by Wendy Webb
“I’m not sure what to do,” I admitted, sinking into a chair. “As soon as I’ve talked to her doctor in Switzerland—first thing tomorrow morning, I hope—I’ll make the decision.”
“There are lots of resources here in town, of course, and I could certainly help you find the right facility for her, but it might be best that she goes back there,” he said. “It has been her home for a half century, after all.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” I said. “I may have to take her back myself. That way, I can check out the place and make sure it’s of the best quality.”
We made small talk while we finished our desserts, but after he put down his spoon, he locked his eyes with mine. “Grace, can I ask you something?”
The energy between us began to swim and bubble, and I got the feeling that whatever he was about to say was important in a way nothing else had been. “Of course.”
He took a deep breath. “What is this?”
I looked around the room. “What is what?”
“This.” He gestured from himself to me. “Us having dinner. Reading the manuscript together. Talking on the phone.”
I smiled, but a sense of dread was wrapping itself around me. I didn’t want to define what was going on—I didn’t know enough to define it—and I had the sense that calling it out, saying its name, might make whatever was happening, if anything was, vanish.
“Well, Amity says you’ve been hanging around a lot lately,” I said finally, bringing my coffee cup to my lips with shaking hands.
“I have indeed been hanging around lately.” He leaned in toward me. “About that, I’ve got something to confess.”
“I thought people were supposed to confess to you,” I deflected.
“Those are the other guys, the ones with the head man in Rome.” He grinned. “We don’t do much confessing in our church. We leave that between each person and God. Thank goodness. I really don’t want to hear that the ladies who run the church social are lusting in their hearts. That I can do without.”
I chuckled. “So what is it you have to confess to me?”
He cleared his throat. “It could easily be assumed that I’ve been hanging around because I’m simply tending to the needs of a parishioner who just lost her mother. And in one way, I’m certainly doing that. It’s my job. But if I’m going to be honest with you—and that’s also in my job description—that’s not why I’m here. At least, that’s not the whole reason.”
A tingle ran up my spine. “It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “No. The truth is, I’m here because I’m finding it very difficult to stay away.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I couldn’t deny that I had felt something the moment I had met this man, and those feelings were growing with every encounter we had. But—a minister?
“I’m finding it difficult to stay away, too,” I admitted, but in the same breath, I glossed it over. “You’re the first friend I’ve had in this town in twenty years. I consider you a friend, Matthew. I hope you consider me one, too.”
“Friends,” he said, nodding and taking a sip of his coffee. “Is that what you’re thinking we are?”
Since he was being honest, I should’ve been, too. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. The truth was, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting involved with somebody who had the kinds of very public responsibilities a minister had. After all, I had left this town two decades ago because I couldn’t stand the scrutiny of people after my father died. That would be nothing compared to the kind of grilling I’d receive if I were dating the minister of a large church. Why couldn’t he have been a lawyer or a doctor or a car mechanic?
But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I said: “I don’t know. What do you think?”
He held my gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Friends is good.”
“Friends is good.” He nodded.
What had I just done?
The whole conversation was making my skin itch, so I got up and walked to the window. It only took a moment for me to realize what I was seeing.
“Matthew. Look.”
He joined me at the open window. “Is that …?”
And there she was, white dress and all. Somehow, she had made her way out of her rooms and down to the lakeshore, and built a fire inside a ring of stones. And she was dancing around and around, her spidery, singsong voice carried by the wind into my ears.
The witch in the wood comes out to play
By the light of the solstice moon
To sing and sway and conjure and pray
Awakening them with her tune!
Come devil, come imp, come monstrous thing
That hides underground in the day
Come alive this night and give them a fright
When the wood witch comes out to play.
She was repeating it, over and over, louder and louder, until her voice, at first so hesitant and shaky, was strong and booming and firm.
“Matthew,” I whispered, locking my eyes with his and grasping at his arm. “She’s supposed to be upstairs with Jane.”
“She’s just a confused old lady, Grace,” he said, but the look on his face betrayed his words.
I hurried to the buzzer. “Jane? Jane! It’s Fate. She’s outside, down on the lakeshore.”
Jane was in the living room in an instant, and together the three of us opened the French doors and walked out into the night.
“Come devil, come imp, come monstrous thing!” Fate screamed, snapping her head toward us, a look of wild abandon in her eyes.
Jane rushed at her and took her by the arms. “You have been very naughty, Miss Fate,” she scolded, her words bringing Fate back into the present moment from wherever she had gone. “You know you were supposed to stay in your rooms. How did you get out?”
“It’s the solstice,” she whispered, her voice a harsh rasp.
And then, turning to Matthew and me. “Friends is good,” she sang. “Difficult to stay away! Friends is good!”
Caught in Fate’s gaze, a coldness seemed to take hold of me from the inside. A seeping, slithering sense of foreboding was working its way through my body, curling around my heart, slipping up my throat, and finally wrapping itself around my neck like a noose. It was fear and terror and insanity and anger all at once, all of it seemingly passing from Fate into me. Like a spell. Devils and monstrous things?
