by B. J Daniels
Anna sat for a long moment just staring at the building, trying hard not to imagine her mother locked inside it. She opened her door in answer to Brandon’s question and stepped out before she lost her nerve.
Cool shadows pooled around the huge place. Dozens of patients had once lived inside. How many of them were like her mother? she hated to think. This far from everything, few families would ever come to visit. Had that been the idea?
She heard Brandon get out of the pickup as she closed her door and started toward the side. She wanted to take a look out back. The doors would be locked, so she would have to wait until the Realtor arrived to sneak inside. Not that she expected to find anything on the exterior. She’d be lucky to find anything inside.
But she had to confront this horrible place and the fears that had lived inside her since she’d learned about the night Dr. French came to her house and took her mother away.
As she reached the cracked concrete walkway, she heard Brandon come up behind her.
“Watch your step,” he warned. “There could be rattlesnakes up here.”
Rattlesnakes were the least of her fears.
The broken concrete path led around to the back. She stopped at the edge of the worn brick wall and stared at what had once been an orchard. There were dozens of dead apple trees, their limbs stark and dark against the last of the day’s light.
She glanced at the back of the building, a glare keeping her from seeing into the dusty barred windows of the north wing. Had her mother’s room looked out on the orchard? Or had she been in the windowless rooms on the south wing?
Brandon walked to the back door. “Look, there’s a buzzer.” He pushed it and she heard the faint sound echo through the empty building. She was glad he didn’t press it again. The sound set her teeth on edge.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” she said.
He nodded and took her arm as they maneuvered along the side.
She would not cry. She would not cry. Her eyes burned. She breathed in the mountain air, filling her lungs with it. In the distance, she heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the road, and went to hide.
* * *
BRANDON STOOD OUTSIDE Brookside as a fancy new rig rolled up and an older man in a brown suit climbed out. Few people in this part of the country wore actual suits. Western sports jackets with jeans and boots, yes. Suits, no.
Frank Yarrow wore a suit that didn’t quite fit his squat body. He tugged at his collar, his thick finger digging into the flushed flesh of his neck. His toupee was dyed jet-black and sat like a squirrel on his slick bald head, the corners lifting in the breeze.
“Frank Yarrow,” he said by way of introduction, extending his hand. “And you must be Brandon McCall. Heard a lot about the McCalls. Sundown Ranch, right? Your brother’s the sheriff up that way.”
“Right.” He could see Yarrow already mentally spending his commission.
“Well, let’s have a look inside,” Yarrow said with less enthusiasm. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket.
“Great space, and quite the view from here.” If you didn’t notice the fence.
Brandon followed him, looking around for Anna. He didn’t see her, but he knew she hadn’t gone far. It made him nervous leaving her to her own devices, but the only other option was breaking in, and he quickly realized that would be impossible. The place was like a fortress.
He wished he could have gone to his brother about this. But there was no chance Cash could get a court order without evidence.
After digging out a huge key ring, Yarrow opened the front door. Brandon motioned him to go in first. He’d picked up a small chunk of wood out back. He took it out of his pocket now, dropping it as the door closed behind him but didn’t latch.
“This is a great price for this much space,” Yarrow said, waiting for him in the entry, his voice echoing in the emptiness. The Realtor seemed nervous. Not half as nervous as Brandon was.
“I’d like to start at the top and work my way down if that’s all right,” Brandon said, following Anna’s instructions.
“All right. The elevator—”
“Would you mind if we took the stairs?” Brandon asked. “I have this thing about elevators.” They were too fast and he needed to buy Anna as much time as possible.
“All right.” More enthusiasm waning. “It is three stories at the center, you realize.”
Brandon nodded. “We’re in no hurry, right?”
“Of course not. It’s just a little hard to see once it gets dark. Not a lot of lighting,” he said glancing up the dimly lit stairs as if he was worried what might be waiting up there for them.
* * *
ANNA WASN’T ANXIOUS to see the inside of Brookside. The name made it sound like a spa rather than a mental hospital.
She steeled herself for what she might find as she waited until she was sure Brandon would have had time to get the Realtor started up the stairs before she approached the front door. True to his word, Brandon had managed to prop the door open for her.
She stepped inside, assaulted first by the stagnant smell of a long-ago locked-up building, and other smells—she didn’t want to know what they were.
The moment the door closed behind her, she heard faint echoes, felt the oppression. It threatened to immobilize her. She tried not to breathe, not to think.
How many years had her mother been in here? Anna couldn’t bear to think what atrocities her mother had been subjected to once she was locked inside this building. Was she just warehoused, a prisoner with a life sentence? Or had her father let them do horrible treatments on her? Just how high was the VanHorn price for being unfaithful, she wondered, raw with pain and anger.
She tried to remember the details of the map she’d gotten from the county as she glanced down the hallway to the south wing. The double doors were chained and locked. She didn’t want to know.
The other wing was open.
She hurried down the hallway toward the open wing, past the small enclosed office, the mesh window winking under the dim lights as she passed.
