He stepped over to the doorway, took out his cell, punched in the number, and had a brief, one-sided conversation, hanging up with a sour look. “Well, at least I’m free for lunch.”
They stepped into the hall, and Sunny said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What did they say?”
“They said the sheriff is coming over here this afternoon to see me, and Ollie, and probably Dr. Reese,” Will replied. “Until then, I’m supposed to stay put.”
Behind him, Sunny saw Camille Thibaud stop dead, her face going chalk white.
“Um, Will, can you give me a couple of minutes? I have to use the restroom. In fact, why don’t you go ahead and get a table? I’ll catch up with you.”
She left Will going around the nurses’ station while she walked farther up the ward, but the visitor’s restroom wasn’t her target. Sunny opened out her stride and caught up with Camille. “What’s going on?” she asked the girl. “You looked as though you were going to jump out of your skin.”
“The sheriff is really and truly coming?” The words came out in a rush, and a bit too loud. Camille bit her lip and tried again. “People have been talking all morning, saying the worst things, that half the nurses and aides are going to be fired, that we’re being taken over by the state . . .” She gulped a breath. “That the sheriff is coming over to close us down.”
Obviously the Bridgewater grapevine had been working full-blast, and the gossip hadn’t shrunk in the telling.
“I don’t think any of that is going to happen,” Sunny told the girl. “He needs to talk to some people, that’s all.”
But instead of calming down, the girl’s face only got scareder. “It’s me,” she whispered. “He’s coming to talk to me.”
“And why is that?” Sunny wanted to know.
“That night when everything happened, when Mr. Scatterwell passed,” Camille said, “it was my fault.”
Sunny stared. “Mr. Scatterwell was your fault?”
The girl quickly shook her head. “No, I mean the other patient, the one who got sick and messed the bed. He kept asking and begging for chocolate. I knew he wasn’t supposed to have any, but I felt sorry for him. So, on my break, I got a bar of chocolate.” A spasm of guilt went over Camille’s plain features. “I should have known there’d be trouble from the way he gobbled it up. But he looked so happy. But then a while later, it went right through him. He was so badly off. And now I hear people whispering about patients getting something they shouldn’t. It’s going to be me. I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
Sunny did her best to calm Camille without adding any more fodder to the gossip grapevine. “Mr. Barnstable has something he needs to discuss with Sheriff Nesbit, and since he’s laid up, the sheriff is coming here.” Camille nodded, but Sunny wasn’t sure how successful she’d been in soothing the girl’s jitters. She headed off to the coffee shop and told Will about her conversation with Camille.
“Poor kid,” he said. “She must be really scared about this job.” Then he grinned. “But she’s got a lot to learn if she thinks a visit from Frank Nesbit is the same as the Last Judgment.”
*
It seemed that they had finally stopped moving. Shadow crouched down, breathing deeply through an open mouth, testing the scents around him. He found an odd combination, catching country smells, grass, trees—and was that a squirrel?—but also the stink of smoke from the go-fast things that humans liked to ride around in. He’d encountered that mix of smells before in his wanderings, usually on heavily traveled roads that went through woods. If only he could look . . .
Instinctively, he pushed upward, aiming to hook his forepaws over the wall beside him. Then he’d be able to see where he was.
But he ducked back down at the sound of the door opening, staying frozen until it thumped shut. He listened carefully—yes, the scraping noises the Old One made as he walked were receding. When they got faint enough, Shadow boosted himself up for a look around.
Now everything made sense. He could see country-stuff all around, the source of the green smells he’d inhaled. But they were in the middle of one of those places where the humans left their go-fast things to rest. Even when there was a breeze, bad smells lingered.
Dropping down to the floor again, he pushed with his rear legs as hard as he could, surging upward, clearing the metal side, and then landing on that weird pebble-stuff that humans liked to surround their houses with.
Shadow hid behind the front wheel of the truck, watching the Old One open a door—a very big, heavy door. This wasn’t like the screen door at Sunny’s house, where he could climb up, hang on, and make it swing open. It would take patience and luck to get in.
Once the door swung closed, Shadow crept up to inspect it, scratching gently at the wood. No, it definitely wasn’t going to shift.
So he went onto the grass at the side of the door and hunkered down. His fur blended with the stone in the wall—at least to a casual glance. After a while, another go-fast thing appeared and rolled to a stop. A pair of two-legs got out—male and female. They were younger than the Old One, but older than Sunny. Shadow kept still until they had the big door open, then he darted in between their legs.
He found himself in a large, echoing space with many-many smells. Shadow got a strong whiff of the She he’d come to find—but that was mixed with the sick tomcat smell he’d also found on Sunny. Shadow crouched, forcing an angry hiss back down his throat.
No noise. Don’t make people look at you. Besides, if and when he had to deal with that male cat, he didn’t want any two-leg poking into the middle of things.
Shadow trotted along, getting more confused the more he sniffed. He kept catching traces of Old Ones—many Old Ones, more than he’d ever imagined could be in one place.
I lived with an Old One who had many-many cats, he thought. Could the She live here with many-many Old Ones?
He had no answer. You could never tell what those two-leggity types got up to.
Now he didn’t just smell Old Ones, he heard them . . . and saw them, too. They sat in chairs and couches in a large room. Some even sat on chairs that rolled! Many of them were females, making cooing noises and reaching out to him. One even got up from a chair and tottered toward him, trying to pick him up.
When he lived with the Old One and all the cats, some of them would fawn and let themselves be petted to get more food. Shadow never sank so low, no matter how hungry he felt. Not that petting was a bad thing. He quite liked it when Sunny stroked his fur. But these grabbing hands . . . Shadow ducked and dodged, finding himself beside one of those chairs with big wheels. A bony, gnarled hand landed on his back. He almost flew into the air, darting away and then skidding to a stop under one of the strange chairs with wheels.
He shuddered a little, trying to get his fur to lie flat again. And then the chair began to move. Crouching low, he slunk along with it, peeking skittishly forward, back, and side to side through the wires of the big wheels. Nervous as he was, he couldn’t control his tail. It kept lashing around as if it had a mind of its own—putting itself in danger from the rolling wheels and passing feet.
His mobile piece of cover moved into another room, small and rather crowded. Now there were feet standing all around him.
That was bad enough. But then Shadow had to swallow a real yowl of fright, sinking down to cling to the floor below him. That just meant he felt the vibrations even more strongly.
Shadow knew he’d gone faster, riding with Sunny and even the Old One. On the way to this place, crouched in the back of the Old One’s truck, he’d felt the wind from their motion ruffling his fur. No, moving wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that a whole room full of people had suddenly decided to move upward like a bird.