These Shallow Graves (41 page)

Jo saw the high stone wall first, then the tall black gates.
darkbriar asylum for the insane,
the sign on them read.

Jo knew the carriage door to her right was locked. She'd seen her uncle lock it after his driver closed it. Had he, by some miracle, forgotten to lock the one to her left? She glanced at it. Phillip saw her.

“Do not be difficult, Josephine. Both doors are locked. And even if you could get out of the carriage, Thomas and I would come after you,” he said.

A moment later, they were passing through the gates. Jo had been here just last night, and she knew that once the watchman locked the gates behind the carriage, she wouldn't be able to get out. There was no other exit from Darkbriar except the river, and its cold temperature and fast currents, would guarantee a quick death. Witless with fear, Jo made a desperate lunge at the door on her left, but her uncle pushed her back.

“I'm not going to tell you again,” he said coldly.

Thomas drove on. The watchman locked the gates. Jo had lost her chance. As the carriage stopped in front of the main building—a gothic monstrosity with towers and turrets and bars on every window—a wave of despair engulfed Jo.

“Don't try to escape again,” Phillip warned, “or you'll be very sorry.” His soothing smile and kindly tone of voice were gone. She had never seen this side of him before.

Thomas opened the door. Phillip stepped out, then helped Jo down, keeping a firm grip on her arm. A flight of stone steps led from the drive to the main building's front doors. A matron in uniform was waiting at the bottom of them.

“Welcome, Miss Montfort. We've been expecting you,” she said briskly. “I'm Nurse Williams, and I'll be looking after you.”

Jo looked around wildly, still hoping to find a way out. Phillip tightened his grip on her arm. “Miss Montfort is very agitated,” he told the matron.

“That sometimes happens,” the matron said. She gave Jo a fake smile. “There's no need to fret, dear. We'll take good care of you.” She turned and beckoned to someone behind her. “Would you help Mr. Montfort settle his niece, please, Mr. Mallon?”

Jo gasped. Her head snapped up. Standing at the top of the stairs was the scar-faced man. He was here. Now. Her uncle wasn't going to wait; he was going to have her killed tonight.

“No! Let me go!” she shouted, struggling to break free. “He's a murderer!”

“Mr. Mallon, if you would?” the matron said sternly.

Jo realized that arguing was futile. She remembered
Ten Days in a Mad-House,
and how none of the staff listened to patients who insisted they were sane. She knew the matron wouldn't listen to her, either.

Mallon trotted down the stairs. “I'll take her, sir,” he said as his hand closed around Jo's wrist.

Phillip released her and started up the steps, walking next to the matron.

Jo fought to break free, but Mallon twisted her arm behind her back, his grip as hard as iron. “Stop,” he hissed in her ear. “Or I'll break it.”

Jo had no choice but to walk up the steps.

“See? He calmed her already. He's wonderful with the patients. So soothing. He has a great deal of experience, you know. He's one of our longest-serving orderlies,” the matron said. “Your niece will be seen to by a female nurse, of course, but we have male orderlies escort new patients to their rooms. They're better able to restrain anyone who becomes violent.”

“I'm sure she'll be in excellent hands,” Phillip said. “I would like her to have a sedative tonight to ease her mind and help her sleep. I do not want restraints used on her.”

“Of course, Mr. Montfort.”

Jo saw how the scenario would play out: Mallon would drug her. Later, he'd come back and strangle her. Then he'd tie something—maybe her own bedsheet—to a bar on her window. The other end would be tied around her neck.

The next day, the matron will recall how upset I was,
she thought.
She'll say that the sedative wore off and I hanged myself and that it would not have happened if only my too-kind uncle had let them use restraints.

Fear shrieked in Jo's head now. She was halfway up the steps. If she didn't run this very instant, she never would. But she couldn't; Mallon had her in a death grip.
I'm going to die here,
she thought. The door loomed ahead of her. Mallon forced her on and she stumbled, nearly losing her shoe.

Which gave her one last, desperate idea.

As she took the next step, she wiggled her foot all the way out of her shoe and kicked it behind her.

“My shoe!” she cried out. “It fell off!”

Nurse Williams turned around. Phillip did, too, an expression of annoyance on his face. “Fetch it for her,” he barked at Mallon.

Mallon, not wanting the matron to see how he was twisting Jo's arm, released it, but he still had her by the wrist as he bent down to get her shoe.

