Authors: Chelsea Cain
Then he felt Jeremy rub something cool on his back.
“Antibacterial solution,” Jeremy said. He cleaned up the blood and then continued to massage Archie’s back, working up his spine and rubbing his neck and shoulders, rubbing his fingers up the back of Archie’s skull through his hair.
“Did Gretchen touch you like this? . . .” Jeremy asked softly.
“Yes,” Archie said. “The carvings you made on the guy with the teeth, you remember Gretchen doing that to Isabel?”
“I watched her do it.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened, Jeremy?”
“Yes,” Jeremy said. “But I want to get the scalpel first.”
C H A P T E R 52
Henry would’ve been happy to go years before seeing the inside of the Providence psych ward again. He didn’t like the way it smelled. He didn’t like the security cameras and locked doors. He didn’t like the nurses. And he didn’t like the fact that his best friend had spent two months there.
“This better be good,” Henry said to Claire. He was standing with Claire next to Archie’s psychologist, Sarah Rosenberg, in the hall. They were looking into the activities room, where a department shrink sat across the table from Archie’s old roommate, Frank. The shrink was interviewing all the mental patients about Courtenay Taggart’s death. The hospital would only approve professional crazy wranglers to wrangle its crazies.
Henry thought it was all bullshit.
“Frank doesn’t have a sister,” Rosenberg said.
Henry let that soak in. “Fuck,” he said.
“Your psychiatrist saw it in his file,” Rosenberg said, looking through the glass at Frank. “No one ever thought to check.”
Claire stood with her arms crossed. Henry could see the concern tightening the corners of her mouth. They both knew what this meant.
“It’s her,” Claire said.
Henry turned to Rosenberg. “Take me in there,” he said.
“He won’t admit it,” Rosenberg said. “He’s adamant.”
Henry looked through the glass at Frank. He was slumped over the table, his patient scrubs too big, white tube socks pushed down around his ankles. He was weak and vulnerable. Just the kind of man Gretchen preyed on. “Let me talk to him,” Henry said.
Rosenberg looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll take you in,” she said. She hesitated. “He is a patient,” she said. “If you cause him any trauma at all, I will lose my position here.”
“I won’t use the boiling oil,” Henry said.
“Be nice,” Claire said.
“I’m always nice,” Henry said, following Rosenberg into the room.
Frank looked up immediately and waved. “Hi, Henry,” he said.
Henry put on a big fake grin. “Hey, buddy,” Henry said. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Frank. Rosenberg sat in a chair next to the other shrink. That was good. It was Henry and Frank against the doctors. That would create an alliance. Just friendly old Henry and his buddy Frank against the big bad medical establishment.
The department shrink—a middle-aged man in a golf shirt and pleated shorts—shifted uncomfortably in his plastic chair.
“I missed you this morning,” Henry said to Frank. “I missed visiting my buddy Frank.”
“Archie’s gone,” Frank said.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “But hey, I can still visit you, right? I can still visit my buddy Frank.”
Frank smiled shyly. “Okay.”
“But I bet you get lots of visitors, right, Frank?” Henry said. “I bet your sister’s here all the time.”
Frank’s face faltered.
“No?” Henry said.
Frank looked away. “She gets busy,” he said.
Henry folded his hands in his lap and smiled. “Do you have a sister, Frank?”
Frank’s forehead wrinkled and he swatted at the air with his hand. “Stop asking me that,” he said.
Henry saw Rosenberg lay a palm down on the table.
“Who else has asked you that?” Henry said.
“Him,” Frank said, pointing at the golf-shirted shrink. “And Archie.”
Henry tried to keep his voice even, his demeanor neutral. “When did Archie ask you that?”
“After I took his phone,” Frank said. He shook his head sadly. “I didn’t mean to. I heard it.” He covered his ears. “Buzz.Buzz.” He let his hands drop. “I found it in his dresser. He was so mad. He made me give it back. That’s when he asked me. ‘Do you even have a sister, Frank?’ ” He sank down in his chair, shoulders hunched. “He was so mad,” he said again.
“Did you talk to anyone on that phone?” Henry asked.
“No,” Frank said. “I was going to call my sister, but I couldn’t remember her number.” He bit his lip. “I think she’s mad, too. She stopped calling.”
“What’s your sister’s name, Frank?”
Frank turned away, hunching further down in his chair. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” he said.
“When was the last time she called?” Henry asked.
Frank covered his ears again. “Buzz, buzz, buzz.”
Rosenberg stood.
“We’re done,” she said.
C H A P T E R 53
There were three elevators at the Herald. Only two of them ever worked at one time. Today, the elevator on the far right was broken, so Susan stood waiting near the other two.
No sleep and five hours in front of the computer had left her grainy-eyed and exhausted, even with the hour-long nap she’d managed to take in the commissary. She’d gotten her seventy-five inches in, though. It was the best piece of newspaper work she’d ever done. She only wished that Quentin Parker was around to see it.
With the story in, she was going to go home and take a nap. Leo Reynolds was not returning her calls, which either meant that his low-placed friends had turned up nothing, or they had turned up something and he’d decided not to tell her about it.
A few hours of sleep, and she would try him again.
The elevator was taking forever and Susan leaned her head against the wall next to it, and rested her eyes.
She awoke, with a sudden start, when the elevator doors opened. She blinked, still groggy. There, in the elevator, stood Henry Sobol.
He held the elevator door open and beckoned her inside. “We need to talk,” he said. “What floor?”
Susan moved her purse—with Archie’s cell phone in it—to her other shoulder. There hadn’t been a single call since she’d sent her text. “Lobby,” she said.
Henry pushed the L button.