If she remembered correctly, the door to the basement was down the hallway on a corridor in the wing of that side of the building.
She could hear clanking, echoing noises, and would have sworn that not all of them were coming from upstairs where Brandon and the Realtor would be now.
Almost at the end of the hall, she stopped. Nothing but barred or windowless room after room. Could she be wrong? Could the way to the basement be in the other wing? The locked wing?
Her heart fell at the thought. All of this would have been for nothing.
She glanced at her watch. She didn’t have much time. The door had to be here. She rushed down the hall, trying not to make any more noise than was possible.
The hallway was long, the linoleum worn and discolored. Doors yawned, open to the patient rooms. She didn’t look inside, didn’t want to imagine what her mother’s life must have been like here.
Almost to the end, she spotted a door that was larger than the others. She could hear voices so faint they sounded like whispers. Let it be Brandon and the Realtor. Not the voices of those poor souls who had walked these worn halls.
The wider door opened into a cavernous dark hole. She flicked on the flashlight and shone it into the darkness. Stairs.
A fetid smell gagged her. She took shallow breaths. The air coming up the stairs was colder, damper, the horrid smell stronger. Not just moldy. Not just stagnant, but something stronger. Something dead.
* * *
BRANDON LED THE WAY up the stairs to the third floor, going as slowly as possible, pretending to study the stairwell as he climbed. Frank followed, quickly winded. Clearly, the man got little exercise other than climbing in and out of his car to show real estate.
At the third-floor landing, Brandon stopped to wait for him. Where was Anna? By now, she would be in the building. He hated this more than he wanted to admit. This place gave him the creeps. He could just imagine what it must be doing
to her.
Worse, he worried about what she might find. Or what might find her.
“All the floors are almost identical,” Yarrow said when he’d caught his breath. He sounded bitter that they’d had to climb the stairs rather than take the elevator.
Brandon smiled and pushed open the door to the third floor. “I guess we’re about to see if that is true.”
Unfortunately, Yarrow was right. The floor was just a long hallway with bare, uninteresting, windowless or barred rooms off each side. The smell—let alone the thought of who had occupied these rooms and for how long—was enough to make Brandon want to rush through this inspection of the building. He had to keep reminding himself that he was buying time for Anna.
He prayed her information about her mother was wrong. He feared what it would do to her if she found proof that her mother had been housed here out of vengeance.
“As you can see, there are lots of possibilities with something this size,” Yarrow said. “It could make a great out-of-the-way hotel. Even a resort.”
Right. Yarrow was kidding himself if he thought he could ever dump this place.
“I understand the state owns the building and land now,” Brandon said.
“They’re very receptive to an offer. They were forced to take it over when it closed. However, there are some restrictions on what can be done with the building,” Yarrow said.
“What kind of restrictions?” Not that he really cared. But if he was seriously interested in purchasing the place, it was a question he would ask.
“The building has to be saved if at all possible. It is structurally sound and a historical site.”
Brandon stopped walking and looked at the man in surprise. “Why would anyone buy the building and tear it down?”
“One potential buyer was turned down because his plans included razing the site,” Yarrow said.
“Really? Anyone I know?”
Yarrow wagged his head. “I’m not allowed to say.” He started walking toward the elevator. “The next floor is identical but I’m sure you’ll want to see it, as well.”
A chill curled around Brandon’s neck, as if a cold draft had crept down the hall after him, and yet there were no windows that actually opened.
He hurried after Yarrow, anxious to get out of this place as quickly as possible.
Hurry, Anna.
“You don’t mind if we take the stairs, do you?” he said, and held open the stairway door for the Realtor.
* * *
ANNA TRIED the light switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing. She shone her flashlight down the concrete steps to the bottom. Slowly, she descended the stairs, forced to keep the light on the steps ahead of her rather than the darkness beyond it.
At the bottom, she stopped and shone the flashlight beam around the room. Other than for support beams, the huge space appeared to be almost empty except for some old bed frames, a few mattresses and some metal chairs against one wall.
The smell was much stronger down here. She covered her mouth with her free hand, her eyes stinging.
At a sound, she swung the flashlight beam in that direction. Pipes. She held her breath, listening. Drip. A water leak. Drip. Nothing more. But she kept the light on the pipes for a moment as she tried to calm herself.
She shone the light around the perimeter of the room again, hoping she might find a filing cabinet. Or boxes. Or something that might hold old files. She knew there was little chance the files would be down here. The place had been closed for years. Any evidence had long since been lost. Or taken.
As her flashlight beam skimmed along the outer walls, she saw that several of the basement windows had been broken. No bars. Access if she had to come back. The light skittered along the wall. She stopped. Behind one of the bed frames she saw the top of what could be the outline of a door frame.
Cautiously, she stepped off the last stair onto the concrete. If the files had been stored down here, who knew what kind of shape they might be in, even if she did find them.
But she had to hold out hope. If she was right, her mother had spent the last years of her life in this building.
