He nudged her with the tip of his shoe. “Come on,” he urged. “I feel a second wind coming on. I think it’s time to paint another portrait.” He reached down and touched her arm.
Her head snapped up, her expression fierce. She reached out and slashed his arm with something sharp. A goddamn hanger.
Blood trickled down his arm.
The little bitch didn’t stop there. She lashed out, again and again, hitting flesh every time, across his arm and then his neck. But he felt no pain. He welcomed it. Simply put, he would never allow little Claire to get the best of him. He lifted the knife in his hand and slashed her across the right shoulder, rendering her arm useless.
End of story.
She fell back.
He tossed the knife and then took hold of her good arm and dragged her out of the closet and down the hallway. “Big mistake, Claire.”
She kicked and hissed, growled like a dying wildcat. Even if she’d been able to muster a scream, she’d come to accept it would be pointless. He dragged her all the way to the front entry, where Gillian’s corpse lay. The bitch had managed to crawl out of the kitchen, making a mess of his front entry, after all. He took a handful of Claire’s hair at the back of her head and shoved her face closer to Gillian’s. “In case you didn’t realize it, she’s dead.”
Claire let out a whimpering cry.
“Yes, yes, I know. So very sad.”
He shoved her face closer until her lips touched Gillian’s. An electric current charged through him. “The kiss of death,” he said, holding her there. “That’s the title of our next painting. I like it, don’t you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gus had told Kitally to give him ten minutes before heading for the file room. That was exactly how much time passed before Gus walked by. Kitally and Betty stood in the doorway of Betty’s room and watched him.
He was pushing the woman in the wheelchair, the one who liked to caw like a bird, down the middle of the wide corridor. She was in fine voice today.
Behind them trailed a rising cacophony.
Not only had Gus rounded up the bird lady, he had gathered more than a dozen residents, all of them squawking, banging forks against plates, and stomping canes against the floors and walls like a parade accompanied by a marching band. One lady used candleholders as drumsticks. A tall fellow kept leaning over and grabbing handfuls of all the women’s butts. Some liked it and some didn’t, but the old man didn’t seem to care either way. He was having the time of his life.
Bringing up the rear was a hunched-over woman with an amazingly loud voice who kept shouting, “No more pudding! We want cake! We want cake!”
Betty shook her head. “She doesn’t like cake, either, but she always wants whatever they don’t give her.”
“Which way to the file room?” Kitally asked.
Betty looked both ways and then took off in the opposite direction Gus and his posse had gone. The woman was spry, and Kitally had to hurry to keep close to her side. Whenever someone in a green smock ran past, she pretended to be helping Betty along, but that wasn’t easy considering the woman didn’t need any help.
“Damn,” Betty muttered, pulling back from peering around a corner. “The file room is down that hallway. But it looks like Dixie is guarding the post.”
Kitally moved ahead of her. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Hello,” Dixie said as they approached the nurses’ office. “Glad to see you have your badge on this time.”
Betty brightened. “I told you she was a good girl.”
“I don’t know if someone else has taken care of it,” Kitally said, “and I hate to be a tattletale, but I just saw Cecil sneak out through the back door. The one that leads right out to the parking lot.”
“Oh, lord.” Dixie huffed past them. “Thanks for telling me,” she called back, then disappeared around the corner.
“It worked,” Kitally said before she realized Betty had already grabbed the file room key from the nurses’ office and was making her way down the hall with it. She had the file room open and had disappeared inside before Kitally could catch up.
“Here,” she said when Kitally entered the room. “Put the key back on the little hook just inside the nurses’ office door and then hurry back.”
Kitally did as she said. The file room was exactly that—a twelve-by-twelve room with wall-to-wall filing cabinets. According to Betty, they were looking for any document or file with the names of any of five residents she believed had died under suspicious circumstances: Helsie Valentine, Dennis Turner, Jade Ross, Mary Branham, and Sandy Hutchins.
Kitally came up with something almost immediately, in a basket labeled “To Be Filed” atop the nearest file cabinet. “Well, here’s something strange,” she said.
“What is it?”
“This is a bill for Helsie Valentine, but the date stamped on the form is for just two days ago. Shady Oaks charged over three hundred dollars for bringing Helsie special meals and delivering packages, and another five hundred dollars for administering medication.”
Betty scampered her way and hovered over her. “See if you can find anything on Marty Balch.”
Kitally dug through the basket. “Yep, here it is. There’s a file for Marty. He was charged for a bed, food, and medication. When did Marty pass away?”
“Nine months ago,” Betty said.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Absolutely,” Betty said. “They’re killing Shady Oaks residents and then filling the beds and collecting double the money.”
Betty nudged Kitally to the side and rifled through the files herself. She gasped when she pulled out a file.
“What is it?”
“Lisa Coriell. She died three years ago.”
“This has been going on for a while.”
They both froze when they heard a voice. It sounded as if Dixie was on the phone.
“Dixie must have returned.”
Kitally looked at Betty. “What are we going to do?”
“Put this file inside your pants, and button your sweater up.”
There was no time to question the idea. Kitally did as she said.
Betty gestured toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Kitally locked the door from the inside and pulled it shut after them.
“Act natural,” Betty whispered. “Tell Dixie I kept insisting the bathroom was this way.”
The minute Dixie noticed them coming up the hallway, she marched up to them and grabbed hold of Kitally’s arm.
“Ouch. What are you doing?”
“That’s what I want to know. I’m taking you straight to the director. Betty Ackley hasn’t been any trouble for us until you started coming around.”
“Betty told me there was a bathroom down the hall,” Kitally said in a firm voice. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
A sniffling and then a mewing cry sounded as Betty began to weep. It was the most pitiful sound Kitally had ever heard. She yanked her arm out of the woman’s grasp and turned toward Betty. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to go to the bathroom. Why won’t any of you take me to the bathroom?”
There was a distinct trickling noise, and something splashed against Kitally’s ankle.
Dixie and Kitally looked down and saw a yellow puddle spreading on the tile between Betty’s feet.
“Look what you’ve done,” Kitally said. “You scared her. If you don’t let me take care of Betty and get her cleaned up and back to her room, I’m going straight to the police to report you, along with the rest of the staffers in this place!”
“You take her back to her room and clean her up,” Dixie said through clenched teeth, “but if I see you inside Shady Oaks again, I’m going to make sure you get thrown out of here. Do we understand each other?”
“That’s fine. But you better be ready to do just that, because I’ll be checking on Betty from here on out.”