I felt Matthew slip an arm around my shoulders. I looked up at him. “I thought those passageways were locked,” I whispered.
“All right now,” Jane said, her voice stern. “Enough is enough. We’re going back upstairs. And let this be the end of it.”
She took Fate’s hand, and as she led her toward the house, Jane looked back over her shoulder. “Your mother had some sedatives prescribed during her illness,” she said softly. “I think it’s time we used them.”
I nodded, not knowing what else to do.
“Mr. Jameson and I will stay in her rooms with her tonight to watch her,” Jane continued, over her shoulder. “And you should position a policeman outside her door. She’ll not be getting out again, by God.”
CHAPTER 26
The next morning, I awoke to Jane’s gentle nudging. “Miss Grace,” she said, her voice low. “Miss Grace, the doctor from Switzerland is on the line.”
I shot up, fumbling for my robe.
“I’m sorry to wake you so early, but I knew you’d want to take this call,” she said.
I saw it was seven o’clock. I hurried across the room to the phone, which was on the desk in my mother’s study.
“Hello?” I said, clearing my throat as Jane handed me a cup of coffee and set a glass of water on the desk. “Hello, this is Grace Alban.”
“Miss Alban,” said a heavily accented voice on the other end of the line. “I’m Dr. Baptiste. I’ve been in charge of your aunt’s care for nearly thirty years.”
“Hello, Doctor,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “As I th
ink you probably know, my aunt was taken out of your facility by a person with no connection to this family and without the knowledge of this family. She showed up here as a complete surprise to us. I’d like to know exactly how that happened.”
He was silent for a moment. “Miss Alban, your family has been very good to us over the years, and I can assure you that your aunt was given the highest quality of care here and will be for the rest of her life. Please accept my sincere apologies for this situation and know that I launched a full investigation into this the moment we realized she was missing. I’ve been trying to contact your family for days.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s our fault, I’m afraid. It’s been a very hectic time. My mother passed away and we’ve had a lot to deal with here, not the least of which is my aunt’s arrival.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “But please rest assured I will find out who is to blame for this situation. Frankly, Miss Alban, I’m afraid that in order for her to have left this facility, someone here on the inside must have been involved, and when I find the guilty party, corrective action will be taken. You can be sure of that.”
“I’m not calling with recriminations or to cast blame. It happened, I’m satisfied that you’re looking into it, but now we need to move forward.”
“Thank you, Miss Alban,” he said. “Your aunt is on several medications. I’ll transfer those to your local pharmacy immediately. She needs these medications, and I’m quite worried she has been off them for so long already.”
I looked at Jane and mouthed: “Pharmacy number.” She hurried off to find it.
“What are the medications?” I asked him. “I guess what I’m really asking is, what exactly is her condition?”
“Your aunt is on antipsychotics.”
“She’s psychotic?” I coughed into the phone.
“A form of schizophrenia, yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, I assumed you knew and were taking the proper precautions. She hasn’t had any medication for, what has it been, a week’s time?”
“At least that. Maybe more.”
He was silent for a moment. “And you say she’s at home with you?”
“Yes.” A tingling sensation crept up my spine, and I wondered exactly where this conversation was headed.
“Miss Alban,” the doctor said, “I don’t know how much you know about your aunt’s history, but you very well could have a dangerous situation on your hands.”
“What do you mean, dangerous?” I said louder than I had intended. “You’re right in that we don’t know much about my aunt’s condition. My family didn’t know where she was living all these years. All I know is she came to you some fifty years ago and has been there ever since.”
“Your grandfather was a large benefactor of ours,” he began. “You may know that he built a wing of this hospital to simulate his own home, the home where your aunt grew up.”
“I do know that now,” I said.
“What you might not know is that he built it in the 1940s, when your aunt was still a child,” he went on. “It was all very hush-hush, but I don’t believe in keeping secrets, even longstanding ones, when it comes to a patient’s health and well-being.”
A chill began to wrap its way around me and I had the urge to hang up the phone, to not hear what the doctor had to say. But I knew I had to hear it, no matter how unpleasant. “I agree,” I said, my voice a rasp. “Please go on.”
“As I said, he built the wing for her when she was just a child, because he suspected she’d be coming here someday,” he continued.
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head and trying to focus on what he was saying, but I just wasn’t grasping it. “I had never met my aunt before she arrived here unannounced just a few days ago, but by all accounts, she was fine—perfectly normal—until something happened here at Alban House during a summer party in 1956, and the stress or trauma of it apparently drove her into a kind of madness and she ended up with you. So … what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would my grandfather have gone to the trouble to build an entire wing on a psychiatric hospital for her a decade earlier?”
“A psychiatric hospital?” asked Dr. Baptiste. “Is that what you think we are?”
