He bobbed his head up and down.
“She’s into weird stuff, reads a lot of spooky books. I tried to laugh it off, but she told me some stories of her own, seeing things that shouldn’t’a been there. Joan thinks Susan is dead. She’s trying to reach out or somethin’.”
Abe looked down the sidewalk. It sloped toward the bay. People sat on the grassy courtyard having picnics beneath colorful beach umbrellas. It seemed to be a regular summer day in northern Michigan. At least that’s what appearances said, but on the inside, Abe felt pressure gathering, an avalanche preparing to wash an entire mountain into the sea. His left eye pulsed with the start a headache, and he realized he’d forgone his cup of coffee at the office. He needed caffeine.
“And you believe the girl you saw matched Susan from the newspaper article?”
“Unless that girl has a twin.”
“But you said yourself it was late, it was dark. How can you be sure?”
Ricky laughed, kicked at a weed poking up from the sidewalk.
“I wouldn’t bet my mom’s life on it, but when I saw that girl in the newspaper, I got a case of the willies like you ain’t never seen. I tried to think maybe she ran off, was hitchin’ that night, but…” He shook his head. “She disappeared, man. Up in smoke.”
Chapter 29
Orla
“Jesus Christ, Benjamin, watch where you’re going,” Dr. Crow snapped, shoving the young man away the from the metal table he’d nearly walked into.
Benjamin shuffled away, standing near the wall and waiting for orders.
“I need the vials, now,” Crow barked.
Benjamin hurried from the room and returned a moment later.
Orla’s eyes appeared closed, but she peered through tiny slits.
Crow drew her blood, but she continued to feign sleep.
After Crow left, Benjamin began his usual ritual of cleaning the room, removing the bloody cotton balls, putting the doctor’s tools in a washbasin.
“Ben?” Orla spoke the man’s name, gazing at him.
He froze, as he’d done before when he she spoke to him, but this time he looked up.
“It’s better if you don’t talk to me,” he whispered, stealing a glance toward the door.
“He’s gone,” she said. “He won’t be back today.”
Orla had learned Crow’s movements. He administered his drugs in the morning, returned in the evening to sedate her, but she never saw him overnight. She would not have known the time, except that Crow wore a watch, and Orla stared at it whenever he entered the room, allowing her to piece together a timeline of his comings and goings.
“I’m here against my will, Ben. I’m not a patient. I’m-”
“I know,” he said, allowing his hair to fall back over his eye.
“Then help me,” she pleaded.
He shook his head.
“Why? Please,” she begged. “My family must be terrified. My parents, Ben. My friends. There are people who love me, who are desperate to find me.”
“I can’t help you,” he muttered. “I know you don’t understand, but I can’t.”
“Because he’d hurt you?”
Ben looked away.
“I don’t have anyone else. Okay? This is my life. If I let you go… I just can’t, okay?”
Orla needed something, a way in. Crow had put gloves on her hands before he left. She rubbed her hand against the bed, allowing one glove to slide off.
“Could I have a drink of water? Please? My throat is so dry.”
He glanced at her, his dark eyes searching. Finally, he nodded and left.
He returned a moment later with a glass of water and moved to her bedside. He trembled as he held the water to her lips.
She reached toward him with her bare hand, touching his shirt.
Gulping the water, she searched the images that rose in her mind, reaching deeper to ferret out some clue that might get him to open up.
“Lemon,” she murmured.
He jumped when she spoke and spilled water on her face.
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing a towel and wiping the water from her cheek.
“You had a dog named Lemon.”
He stared at her mistrustfully.
“How do you know that?”
She twittered her fingers, the nude glove resting beside them.
“You saw her?”
Orla nodded.
“Why did you name her Lemon?” Though she already knew the answer. She had seen the dog happily carrying a lemon around in her white-and-brown speckled muzzle.
He smiled sadly.
“She played with them, carried them in her mouth, even buried them in the yard.”
“Where did you get her?”
A wistful expression transformed his face.
“Here at the asylum. A patient came in with a puppy in his bag. He shoved her at me and said, ‘she’s yours.’ And she was.”
“Until Dr. Crow killed her.”
He backed away, smacked into the metal tray with the doctor’s tools. They went crashing to the floor so loud that even Orla expected Crow to reappear in the doorway. He didn’t.
“It was an accident,” Ben whispered.
Orla shook her head.
“It wasn’t. He hated your dog. He backed over her with his car. He saw her in his side-view mirror and hit the gas.”
Ben shook his head, brown eyes tormented.
He didn’t run from the room, but he stopped looking at her and didn’t speak. He moved slowly as if heavy with the burden of her words. He didn’t leave until he’d cleaned the room and carried all the supplies away.
When he walked out, he avoided her eyes, flicking off the lights and leaving her in darkness.
Chapter 30
Hazel
Hazel touched the crumbling banister that flanked the old house. Moss-streaked gargoyles sat at either end of the rotting wooden staircase. Grass and weeds, even a few flowers, poked through the sagging planks. Shuttered windows closed the interior from prying eyes.
Time had weathered the house and given free rein to the vegetation, jungle-like, that surrounded the aged walls - once white, now chipped and peeled. Delicate clusters of yellow blooms speckled the moonseed vines climbing up the exterior.
When Hazel lifted the knocker, she feared the door beneath the brass ring would chip away. It didn’t. She heard the loud bang echoing through the house.
A woman opened the door, her eyes a dazzling opaque blue, her hair long and golden.
“Hi,” Hazel stammered, unnerved by the beautiful woman like a fairytale princess dropped into a haunted old mansion.
“Are you here for Mrs. Cooper?” the woman asked in a soft, lyrical voice.
“Mrs. Cooper?” Hazel asked, trying to get her bearings. The house loomed deep and bottomless. White candles flickered from tables in the dusky interior.
“She lives here,” the woman continued.
“Umm, yes, maybe.” Hazel laughed. “I’m not sure. My friend Miranda told me to come here for Hattie. I need help.”
The woman’s smile faltered, but she stepped back, allowing Hazel to enter.
Hazel walked into the stifling foyer. Despite the house’s size, it felt oddly claustrophobic and too warm.
They passed a great room with a fireplace crackling in a stone hearth, despite the hot summer day.
“Mrs. Copper is ninety-seven years old,” the woman told her. “She chills easily.”
Hazel saw another room, the floor covered in white sheets and splashed with paint. Canvases, stacked several deep, lined the walls.