Jo was no match for him physically, but she had the element of surprise on her side and she used it. As Mallon straightened, she grabbed the back of his head with her free hand and brought her right knee up—directly into his face.

It was a move she'd seen used at Mick Walsh's, and one that Fay had taught her how to execute, and by some miracle, it worked.

There was a sickening crack as her knee smashed Mallon's nose. He reared up, roaring in pain. His hands went to his face. The instant Jo felt him let go of her wrist, she ran.

Down the steps she fled and into the dark grounds of the asylum. She heard Mallon bellowing behind her. She risked a glance over her shoulder as she made for a grove of trees. He wasn't chasing her. He was doubled over by the steps, his hands cupping his nose, blood dripping between his fingers.

It was Phillip who was coming after her. And from the look in his eyes, Jo could see that he wouldn't settle for catching her and dragging her back up the asylum stairs.

He would kill her where she stood.

Jo ran for her life.

Through the grove of trees, through a meadow, through the darkness.

Her breath sounded like a howling wind in her ears, her heart like thunder. Surely they would give her away.

She heard her uncle and Mallon in the distance, shouting. And then they were closer. She couldn't keep running. She would have to hide and hope they ran past. The asylum gates were behind her. They were the only way out. She would have to double back through the grounds to get to them.

A thicket of boxwood loomed ahead, green even in December. She pulled her remaining shoe off, placed it on the path to the left of the bushes, and crawled inside the thicket, grateful to be wearing a black coat. It would help her blend in. She looked through the branches so she could see the path she'd run down.

Jo held herself perfectly still, trying to quiet her breathing and slow her thumping heart. As she did, she saw her uncle appear on the path, panting and swearing. The shoe immediately caught his eye.

“Mallon! Over here!” he shouted, continuing down the path. Just as she'd hoped.

As soon as he was gone, Jo broke from the bushes and ran in the opposite direction, heading for the shelter of some birch trees. She assumed that Mallon was behind her uncle and would run down the same path he had.

It was a mistake. As she neared the birches, Mallon burst from them and lumbered toward her, blood still streaming down his face. Screaming, Jo wheeled around, saw a building in the distance, and raced toward it.

“I've got her!” Mallon yelled.

Jo's stockinged feet flew over the ground. She was lighter and faster than Mallon and quickly put distance between them. When she reached the building, she launched herself at the door, but it was locked. She shot around to the side, hoping to find another way in, and spotted a basement window that was slightly ajar. It was a casement window, hinged at the top. She wriggled through it backward, held on to the sill with her fingers, and let go. The drop wasn't far, only two feet. She stepped back out of the moonlight that was shining in through the glass—praying that Mallon hadn't seen her. Seconds passed, and then a minute, and then she saw a pair of legs stop by the window. They were joined by another pair.

“Out here? How? They'll know we did it!” a voice said. It was Mallon's. The window was still ajar and Jo could hear him. “We'll say she fell and hit her head on a rock.” That was her uncle.

“We've got to find her first,” said Mallon.

“You head that way. I'll double back,” her uncle said.

They left and Jo sat down heavily on the dirt floor, exhausted. Her uncle was trying to kill her—a man she'd loved and trusted her entire life. A sob burst out of her. She bit her fist to stifle the rest, knowing that if she started, she wouldn't be able to stop. Crying wouldn't get her out of this; thinking would. She calmed herself and tried to figure out her next step.

There would be no help from anyone here. Her uncle had told them all she was insane and had likely signed papers attesting to that. They wouldn't listen to anything she had to say. Her only hope was to get to Eddie. He and Oscar would back up her story.

“To do that, though, you have to get up, get out of this basement, and get through the gates,” she told herself.

But how?
her mind countered.
They're locked, and the watchman has the key. Flynn had to sneak you in last—

“Flynn! That's it!” she whispered.

The gravedigger lived on the grounds. He might agree to smuggle her out if she offered him enough money. All she had to do was find his cottage.

If he could get her through the gates, she could work her way south to Reade Street and Eddie's boardinghouse. She stood, heartened by her plan, and fumbled her way across the basement until she found some stairs. She had no idea what lay above her.

“Fac quod faciendum est,”
she said to the darkness.

And started to climb.

Jo stood at the top of the basement stairs, her hand on the knob, for nearly a minute before she worked up the courage to turn it.

She opened the door slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. The hinges whined, but only a little. Stepping through the doorway, she saw that she was in a large kitchen. A range loomed to her right. Pots hung overhead. Two sinks. A wooden icebox.

