Asylum (19 page)

“Okay. Well, if you’re sure …”

“Hey, while I have you guys on the phone, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Danny. Let me just put you on speakerphone.” He heard a click and suddenly it got very loud on the other end.

“Hi, Dad.”

“What do you need, Danny?” Paul asked.

Where to start?
“I just had a question about my … family history, I guess. I mean, the stuff before you guys. Stuff from when I was younger. I was looking up some of the history about this place—’cause you know, the dorm used to be a psych ward and all—and it turns out the warden here was also named Daniel Crawford.”
Careful now …
“I thought that was an, uh, interesting coincidence. Do you know if there’s any possible relation?”

“Dan,” his father said soothingly. “I mean, really, do you need us to come get you? We can get on a plane right now and come get you. It’s no problem.”

“What? No! That’s not what I—”

“I’m serious. The whole thing doesn’t feel right to me. You should come home, you’re not, you know, always so good with stuff like this,” his father said. It had been a while since Dan had heard him sound so worried.

“Danny, sweetie, your father is just concerned, we both are,” his mom added. “Do we need to call Dr. Oberst? If you think this might trigger some sort of episode …”

“But I didn’t say anything about wanting to come home—”

“Psych wards and wardens and … What about
you
, Danny? It doesn’t sound like you’re taking care of yourself!” It was his dad again, and from the sound of it, he was working himself up into an angry froth.

“Calm down, Paul. Danny, we’re worried about you, that’s all. We’re just trying to tell you that if you want to leave, we think that would be a good, rational decision. We always knew that this might be too much for you—”

“Look, never mind. Don’t call Dr. Oberst. Don’t worry about me. I have to get going.” He hung up the phone over their protests.

Paul and Sandy had always told him that the most they could give him about his birth parents was “nonidentifying” information, like the fact that they’d been college educated and healthy and had no other kids. But apparently, all you had to do was check a little box saying you didn’t want to divulge your identity, and suddenly it took a good reason and a court order to get anywhere.

Frankly, Dan had never really cared to know who his good-for-nothing parents were. Paul and Sandy were more than great; they had come to feel like family.

But suddenly, finding out his history felt like the most important thing in the world. The missing piece in this maddening puzzle—the link between Dan and a ruthless killer. Of all the places he could have ended up this summer, it couldn’t be a mistake that he’d chosen this one.

Brookline was his destiny. It was in his blood.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER

N
o
 26 

D
an tore through his desk drawers, searching for the photo of Daniel Crawford. The scratched-out eyes were still burned in his mind, but the rest of the details had grown hazy, and he needed to give it a closer look. When he’d dumped out the entire contents of his drawers onto his bed and the picture still hadn’t surfaced, he started to feel a tightening in his chest. No matter how many times he sifted through the pile, he simply couldn’t find it.

The photo was gone.

He
had
seen the photograph, hadn’t he?

Yes, yes, he was absolutely sure. He had even questioned Felix about it, which was how he learned about the old wing in the first place.

Maybe Felix had taken the photograph for some reason. Dan couldn’t imagine why, but it was better than the alternative—someone sneaking around in his room, planting spooky pictures and taking them away. He reached under his bed where he had hidden the folder, half expecting it to be gone, too.

But no, there it was, exactly as he had left it.

He wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything last time. Maybe he’d even put the photo in here without remembering it. He opened the folder. There, right on top of the stack of papers, was a note in now dreadfully familiar handwriting. This one wasn’t even in an envelope.

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

Dan hurled the folder across the room. Papers went flying. “I can’t take this anymore!” he shouted. A moment later there was a knock at the door, and a guy from the room next to his, Thomas, stuck his head in.

“You okay, man?” he said.

Dan nodded, too upset to say anything coherent.

“Because, you know, if you have anything you want to talk about, I mean, about Joe and all, they have counselors … or I could, you know, if you need it.…” His voice trailed off.

“No, man, it’s really okay, thanks for asking,” Dan said, puffing out his cheeks in what he hoped looked like a smile.

Thomas closed the door with a shrug.

Dan didn’t want help and he definitely didn’t need other people’s pity.

At dinner, Abby was withdrawn. She slumped in her chair, chewing her nails and holding a staring contest with her mashed potatoes. Dan was still mulling over the little he knew about his mysterious stalker. While everyone in the cafeteria was noticeably more subdued than usual, Dan felt like all the sadness in the room originated at his table.

Finally, Abby spoke. “So I was thinking we must be terrible people. I mean really, really terrible people.”

“I … Hm. That’s not what
I
was thinking, but go on.”

“It’s Jordan,” Abby said, sliding down even farther in her chair. “I feel like we’ve completely failed him.”

“How? You’ve been texting him like crazy. He knows we’re reaching out.”

“That’s not enough. We should go see him. We have to get through to him; otherwise we’re no better than his family, or that guy from his school who ditched him.”

