I look up at the clock. Deadline fast approaching. Time almost up.
I think about Adam’s doubt, but with the blue dress connection now complete, so too is the link to Donny Ray’s pathology. Adam was right in one respect. I don’t have to play cop. Whether Donny Ray was forced to cover up his sister’s murder is in fact irrelevant where my diagnosis is concerned.
And with that comes another confirmation. Adam shouldn’t have doubted my professional judgment, should have known me well enough to trust my abilities. He insulted me, and I feel confident now that his motivation was indeed fueled by professional jealousy.
Adam wants you to fail.
He threw a thin shroud of concern over his question about my MRI results, but the shadow it cast on our entire friendship has left that connection severed.
A swell of anger and sadness surges through me, then with more force than necessary, I punch the “Send” button.
57
Evaluation sent. Job done.
On the way to Alpha Twelve, I have time to process what pressure and a looming deadline wouldn’t allow before now.
Adam didn’t believe me, but I believe Donny Ray.
As a professional, I got what I needed, but as a human, I can’t help but feel as though in the process, I only inflicted more pain on a wound that never healed. I took something from Donny Ray Smith. Another piece of his already-fractured psyche.
I want to give it back.
Or at least try. I’m fully aware that telling him my decision won’t cure his ache—that kind never really heals—but maybe, even in some small way, my news will help.
Hold on. What the . . . ?
I peer down the hallway of Alpha Twelve. Except for the rooms that Nicholas and Stanley once occupied, every door is closed and secured. What in God’s name was Adam talking about when he told me patients are never confined to their rooms? Come to think of it, weren’t all the doors locked tight when I came down to the consultation room earlier?
Adam is jacking with your head.
I march forward with an angry huff, intent on giving Donny Ray the good news.
You’re not supposed to share that information with patients.
“You think I don’t know that? It won’t hurt anything.”
I reach Donny Ray’s room. Evan stands outside with an expression I can’t quite gauge.
“Still thinking out loud, Doctor?” he asks.
A glance over my shoulder tells me that, while I wasn’t within his line of sight, my voice probably carried farther than I would have liked.
“I’m just under a lot of stress right now, Evan,” I mutter, then motion for him to unlock the door.
He does, and I distractedly march past him.
Inside, Donny Ray sits up in bed and stares out the window, hands woven tightly in his lap, one thumb moving back and forth over the other as if soothing an old and persistent injury.
I step forward. He turns his head toward me and tries to smile, but the corners of his mouth betray him, pulling it downward. I grab the chair in front of his desk and spin it in his direction, then take a seat. Donny Ray waits for me to speak.
“I want you to know that I fully realize how much it took to tell me what you did, and I appreciate your efforts, and . . .” I stop myself, because this all sounds so obvious and in the scheme of things, so meaningless. “I’ll just get right to the point. I’ve completed your evaluation, and it’s with the court now.”
Donny Ray nods, tension and uncertainty rapidly amassing into worry.
“It’s my opinion that you suffered from dissociative amnesia after Jamey Winslow went missing.”
His mouth drops wider as comprehension gathers. “I didn’t think you would . . . I never thought anyone would . . .”
“Believe you?”
He closes his eyes and nods.
“It’ll still be up to the courts to decide if you’re not guilty by reason of insanity.”
“But it’s not about that. It was never about that.”
I look at him curiously.
“It’s about the truth. It’s about knowing that somewhere in your mind the truth is hiding out, and you can’t find it, because there are all these reflections, and they’re blinding you. We helped each other find the truth.”
Maybe we can both find it.
Donny Ray’s statement on the day we met—one that no longer causes confusion.
The door opens. Evan pokes his head inside and says, “Dentist’s appointment in ten minutes. I’ll be back to get you in five.”
Donny Ray acknowledges Evan, then gets out of bed and walks behind the wall that separates his living area and washroom. Seconds later, I hear the sink running and check my watch: it’s getting late. Now that the anxiety from this evaluation is out of the way, I’m hoping my mind will stop slipping so quickly. I scoot the chair back into place, shove closed a bottom drawer, then move toward the door.
But a few steps out, I stop to look back over my shoulder, then return to the drawer and pull it open. I reach for the book tucked off to one side and feel it tremble in my hands as I read the title.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
I swallow hard, open it to the bookmark, and four words scream back at me. Four very ominous and telling words.
That sleep of death.
The room curls in around me and my vision gets murky and my chest pulls so tight that I can barely draw air. I spin around to find Donny Ray standing there. In one swift move, I drop the book out of view.
“Christopher, what’s wrong?” His posture stoops and he angles his head.
I try to keep my hand from shaking, my mind from screaming, and every muscle in my body from jumping. “You just startled me, is all. I didn’t hear you coming.”
