“I think so,” I said. “I’d like to help if I can.”
Heath turned and sent me a look—a signal I didn’t quite understand. Looking at him usually made my heart feel tender, swollen with love to the point of being painful, but ever since I told him about Chantal, I sensed something was different between us. An unnaturalness that hadn’t been there before. Something cold and stilted.
The doctor leaned back, folded his hands across his sweater. “The nightmares Heath was having before you came to Baskens—he says he is unable to remember them. You said he referenced a mirror.”
I felt the low rumble of panic in my gut. The nerves all over my body sang to life. I dropped my hands behind my back and snapped the band on my wrist.
“Are you all right?” Cerny asked. “Can I get you something?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“You don’t look well.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’re having a panic attack,” he said calmly.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” And yet I could feel myself dying to count the books on the shelves or the blacked-out panes of glass around me. Anything to ease the discomfort. I snapped the band again and again, not caring anymore if they noticed.
“Sit. I’m going to get you some water and a paper bag to breathe into. Do you take medication for anxiety? Or do you just employ the . . . other coping mechanism?” Cerny was up now, bustling in a circuit around the room, but it made me too dizzy to watch him, so I sat, dropped my elbows to my knees, and closed my eyes.
“Daphne?” Heath’s voice seemed thin with concern.
“I don’t do meds,” I said, to no one in particular.
Dr. Cerny returned with a glass of juice and a paper bag.
Maybe I was having some kind of attack. At the very least, Baskens was unraveling me. I felt untethered here, without an Internet connection, without any of my familiar tasks and boundaries and outlets. Paranoid because of the cameras. Dull and hazy. With Heath’s nightmares no longer waking me, I was sleeping substantially more than usual, but instead of rested I felt groggy. My dynamic with Heath had shifted ever so subtly too, after the thing in the shower. Or maybe it was that I’d told him about Chantal. It was hard to tell.
It was like my mind had become an unruly child, running wild through the dark, dusty corridors of the mansion, up and down the wind-whipped mountain, body-free and heedless. And somehow, in the process of investigating the dark nooks, watching the glowing monitors and seeing the secret lives of the other patients here, I had fallen into the strange offbeat rhythm of the place. I had become unclenched and vulnerable.
A child again.
And like an obedient child, I finished off the juice the doctor gave me.
Heath spoke. “I’ll take you back upstairs, Daphne.” He glanced at the doctor, and some form of communication that I couldn’t decipher passed between the two of them. “We’ll finish this later,” he said firmly, then touched my arm.
I lifted myself out of the chair. I felt as heavy as an elephant, which had to be from the panic. Or was it . . . I stopped and turned to Cerny. Heath plucked at my elbow, but I pushed away his hand.
“Dr. Cerny . . .” I said.
The doctor, just settling into his chair behind the desk, raised his eyebrows.
“I was supposed to meet Glenys Sieffert this afternoon, at the top of the mountain.”
He froze.
“We were just going to do some yoga. On the mountain.”
Cerny’s eyes flicked over at Heath. “We have a policy.”
It was only the millionth time I’d heard someone at Baskens say that, and frankly I was over it. “I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry I broke your rule, but I couldn’t not say something. I mean, it’s more than her not showing up. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
He pushed aside a stack of papers, retrieved his iPad, and unlocked it. He tapped at the screen a few times. I watched, bleary eyed and zoned out, until something occurred to me. Something wonderful—I’d just watched him tap in his passcode.
I closed my eyes. Pictured the screen. Saw the pattern his fingers had traced.
5 3 5 3
Easy. No way it was his age. Cerny had to be in his mid to late sixties, at least. Maybe it was someone’s birthdate—May 3, 1953. That seemed more likely. Possibly his. Possibly the woman’s whose silk blouses were hanging in the wardrobe upstairs.
“I’ve talked with her recently,” the doctor said, interrupting my thoughts. He pushed the iPad away, but the screen still glowed. A page of notes. Glenys’s last session, possibly. “Everyone here at Baskens is accounted for. No need for concern.”
The image of Glenys leaning out her bedroom window flashed in my head. “I’d just like to know where she is. For my own peace of mind.”
“Well, that’s solicitous of you.” The doctor picked up a pen, inspected it, then put it back down. “But she’s probably in her room, reading or perhaps napping. Maybe talking with her husband.”
“I thought I heard the two of you arguing. Earlier.”
“Daphne . . .” Heath said.
Cerny fixed me with an inscrutable look. “She’s my patient, Daphne, not yours.”
“I’d like to know if she’s okay,” I said. “That’s all.”
Cerny’s gaze stayed on me. “We have a policy, and we were very clear regarding it. I understand, though, growing up the way you did, you probably associate the idea of policy with the legal system . . .”
I flinched. Nice shot, Doc.
“But I can assure you,” he went on, “it’s in everyone’s best interest.” He sat back, lacing his fingers. “Daphne, I need you to understand. My patients are all here for counseling, primarily because they’re encountering obstacles in their lives they cannot manage on their own. In other words, everyone here is struggling.”
He enunciated the word precisely. Like that had anything to do with what I asked. Like I didn’t know what the hell the word meant.
I put a hand on the chair and pivoted myself toward the door. I felt the rush of the room readjusting itself around me, just a split second later than it should have.
“Did you put something in the juice?” I asked.
Cerny pursed his lips. “Do you feel all right?”
“Yes,” I mumbled. “Just a little . . .” My mind drifted, then swung back to Glenys. “I was just concerned she might’ve left, that’s all. Have you had time to watch any of the tapes? The surveillance tapes of her and her husband, from the time in their room? Maybe something happened when she was up there?”
Heath sighed. He was losing patience with me, I could tell.
“Daphne, I can assure you, everyone here is safe,” Cerny said. “You are safe.”
He was missing the point. It wasn’t my safety I was concerned with. It was his lie about the additional cameras in our room. The Sinatra music. The goddamn dead birds strewn across the grass.
I was concerned about a woman who might be missing, but he wasn’t listening. No one was. I pressed my fingertips to my temples. Confronting him in my impaired state was useless. I’d wait until I had my wits about me. When I felt myself again, I’d figure out what the hell was going on.
I propelled myself toward the door, spotting the row of car keys hanging on the hooks. I’d done some minor shoplifting in my day, at the Flash Foods, after school. All the girls at the ranch did it. I was pretty good, too. Just a quick reach and a sprint to the door . . .
I could make a run for it. Pick any car and drive down this mountain. They couldn’t stop me, not if I was smart about it. I could drive down to Dunfree, even, hunt down Luca or Dr. Teague. Bring the police into it, if I had to. A sense of well-being washed over me—or maybe it was power. I was only here because I chose to be. I could leave anytime. I was in charge of my life, not this grinning, Mr.-Al-looking bullhorn of lies.
I turned to face Cerny. “You said you wanted to know what else Heath said? During the nightmares?”