“Abby, if he wants to be left alone …”

“But he
doesn’t
. We all process stress differently. I think he’s hiding, like he thinks he’d be a burden or something if he told us what’s going on. I want him to know that’s not true at all.”

“I know, but I still worry about invading his space. Maybe you should just text him again.”

“Sometimes, Dan, friends have to take a stand and say: Hey, idiot, we’re here for you no matter what. We’re not going to disappear when you get grumpy or angry, we’re in this for the long haul. We’re in this for each other.”

“See, that’s why I like you so much,” he said, surprising both of them.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. You’re right. We should go see him,” Dan said.

“I have figure drawing till nine o’clock—that seems like such a long time away. Do you think you could go after dinner, and I’ll come join you after class? It would mean a lot.”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll tell him what you said, although I might leave out the ‘hey, idiot’ part. Hope you don’t mind.…”

“No,” she said with a laugh, “that’s probably a smart idea. Thanks, Dan. See you later?”

Dan nodded, waving good-bye as she grabbed her tray and left for class. He walked out of the Commons a few minutes later and followed the well-worn path back to the dorm. Just two more weeks of classes, and then they’d all be going home. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. At least Pittsburgh wasn’t too far away from New York. He bet it was an easy trip by train.

Two police officers still monitored the entrance hall. They were there to provide peace of mind, but they only made Dan uneasy, as if there was something unresolved that the students weren’t being told. The tall cop who had interviewed Dan nodded to him in greeting as he went by. Dan tried not to read anything into the acknowledgment.

Nobody was out and about on Jordan’s floor. Dan had noticed that most students had chosen to stay outside and away from Brookline as much as possible that day. That only reinforced Dan’s feeling that Jordan would be in, since he seemed so determined to avoid human company.

There was no answer when Dan knocked on Jordan’s door. He knocked a little louder and waited, then pressed his ear to the door, wondering if maybe Jordan was in there but just refusing to answer. But no, he couldn’t hear anything inside the room. On a whim, he tried the doorknob. The door swung open.

No one was inside. The room was freezing. Yi’s side of things looked normal, if a bit messy, but Jordan’s half was covered floor to ceiling with torn scraps of yellow legal paper, all filled with his frantic writing. Dan stepped in the room and walked over to one covered wall. He leaned in to take a closer look. This was math on a level he couldn’t begin to understand. He wondered if it even made sense to Jordan.

“The unsolvable problem,” he murmured.

The surface of Jordan’s desk had disappeared under a mountain of yellow paper, too. Laying on top, though, were two photographs that had been printed on regular computer paper. These photographs … Dan picked them up. They were both shots of Abby, Jordan, and him together. The three of them stood in a row, arms around one another, grinning from ear to ear. When had they taken these? He had no recollection of posing for either one, and that frightened him immensely. He’d never had such big gaps in his memory as these.

Almost as troubling as his apparent amnesia was the fact that Dan’s face had been X-ed out so thoroughly in both pictures that the paper had been torn.

“What are you doing here?”

“Shit!” Dan whirled around, dropping the photographs. “You scared me half to death, man!”

“Do you think I care?” Hair wet, holding a towel, Jordan had clearly just returned from the shower. He jabbed a finger at the door. “Get out!”

“Wait, Jordan—I just wanted to see if you were okay. That’s all! I didn’t mean to—”

Jordan grabbed Dan by the arm, and dragged him a few steps. “I don’t care what you meant to do! Get the hell out!”

Dan sprinted for the hall, cringing when he heard the door slam shut with a bang behind him. He fumbled for his phone, sending off a quick text to Abby. It read simply “Jordan v. mad.”

That was rage, real rage, and Dan seemed to be the reason for it. But why? What on earth had he done? Why would Jordan hate him so much?

Wait, could
Jordan
be his stalker?

Now
that
was paranoia.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER

N
o
 27 

Dan smelled mint. His office always smelled of mint. The young secretary left a tin of peppermints on his desk every morning and he ate them throughout the day. Julie was her name. Pretty and young—too pretty and young to already be working in a place like this.

A half-finished report sat on the desk before him. This side of things, the paper-pushing side, always annoyed him. That’s what assistants were for, damn it all, but they couldn’t be depended upon for anything. Sucking on a mint and adjusting his spectacles, he went back to the business at hand.

Where was he? Ah, yes. Writing.

Each victim had been strangled, although some had struggled, the signs of which were evident in the bruises and cuts they sustained. Reportedly, the victims posed to dance looked remarkably convincing, as did those set around the rest of the bar, sitting and standing. Good God, the planning it must have taken to achieve this.… A corpse reaches its peak stiffness at approximately twelve hours after death. To kill the patrons of an entire bar and then wait among the dead for hours … I admit, even I was skeptical that treatment could help a man so deeply, deeply troubled.

Happily, repeated insulin shock treatments and two weeks in the Dark Room have somewhat improved the patient’s temperament. He seems almost docile. I have nearly accomplished something astounding with the man. There will be more sessions, the next one on Thursday, and further monitoring of his behavior.