And a guard.

He was sitting with his back to her. His head, cushioned by his arms, was resting on the large wooden table in front of him. His jacket was on the back of his chair. A brass key ring hung from his belt. He was snoring loudly.

Looking all around, Jo saw that the kitchen had a row of windows on the right and an open doorway on the left. She tiptoed through the doorway and found herself in a long, narrow hallway that ran from the back of the building to the front. Directly across that hallway was another, shorter one that terminated in a dead end. It had a single door on its right side.

She walked to that door now, hoping it might be an exit, and saw a sign bolted to it.
danger: authorized access only
, it read. And below that,
male ward for the criminally insane
. A warning followed advising personnel to enter in pairs, tuck in loose clothing, and refrain from confrontational behavior.

Thwarted, Jo turned back. She started down the long hallway, walking quietly past the kitchen, where the guard was still snoring peacefully. There were no doors on the left wall of the hallway. On the right, she saw one with a sign that said
day room
and another with a sign that said
supplies
, both of which were locked. At the top of the hallway was the front door. To its left was another short hallway, mirroring the one across from the kitchen. It was a second door to the men's ward.

Jo tried the knob to the front door. It was locked. She needed the key to get out. And she knew who had it.

Flattery, Flirtation, Finesse,
Fay had said. Those were what was needed to pick a pocket, or lift a ring of keys.

I can do without the first two,
Jo thought, hurrying back to the kitchen,
but I'll need plenty of finesse.
Slowly, she walked up behind the guard. Halfway there, a board creaked under her foot and she froze. The guard snorted but didn't wake. She waited for two whole minutes, timing herself by a clock on the wall, then continued walking until she reached him. Crouching by his side, she examined his key ring. Five long brass skeleton keys hung from it. With painstaking care, she threaded the fingers of her left hand through the keys to make sure they didn't clink.

Next, she unbuckled the thin leather strap that connected the ring to the guard's belt. Carefully, one hand grasping the brass loop, the other still cushioning the keys, she pulled the key ring free. Now all she had to do was get back down the hallway to the front door. She made her way out of the kitchen and had just stepped into the long hallway when she heard it—a pounding, loud and insistent.

“Open up! Open up in there!” Mallon shouted. His face appeared in the window of the front door. Jo gasped and flattened herself against the wall. There was a light on by the door, but it was dark at this end of the hall. Mallon hadn't seen her.

“What the hell?” said the guard groggily. Jo heard his chair scrape across the kitchen floor. “Who is it?” he bellowed, stumbling across the room.

In two seconds, they'd be face to face. Jo shot into the short hallway that led to the men's ward. She ran past the door to the end of the hallway and squeezed herself into a dark corner. An instant later, the guard rushed out of the kitchen and down the main hallway, buttoning his jacket. He hadn't seen her.

“Let me in! It's an emergency!” Mallon shouted.

“Keep your hair on, will ya? I'm coming!” the guard yelled back. And then, in a panicked voice, he said, “Where are my keys? I haven't got my keys! Wait there, I'll get the master! Wait right there!”

He raced back to the kitchen. Jo heard him swearing and fumbling and then he was running back to the front door. Mallon would soon be in the building. Was her uncle with him?

I'm trapped,
she thought frantically.
They'll search this place and find me cowering here. There's nowhere to run.

And then her fear-filled eyes fell on the door to the men's ward. There was that second door, covered in warnings like this one, at the front end of the building. The ward ran parallel to the hallway. If she could walk through it while Mallon was coming down the hallway, she might be able to get to the front door. While he was searching the building, she'd be on her way to Flynn's cottage.

Jo jammed one of the skeleton keys into the lock of the men's ward and turned it. Nothing happened. She tried another. And another. And then, just as she heard Mallon enter the building, the fourth key worked. She wrenched the ward door open, stepped inside, and locked it behind her, hoping that her pursuers' footsteps and voices had covered up her noise.

She took a deep breath to steel herself—and immediately regretted it. The stench of urine and dirty bodies hit her hard. Sighs and moans filled her ears.

Clutching the key ring tightly, she took a small step forward. The door to the men's ward had a small window of thick glass. It let in a little light, enough that she could make out a walkway about five feet wide with barred cells at either side of it. Ahead of her, she could see dim light coming in the window of the opposite door.

All she had to do was get to it.