Donny Ray’s dimples fill with light as a smile starts to build. “Good Lord. I was really worried, because for a fraction of a second, I thought maybe it was about that book you’ve got lodged into the back of your rib cage.”
I freeze.
He says nothing more. He doesn’t have to, because from those eyes comes an intense blaze of fiery evil, the magnitude of which sends every inch of my skin crawling with heat. I lower the book to one side, back away from him, and he flashes the smile of a killer.
“It was you. All along it’s been you. You fed them that sentence.”
“I’ve really got a bunch of wacky-assed, fucked-up neighbors around here,” Donny Ray says through a bouncy laugh that makes my toes curl. “And how about those crazy doors on Alpha Twelve? The way your mind keeps locking and unlocking them?”
I have to get away from this monster, as fast and far as humanly possible.
Halfway to the door, I hear, “Christopher?”
I’m unable to stop myself from turning back.
He holds up my cell phone with one hand. “You’ve lost something. Again.”
I look down and pat my shirt. The phone isn’t in my pocket. How did it get into his hands?
“Who’s this?” Donny Ray asks, studying the image on my home screen with interest I don’t at all like.
I say nothing.
“Your son, right? He’s a very beautiful boy,” the child killer tells me. “That dark hair, those deep, brown eyes . . .”
But it doesn’t feel like a compliment.
“You must love him more than anything.”
It feels like a threat.
“Do not cross that line with me, Donny Ray,” I growl. “Don’t do it.”
“When the situation warrants, Christopher.”
“The situation is moot. Fortified walls and the army of security personnel inside this hospital say your threat is useless.”
“Twenty-three twenty Hillsborough Lane,” he says with a smirk rotten as spoiled vinegar. “Green house, white shutters.”
His
description leaves me short-winded. “How do you know that?”
At the door, Evan fidgets with his keys in the lock. I glare at Donny Ray. “You’ll never get out of here. Never.”
“Gerald might disagree.”
“What’s he got to do with this?”
“If I can get to them, I can get to you.”
Evan enters, but the silence that covers this room like a wet stinking blanket stops him. He looks at me, looks at the patient, and seems even more confused.
Just as Donny Ray passes by, he winks at me, then reveals that boyish grin, now cloaked in a thousand shades of darkness.
58
A wicked chill bumps up my spine as I watch Donny Ray leave his room under Evan’s guard.
“Evan,” I call impulsively, and he walks back my way. Donny Ray waits patiently in the hall, leering at me.
I motion Evan in close. “Keep a good watch on him today.”
Evan says, “I can assign a rotation to him.”
“No, do it yourself.” He looks surprised. I make my voice confidential. “I trust you, Evan, and this patient is very dangerous right now. He needs close watching.”
“All right, Doctor,” he says and walks back to where Donny Ray stands. I watch them disappear.
I’m alone.
Now I can let myself tremble.
My initial suspicions were right. Donny Ray engineered all the odd happenings in Alpha Twelve that day.
Donny Ray is a psychopath.
He was trying to throw me off-balance. But why? Why did he force confusion on me, when I was the one person who could help his case?
Because he doesn’t need your help.
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course he does.”
Throwing you off your game is the only way to make you see the truth.
“What truth?”
The voice doesn’t answer, but Donny Ray’s comment from just moments ago gives me an uncomfortable nudge.
It’s not about that. It was never about that. It’s about the truth.
The only truth I know right now is that Donny Ray Smith stinks of danger. Not only is he a psychopath—he’s an extremely clever one. After Philips got into trouble at the Miller Institute, I became his next sitting duck, and he’s been playing me like a goddamned fiddle ever since.
The picture on the wall. The girl in a blue dress. His moments of detachment. That tragic story of abuse. All were building blocks for his carefully orchestrated plan. And he was nearly successful, until he slipped by leaving his drawer open.
Or did he?
I’m quickly learning that Donny Ray Smith doesn’t make mistakes. Which leads me to the question of whether he wanted me to see that book. Was it just another installment in his plan to drive me over the edge?
I reevaluate everything that occurred during our sessions. The story about his mother, which echoed my own. I now see how he used it to manipulate, to garner sympathy, so I’d fall onboard with him even faster.
But how did he know so much about me?
I reconstruct my memory of our meetings. The missing pen. My out-of-whack actions and movements. The breaks in our conversations.
The lost time.
I was too blinded by my confusion in the beginning to see it, then later by my empathy, but with both now gone, everything is falling into place. I understand how Donny Ray got so much information about me. It’s because I’ve been unknowingly spoon-feeding it to him. He’s been using my memory lapses to extract the information. But with that realization comes another one far more disturbing.
My address.
Oh, God. How could I have allowed this to happen? In those conversations I don’t remember, what else did I unknowingly tell the monster with a hunger that can make ten kids disappear? What did I hand over that could allow him to put my own son’s life in danger?
You must love him more than anything.
The way he looked at Devon’s picture.
