“She didn’t come home last night.”

“What?”

“And I haven’t seen her all day.”

A familiar pit opened in my stomach. Something moved in the young man’s eyes, and I knew it for what it was. I stepped closer.

“Start at the beginning,” I told him. “Tell me everything.”

He nodded and swallowed hard. He wanted to tell me. The thing in his eyes made him need to tell me. It was fear; the young man was afraid, and suddenly I was, too.

CHAPTER 28

So what was that all about?” We were on the interstate, ten minutes north of town. Hank had started to speak at least five times, but something in my face had stopped him. I didn’t want to answer him. I didn’t want to say the words, yet for some reason I did. Maybe I hoped they wouldn’t sound so bad if spoken out loud.

“Someone important to me has gone missing.”

“Someone important? Who do you-Oh, I get it. A girlfriend?”

“More than that,” I said softly.

“Plenty of fish in the sea, Work. Trust me on that.”

I rolled down the window because I needed the smell of something clean. Wind buffeted my face, and for a moment I could not breathe.

“You’re wrong about that, Hank,” I finally said.

“Then we’re swimming in different bodies of water.”

Not swimming, I thought, drowning, and for a moment I was.

“So who was the guy?” I didn’t answer, and Hank looked his question at me a second time. “The guy?”

I settled back into my seat, the headrest soft and sweet-smelling on the heels of jail-issue bedding. “Just drive, Hank. Do you mind? I need to think.”

His words came from far away. “Sure, man. Whatever. It’s a long trip.”

He was right. It was.

But we made it to the crowded parking lot of Dorothea Dix Hospital by late twilight. We didn’t speak until he killed the engine. I peered up through the windshield. Of all the miserable places in this world, I thought, this one must hold the darkest secrets. I thought of Bedlam, and screams choked with vomit. “Talk about the screaming willies,” I said.

“It’s not as bad as you might think,” Hank said.

“You’ve been here before?”

“Once or twice.” He did not elaborate.

“And?”

“And I’ve never been on the secure floors. But the rest of it is just like any other hospital.”

I studied the grounds again. “Except for the razor wire,” I said.

“There is that.”

“What now?” I asked.

“How much money do you have?”

I checked my wallet instinctively, forgetting that I’d already counted the money when it was returned to me. “Three hundred and seventy dollars.”

“Give it to me.” He separated out the three hundred-dollar bills and gave me back the rest. “This should do it.” I watched him fold the bills together and tuck them into the front pocket of his jeans. “Ready?” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said, meaning it. He punched me lightly on the shoulder.

“Relax,” he told me. “This will be fun.”

When we got out of the car, he donned a windbreaker and checked something in the inside pocket. I couldn’t tell what it was, but he grunted lightly, as if satisfied. I looked up at the hospital, black and sharp-edged against the dark purple sky. Light seemed to jump from the windows and die on the way down.

“Come on,” Hank said. “Try to relax.”

We started toward the main entrance to the hospital. “Hang on,” Hank said. I watched him trot back to the car, unlock it, and reach inside. He came back with the picture of Alex that I’d left in the mailbox. “Might need this,” he said. The picture flashed in the weak light, but I saw Alex’s face perfectly. Like the building, it had sharp edges, and I wondered, not for the first time, what had brought her to this place. What had brought her here and what had she carried away? What had she taken home to my sister, and was it as evil as my troubled mind made it out to be?

I needed an answer, and looking at Hank, I thought we had a good shot at finding one.

We walked into the lobby. Halls shot off in multiple directions. An elevator bank faced us. The hospital smell was overwhelming.

Hank approached a row of newspaper machines and dug some change from his pockets. “Have you read the Charlotte paper today?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He dropped his change into the machine that vended the Charlotte Observer. He retrieved a paper and handed it to me. “You’ll need this,” he said.

I didn’t understand. “What for?” I asked, holding the paper as if I’d never seen one before.

“Are you serious?” he asked, and turned away.

“Oh.” I tucked the paper under my arm. Hank looked up at the bewildering proliferation of signs and seemed to find what he wanted. I didn’t have a clue what that was, but when he told me to follow him, I did. Soon we were lost in the maze, and the ever-present signs beckoned us deeper into the hospital. Hank kept his eyes down, like he knew exactly where he was going. He looked at no one and no one looked at him. I tried to follow suit. Eventually, we turned onto a hall that ended at a small waiting room. In the corner, on the wall, a television showed us its blank screen. A sticky note informed passersby that it was out of order.

A row of vinyl seats lined one wall. Two more halls ran away in opposite directions, their polished floors agleam with the reflection of fluorescent lighting from above. Voices echoed around us: passing nurses, medical students, a box on the wall paging doctors. Across from us was a blue swinging door beneath a sign that said EMPLOYEES ONLY.

“This is the place,” Hank said. I looked around again, sure I must have missed something. Hank fished a plastic identification badge from his jacket pocket and clipped it onto his shirt. It had his picture on it, a name I’d never heard before, and the name of the hospital. It looked just like every other employee identification badge I’d seen since we entered.

“Where did you get that?” I whispered.

“It’s forged,” he replied curtly.

“But…”

He flashed his crooked grin. “I told you I’d been here before.”

I nodded. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Wait here,” he said. I followed his gaze to the row of uncomfortable red vinyl seats. “Read the paper. This might take a while.”

“I want to come,” I said.

“I know you do, and I don’t blame you, but people will talk to one person when they might not talk to two. One is a friendly chat. Two is an interrogation.”

He read the emotion on my face, knew how important this was to me.

“Relax, Work. Read the paper. If there is an answer to be found here, I’ll find it. Okay? This is what I do. Trust me.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Don’t think about it.” Hank turned away, then just as quickly turned back. “Give me the sports section,” he said. I fumbled it out of the paper and handed it to him. He rolled it up and saluted me with it. “Icebreaker,” he said. “All-important in this business.”

I sat stiffly on the hard chair and watched as Hank walked boldly through the door designated for employees only. He didn’t look back, and when the door swung shut, it swallowed him whole.

I settled back. I opened the paper and stared blankly at words that swam. When people passed, I tried to look normal, as if I belonged, but it was hard, for in my racing mind I was a criminal.

I sat there for what my watch said was only fifty-five minutes. The watch lied. It was a lifetime.

Time and again, that blue door swung open. A black man came out the first time, then a white woman and a fat man who could never be mistaken for Hank Robins. Another woman. Two men. An endless stream, and they all wore the same badge of identification. Again and again the door swung wide, and each time it did, the spring of my body wound a little tighter. Hank had been found out. He wasn’t coming.