It picked up on the second ring.
He listened to it for a long moment. He listened for her breathing, for the catch of saliva in her throat, an involuntary sigh. Nothing.Only dead air. He could still hang up.
Next to him, Frank snored peacefully.
“Are you there?” Archie said quietly.
He heard her exhale slowly, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Darling,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you.”
It had been so long since he’d heard her voice that he had forgotten how lovely it was, her perfect enunciation and honey tones. The effects of the pill vanished. Archie lay back in bed. “We had an agreement,” he said.
“I’ve been waiting for your call,” Gretchen said.
“Here I am,” Archie said.
“Are you having fun?” she asked.
It was a game to her, like tossing a ball for a dog. She was exercising him. “I’m giving you the chance to turn yourself in,” he said.
There was a pause. “Or what?”
Archie gritted his teeth, and his fist tightened around the phone. “I’m coming for you.”
“Oh, goody,” she said.
She hung up and Archie rested the phone on his chest under the blanket.
It was quiet.
Frank wasn’t snoring.
“Frank?” Archie said into the darkness. “You awake?”
Frank didn’t answer. Maybe he was plotting how to murder Archie in his sleep.
Archie felt the slippery warmth of the sedative take hold again. This time, he surrendered to it. His last awareness was the weight of the phone still sitting on his chest.
C H A P T E R 22
Archie bolted upright in bed to the sound of screaming.
He turned on the light, took a couple of breaths, and tried to order his thoughts. Frank snored softly in his bed. It was dark outside.
Life in the psych ward was basically made up of long periods of boredom punctuated by shouting.
Screaming at night? Not so unusual.
Except that this scream was not the scream of someone ranting. This was authentic terror.
Archie got up, put on his slippers, and went to the door. The patients weren’t supposed to leave their rooms at night. It was the kind of thing that earned you a demerit and cost you privileges. Archie listened through the door as the conversation outside heightened. He heard the word “police.”
He opened the door.
Courtenay’s room was the fourth door on the left. A nurse was sitting on the floor just outside it being comforted by the orderly who’d tried to help Courtenay in the break room. George.
Courtenay’s door was open.
Archie walked down the hallway. Other doors opened, as patients began to peer out, but none of them dared enter the corridor. Only Archie. George looked up at Archie as he approached, his hand still patting the distraught nurse. Her face was flushed, the color of the scrubs.
Archie got to Courtenay’s door and looked inside. The mattress on the floor was soaked with blood. And on top of it lay Courtenay. At first glance, she looked like she was sleeping. She was resting on her back, her arms at her sides. Her eyes were closed. Her lips slightly parted. She looked like a fairy-tale princess waiting for a kiss.
A blanket lay in a pile at the foot of the mattress. Archie could imagine what had happened. The night nurse comes in to check on Courtenay, maybe to give her more meds, thinks she’s asleep, pulls back the blanket, sees the blood . . .
Once you knew, you could see it on her face—the bluish tint to her lips, the gray skin. Archie squatted next to her and touched her arm. The skin was cool. She’d been dead a few hours.
Then he noticed something about her face. You couldn’t tell unless you were up close, but there was something about the shape of her profile that wasn’t quite right. Archie reached over with his thumb and very gently lifted one of her eyelids.
Underneath was an empty cavern of blood and tissue.
Archie sat back on his heels and looked around the room. It didn’t take him long. There, on the wall directly across, was a single heart that looked like it had been drawn with Courtenay’sblood.
George was standing in the doorway.
“Lock down the ward,” Archie told him. “No staff leaves.”
George didn’t move. “This is because of you,” he said.
“Yes,” Archie said. Courtenay was in lockdown. Frank wouldn’t have been able to get in. But an orderly would have.
Archie stiffened and turned around.
This is because of you. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
He’d been wrong about Frank.
“Where is she?” he asked George.
George smiled. “Are you having fun yet?” he asked.
Gretchen’s words.
George blinked heavily. “Fun yet?” he repeated.
He stumbled.
Archie lunged for him.