as her mother with long wavy blond hair. The smaller girl had her mother’s curls and small features.
Jesse brushed off his coat and stepped from his car.
The woman looked up as he approached. She offered a hesitant smile.
“Arlene Hester?” he asked.
“Yes?” her voice was as small as her frame, but her eyes were big and bright.
“My name’s Jesse Kaminski. I’m trying to find your sister, Liv.”
The woman’s eyes opened wider, and she dropped the watering can. It clanked on the stone pathway in front of her flowers.
“You know Liv?” she asked.
The older girl picked up the watering can and watched Jesse suspiciously.
“Well, no,” he admitted. “Her name came up recently and-”