Eric and Iris were together, watching her, hunkered down along the back edge of the barn—if she looked, she could see their pale faces glowing in the inky blackness. They were lookouts. Their bikes were stashed behind the barn.
Iris seemed to have recovered from her episode at the movies earlier. She’d been quiet but had stopped crying, and by the time they made it to the Inn, she was laughing at stupid stuff Vi said and asking if Eric thought they could take out the rabbit when they got home.
Gran wasn’t expecting them back for at least another thirty minutes, and she’d be at home in the living room reading just like she always was when she waited up for them. She read a lot of magazines: Time, Newsweek, as well as psychiatric and medical journals. She also read novels (never horror, like Vi read, but books that Gran described as well-plotted; books that made her think): her latest was Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
Vi had given Eric and Iris strict instructions: If the lights in the carriage house where Miss Ev was sleeping went on, or if they saw Gran coming, or heard anything out of the ordinary, Eric would do his barred owl call. It was so convincing that real owls often called back in return.
Vi waited by the back door. Tick tock. Tick tock. Would Patty show?
Please, please, please, Vi prayed to the God of Miracles, make Patty come.
At last came the scrape of a dead bolt unlocking, and the area beside Vi flooded with light as Patty held the heavy door open, whispered, “Come on, hurry. God, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
The hallway was so bright and white it made Vi’s eyes hurt. She squinted as she ducked into the building and Patty closed the door behind her.
Patty looked up and down the hall, and Vi did too. All clear.
“I’m supposed to be on a bathroom break and I’ve gotta get back to the nurses’ station before Sal or Nancy gets suspicious.”
Sal was usually one of the nighttime orderlies—he spent his overnights lifting weights in the exercise room and eating hard-boiled eggs and green bananas, which he said built muscles.
Nancy was the oldest nurse, older than Gran maybe. She painted her eyebrows orange and had thin hair that she dyed black, but really the dye just stuck to her scalp. Vi and Eric called her Mrs. Halloween.
Vi nodded.
Patty thrust the key to Gran’s office into Vi’s hand. “I’m putting my job on the line. You get that, right?”
Vi nodded more vigorously.
“I’m not doing this ever again, just so you know.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know,” Vi said, “I really appreciate—”
“Leave the key here when you’re done,” Patty interrupted her, patting the windowsill. Her breath smelled like bubble gum. “I’ll come back in a couple hours, grab it, and put it away before anyone notices it’s missing.”
Vi held the key tight in her palm.
“Be careful,” Patty said. “Do not get caught.”
“I won’t,” Vi promised.
“And if you do get caught,” Patty said, “I had nothing to do with this. You broke into the office somehow and got that key on your own.”
“Of course,” Vi said. “But I won’t get caught. Don’t worry.”
Patty checked her watch, then scurried down the hall toward the stairs. Vi knew she was heading up to the rooms where the residents were all tucked in for the night.
As she heard Patty’s footsteps trotting up the stairs, she turned left, praying to the God of Silence, the God of Invisibility, to help her walk without being seen or heard. She knew there weren’t many employees working the overnight shift: usually just two nurses and an orderly. Sometimes Miss Ev would come swooping in if there was an emergency or a nighttime intake. The lights in the hallways and entryway were all dimmed way down, only emergency lighting on so everyone could find their way out if there was a fire. EXIT signs glowed above all the doors. Vi hurried down the tiled hallway, passing Dr. Hutchins’s office, the rooms they used for intakes, exams, and therapy sessions.
Gran’s office was at the very end of the hall, on the left just before the Oak Room, where they held staff meetings. Its big, dark-wood-paneled door had a brass plaque on it: DIRECTOR’S OFFICE and beneath that, a smaller sign with her name: DR. HELEN E. HILDRETH. Vi slid the key into the lock and turned. A satisfying click. She checked to make sure no one had spotted her, then slipped into the cool, dark room.
She’d been in this office before, but never without Gran. And never at night, in darkness. She looked around, letting her eyes adjust.
It felt all wrong, and she knew that if Gran were to catch her, she’d be in big trouble, the worst trouble of her life, probably.
But she needed to do this.
She needed to do this for her sister.
I promised her.
And it was more than that now. She needed to learn the truth.
The room smelled of lemon furniture polish, cigarettes, and Gran’s Jean Naté. A comforting smell, but a little unsettling too, because it made her feel like Gran was right there in the room with her, standing in the corner, watching.
Just what do you think you’re doing, Violet Hildreth?
Vi checked the two windows and saw that the blinds and curtains were drawn tight. Still, she didn’t dare flip on the overhead light. Too risky. What if Miss Evil woke up and looked out her window and saw a light on in Gran’s office?
Better safe than sorry, as Gran always said.
Vi pulled a tiny flashlight from the back pocket of her shorts and flipped it on—a silver penlight Gran had given her, the kind a real doctor would use for checking someone’s pupils. Vi used it as a backup on her monster-hunting missions. Now it was her spy flashlight.
She held still, looking around. The ticking of her watch was the only sound in the room.
A huge maple desk dominated the small wood-paneled room. The left wall had built-in bookshelves. On the right wall was a fireplace made of the same yellow brick as the outside of the building. Just to the right of the door stood a large leather chair. And in the other corner was tucked another less-comfortable-looking chair. Sometimes Gran used her office to meet with other doctors or concerned family members. But mostly, this space was for Gran and Gran alone. It was where she wrote her notes each day. Where she made phone calls. Developed treatment plans.
Her framed degrees hung on the wall, along with a silver frame holding a certificate she’d been awarded for all her volunteer work with the criminals and drug addicts at the state-run clinic, Project Hope.
Vi walked over and sat down at the desk, tried to open the top drawer, but it was locked. Feeling foolish, she tried the door key, but wasn’t at all surprised when it didn’t fit. The big upper drawer on the side pulled open easily, and in it Vi found pencils and pens, rubber bands, empty notebooks and pads of paper. The second drawer held letterhead and envelopes, a roll of stamps. No keys to the basement. No notes about B West or the Mayflower Project or who Iris might be. Nothing interesting at all.