He’s a very beautiful boy.
The moment my phone got into his hands, Donny Ray knew he was holding a psychopath’s pot of gold: information he could use. A perfect tool to intimidate and keep his secret safe.
His secret.
I’ve just greased the wheels on a psychopath’s insanity plea. If the jury believes Donny Ray disassociated while killing Jamey Winslow, he’ll go to another psychiatric facility, far less secure than a prison. I can’t even bank on the other cases to put him away because there may never be enough evidence to charge him.
I have to do something. I’ve got to make sure this dangerous felon is sent off to prison for the rest of his life—or better yet, is executed—and never has a chance to come anywhere close to my son.
But how?
I’ll let Jeremy know, then the court. That’s it. I’ll tell them I’ve got new evidence that changes my decision.
And what evidence would that be?
I rake a hand through my hair, feel the sweat pooling on my forehead and scalp. “I don’t know!”
You’ve got nothing. Donny Ray’s been leading you around by the nose. Face it. You’ve been hoodwinked.
“There has to be something. I’ll find it!”
Too late. Done deal. The deadline has passed. Retract your report and everyone will know you got blindsided by a psychopath.
“But I’ve got to stop him!”
How? By letting the court send him to work over another psychologist? You were his test monkey. He’ll have an even easier time convincing someone else.
“Holy . . . You’re right. I’m stuck. I’ve got no time to find more evidence, and without any, I’ll look like an even bigger idiot in trying to explain what happened.”
You’ve got a much more pressing issue to deal with.
“What’s that?”
Keeping him inside Loveland.
“He was bluffing. He can’t get out of here.”
I bet Gerald would disagree.
I take off running toward Gerald’s room.
And there I stand before yet another wide-open door; beyond it, a room stripped of Gerald—The Husker who degloves people—and all his belongings. With utter astonishment I look toward the counter where Mystery Nurse sits. Asking her what happened to the patient feels useless at this point. Her mind seems about as lost as he is now.
I swing back to Gerald’s door, and it’s like staring at a horrifying question mark.
If I can get to them, I can get to you, Christopher.
I think about Stanley and Nicholas and second-guess myself. Both spoke that sleep of death phrase to me, then both vanished. If Donny Ray was responsible, can he do the same thing for himself?
I shut myself inside my office and hunt for answers.
I begin with the first disappearing act: Nicholas’ mysterious transfer to some obscure hospital I’ve never heard of in Billings, Montana. After looking up Smithwell Institute’s number, I dial it and tell the receptionist what I need. She hands the call over to a nursing administrator named Trina Mullen.
“What’s the patient’s name again?” Mullen asks, computer keys clacking in the background.
I repeat it.
The clacking stops. “That’s what I thought. Nope, not showing a patient here by that name at all.”
“We sent him four days ago. He would have reached you by now.”
“If he were coming this way, we’d have documentation, and I’m not showing a thing.”
“But our documentation shows otherwise.”
“Maybe there’s a mistake.”
“Somebody’s made one, but it’s not us!” I slam the phone down, nerves raging beneath my skin like red-hot needles.
Nothing works here! This place is broken!
I’m starting to wonder if Stanley was right.
I move on to h
is disappearance and dial St. Mary’s, but after speaking to the nursing supervisor, all I get is a repeat performance. She’s got no idea what I’m talking about, no record of Stanley ever being brought there.
I hang up, stare into thin air, and wonder what the hell is going on. One record mishap, I could possibly understand, but two in a row? For two patients who subsequently dropped out of sight from the same floor and just a day apart? That’s no coincidence—that’s highly suspect.
My fingers break into a frenzied spider dance across the keyboard as I search for Nicholas’ hospital records, hoping perhaps there might be some kernel of information I can pull from them.
They’re not here. Gone.
And when I look for Stanley’s and Gerald’s, it’s the same damned thing.
Someone deleted their files.
There’s no way Donny Ray could have done that.
Unless someone on the inside is helping him.
I think about Melinda. She’s likely become one of the casualties as well, so I check the employee roster, and there I find solid confirmation: her information is also gone. Even the work schedules, both past and present, show no sign of the woman ever putting in time here.
She’s been erased.
Was her disappearance a strategic one? While searching for the information I’d requested, could she have stumbled across something that put her own life in grave danger? I have no proof, but there’s one thing I can absolutely be certain of: it’s not just the people who are being erased from Loveland—it’s also every trace of evidence to prove they existed at all.
Perspiration gathers at my neckline. I don’t yet know who’s pulling the strings around here, but something very nefarious is happening inside Loveland, far worse than even I’d imagined.
You’ve got to do something.
I’ve got to do something.
You’ve got to take matters into your own hands.
59
Do NOT tell Adam.
“Look, I get that he was an ass for doubting my professional integrity, but there’s nobody else around here I can trust.”
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