Archie sank onto the floor at the foot of his bed. His one connection to Gretchen, and he’d lost it.
He was still sitting there when Frank shuffled in from the hall with a spot of egg yolk on his pajamas.
He didn’t look at Archie. Didn’t say hello.Didn’t mention the fact that two people had died on the ward a few hours before.
Frank.
Archie stood up and walked past Frank’s bed into the bathroom they shared. There was nothing in that bathroom but an open shower, a sink bolted to the wall, a toilet, and a metal mirror. No bathtub. Debbie would have hated it.
Archie stood in the bathroom for a minute with his hands on his hips, waiting, heart pounding. Then he looked up into the metal mirror and said to his own warped reflection, “Hey, Frank. Come look at this.”
Frank was a big guy, heavy, but he was soft. As soon as he walked into the bathroom, Archie kicked the door shut, took him by the shoulders, and slammed him against the wall. Frank’s eyes rolled toward the bathroom door.
No surveillance cameras in the bathrooms. They had a few minutes before anyone came to check on them. Maybe more.
Archie leaned in against Frank, and lowered his voice to a growl. “Where is it?” he said.
Beads of sweat had already formed on Frank’s brow. He retracted his chin an inch. “What?” he asked.
“The phone,” Archie hissed. “It was in my bed. And now it’s gone.” He bent one elbow and pressed his forearm against the yolk stain on Frank’s chest. “What did you do with it, Frank?”
Frank’s mouth opened and the tip of his tongue punched its way between his lips. “I can’t breathe,” he said.
He was authentically panicked, and Archie relented a little. He wanted to intimidate Frank, not give the guy a seizure. Archie put his mouth right next to Frank’s ear. “I need that phone,” Archie said. “It’s important.”
Frank gave Archie a fearful look. “I just wanted to call my sister,” he said. He waved a hand toward the bathroom door. “It’s in my bottom drawer,” he said. “Take it.”
Archie stepped back and Frank slid away from him along the wall.
“I’m sorry,” Archie said.
He walked out of the bathroom, dug through Frank’s bottom drawer, and found the phone under a stack of neatly folded BVDs. Archie glanced up at the security camera. He didn’t care. They wouldn’t take it away from him. He was leaving anyway.
Then Archie walked back to the bathroom door.
Frank was curled up on the floor.
“Do you even have a sister, Frank?” Archie said.
Frank didn’t answer.
C H A P T E R 24
Sarah Rosenberg was wearing black Lycra capri pants, flip-flops, and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt over a gray T-shirt. “I don’t approve of this,” she said.
Archie was packing. It wouldn’t take long. His books alone took up half of his overnight bag. He stowed his toiletries in the outside pocket, and was now emptying the dresser into the bag, drawer by drawer.
She looked around. “Where’s Frank?” she asked.
“Morning group session,” Archie said. He scooped up an armful of socks and dumped them in his bag. The truth was he didn’t know where Frank was.
“I want to check out,” Archie said to Rosenberg. Might as well make it official.
Rosenberg closed the door to the room. “Yesterday you said you were a danger to yourself,” she said.
Archie thought of Courtenay, bleeding to death in her bed. “It turns out I’m a danger to others,” he said.
Rosenberg sat on the edge of his bed, tucking one leg neatly under the other. “If you still need help, you won’t be turned away.”
Archie moved on to his shirt drawer. “I don’t need to be here,” he said. “I’m well. I’m off drugs.”
“You’re on different drugs,” Rosenberg said.
Archie dropped a stack of pants into his bag. “If I stay here, she will find another way in. And she will kill someone else here. I saved Courtenay. So she killed her. You have helped me, Sarah. I like you. Gretchen will certainly have figured that out by now.”
Rosenberg’s voice caught in her throat. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if I stay here, she’ll go after you.”
Rosenberg paled. “I have kids.”
“I know,” Archie said.
“There’s an outpatient program,” Rosenberg said. “You come for meetings. For a week or so. You need to keep seeing your internist and hepatologist.” She shook her head, like even she couldn’t believe what she was doing. “You must have no contact with her.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Archie said.