She had to put the flashlight down on the concrete floor, the beam aimed at the bed frame as she tried to pull it away from the doorway. The bed frame was heavy—dense metal and awkward to move.
It finally budged. She scraped the bed frame across the floor far enough that she could see she’d been right. A door.
Picking up the flashlight, she shone the light on the door. Her fingers closed over the knob. She held her breath, saying a silent prayer as she tried it. The knob turned in her hand, the door swung open with a groan and Anna blinked in shock as she found herself looking into another smaller room—this one filled with rows of old gray metal filing cabinets.
* * *
BRANDON STARED DOWN the second-floor hallway. It was indeed identical to the floor above. He couldn’t stall much longer. Yarrow kept looking toward the barred windows. Twilight had turned the mountains deep purple. Huge pools of darkness hung in the pines. It would be full-dark before they got out of here at this rate.
“The first floor is all we have left to see,” Yarrow said.
“That’s where the office is and the north wing, which was once used as a dormitory for nurses and students.”
As far as Brandon could tell, the place had been completely cleaned out. He doubted there was anything to find. He heard sounds on other floors and wondered if Yarrow heard them, too. Maybe Anna wasn’t making the noises. Now there was a frightening thought.
Yarrow held open the first-floor stairway door.
Brandon couldn’t put it off any longer. He headed down the stairs. At the bottom, he looked around for Anna and fortunately didn’t see her.
“What’s down that wing?” he asked, seeing the chained and locked double doors.
“Patient rooms. Why don’t we go on down to the basement first while there is still a little light?” Yarrow said. “I brought a flashlight.”
“Do you mind if I see this wing first?” Brandon asked. “I’m trying to get a feel for the size of this place.”
Yarrow obviously did mind, but he tried not to show it. “There is nothing down there but rooms. The basement contains the boiler, a storage room. Plenty of room for a laundry.”
“You have a key to this wing?” Brandon said, stepping over to pick up the chain and inspect the padlock.
Still Yarrow hesitated. “That wing was where the criminally insane were kept. The rooms are padded. Soundproof.”
“Interesting,” Brandon said, thinking it was the last place on earth he really wanted to go. “Why is it still locked up like this?”
“Kids. They’re like ghouls. Same with some of the security people. Just best to keep the curious out of here,” Yarrow said. “A bit morbid, if you ask me.”
“You have a key?” Brandon asked again. “I might as well see it all.” Was this the wing where Dr. French had brought Anna’s mother?
With obvious hesitancy, Frank pulled out the keys and dug through until he found one that fit the lock attached to the chain.
The padlock opened, the chain fell away and he pushed open the double doors, motioning Brandon to go first.
Brandon looked down the dim hallway of padded rooms. A thought struck him. What if, when he stepped through those doors, Yarrow locked them behind him? It was so ridiculous he almost laughed. Almost.
* * *
RUSHING TO the filing cabinets, Anna jerked open the first drawer. The moment she felt it slide toward her, she knew. It was empty. She tried another and another. All empty. Her heart sank. Nothing.
She stumbled back a few feet, letting the light flicker over the old metal file cabinets, fighting the urge to cry. The evidence had been here. How long ago had the files been cleaned out? If the state hadn’t taken possession of them, then who had? Maybe they had just been destroyed. Maybe there was no possible hope of ever proving her mother had been here.
But she knew in he
r heart that her father had the file she was looking for. Still, she’d hoped there might be something….
She opened each file cabinet drawer. Empty. Empty. Empty. Her fingers felt grimy. She wiped them on her jeans as she moved to the last of the file cabinets.
Time was running out. She couldn’t keep looking. Brandon would be making his way in this direction with the Realtor.
Why was she wasting her time? All the file cabinets were empty. There was nothing here. She started to open the top drawer, already hearing the empty clank as she touched the handle. She froze. Then slowly, she shined the light on what had caught her eye.
Something had fallen between the last two metal filing cabinets. Not a file. She could see that. But what looked like a thin bound ledger.
Laying the flashlight on top of one of the other file cabinets, the beam angled away from her eyes, she shoved the last file cabinet aside, then moved the next one until there was space enough to reach in.
Retrieving the flashlight, she shone it into the space before she bent to retrieve the dusty ledger and, with trembling fingers, opened it. At first, she didn’t have any idea what it was. The only numbers seemed to be times and dates. On the left were names, then times, then signatures.
Her heart leaped to her throat. It was a log book. Visitors had been required to log in.
Hurriedly, she checked the dates. This book could have been used during the time she believed her mother was incarcerated here.
But if no one knew her mother was alive, then she wouldn’t have had any visitors. Her heart fell at the realization.
She started to close the book when something caught her eye. Room 9B. Only the initials: HV. Helena VanHorn? Her gaze shot over to the signature of the person who’d visited the patient.
All breath rushed from her. She grabbed the edge of the file cabinet. Spots appeared before her eyes and she thought she might pass out.
She’d seen this almost illegible signature on the checks she’d received for spending money from the time she was ten until she completed college and began returning the checks—uncashed—in an envelope with nothing else. The same way the checks had arrived.