“Well …” My mind was reeling. “Aren’t you?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said. “But not strictly. Miss Alban, we are a private facility for the criminally insane.”
I pulled out the desk chair and sat down hard.
“All of our patients, Miss Alban, have been the perpetrators of violent crime,” the doctor went on. “That’s who we serve here. As I said, we’re a private facility. Families turn to us to care for their loved ones who simply cannot function in society.”
My thoughts were going in several directions at once. “I’m sorry to keep repeating this, Dr. Baptiste, but I don’t understand. A private facility …”
“We are located in Switzerland, as you know, where the extradition laws for various countries are rather ambiguous. When a family brings a patient here …”
His words trailed off, but I was beginning to see his point. “Do you mean to tell me that people—rich people—arrange somehow to have their family members who have committed violent crimes—”
“Exactly,” he said. “I’m only telling you this because you are an Alban, and your family has been one of our most trusted benefactors throughout the years. Sometimes circumstances arise … situations happen, shall we say … and families don’t want their loved ones spending time behind bars or in one of the ghastly institutions you have in the States. Or they don’t want the whole scene to be played out in the newspapers. So they come to us. Their loved ones ‘disappear’; they are no longer a danger to the family or to society at large, and the family is spared the embarrassment of dealing with the situation in a public way.”
“Spared a trial?” I managed to squeak out.
“Exactly,” he said quickly. “We provide their loved ones with the highest quality of care, while making sure they are no longer a danger to society, themselves, or their families. Our facility is quite secure.”
“And yet a reporter waltzed right out of there with my aunt.”
“And that,” said Dr. Baptiste, “is under serious investigation, as I have said.”
Just then, Jane came back into the room and held my gaze, a concerned look on her face.
“This must be coming as quite a shock to you,” the doctor said, his voice taking on a gentle, yet forceful tone. “Let me suggest this. You get her back on her medication today. I can put a nurse on a plane this afternoon so she can be returned to us and simply bill you for the cost. This is the best place for your aunt, Miss Alban. This is her home. It’s what she has known for fifty years and she is happy here. It’s a safe place for her to live out the rest of her days—her father saw to that, leaving us a trust for her care. We will correct the security breach that allowed her to leave, believe me.”
What he was saying made sense. I held Jane’s gaze and mouthed: “Send her back?” She gave me a quick nod.
“Make the arrangements and let us know when the nurse will get here,” I said to him. “You can feel free to talk with Jane Jameson, who works for me. Let her know the specifics. I’ll give her to you now and she’ll relay the information about where to send my aunt’s prescriptions.”
I held out the phone to Jane, but then heard the doctor’s voice, small and far away, from the receiver. “Miss Alban?” I put it back to my ear. “Until our nurse gets there, I ask you to keep your aunt sequestered, if possible. I cannot say this strongly enough. You need to watch her.”
Another chill ran up my spine. “Why do you say that?”
“She is fixated on your family,” he explained. “You may have already learned that she is firmly planted in the past, believing it’s still 1956, the year she came to us. She is reliving it, day after day.”
“There was a death here at Alban House,” I told him. “It was a suicide.”
/> He was silent for a moment. “Miss Alban, you need to take precautions and protect yourself. Without her medication, I’m afraid her hallucinations will return. She will begin to hear voices and—”
But I didn’t let him finish. I thrust the phone at Jane and raced out of the room and down the hallway, knocking on the door of Amity’s room until she opened it.
“Mom?” she said, rubbing her eyes, still in the throes of sleep. “What’s the matter?”
“Do you think you could sleep at Heather’s tonight?” I said, my voice low.
She yawned. “I don’t know. Why?”
“I just talked to Aunt Fate’s doctor, and because of several things he said, I want you away from here. The hospital is sending a nurse to come and pick her up and take her back there. But I don’t want you around here until she’s safely gone.”
“But why? You said she’s harmless.”
“Honey, for once, just don’t ask questions,” I whispered. “Just trust me.”
Heather stirred and blinked at me. I turned my gaze to her. “Heather, do you think Amity could spend the night at your house tonight?” I asked her. “I’ll call your parents to make sure it’s okay.”
Heather nodded. “Sure.” She shot Amity a sleepy smile.
“Great,” I said. “I’d like you both to go right after breakfast. Pack an overnight bag before you leave this room—both of you, pack up. And take those bags with you when you go down for breakfast. I don’t want you coming back up here.”
“Wow, you’re really trying to get rid of us,” Amity said with a long stretch.
“That’s the idea.” I smiled. “Now do as I say and head down to the dining room. I’ll have Jane get something for you for breakfast.” I winked at the girls and closed the door behind me as I left the room.
Back in the master suite, I saw Jane sitting at the desk, holding the phone’s receiver, writing information down on a note pad.
“We’ll pick up those medications today,” she said, nodding her head. Looking up, she saw me. “And now here’s Miss Alban again.” She handed the phone to me.